The Gift of Generosity - Acts 2:42-47; 4:32-37

      

What are some of the signs that Jesus and his Spirit are transforming your life and the life of Bethel?

One of the signs that the Holy Spirit is at work in people’s hearts and the life of the church is when the gift of generosity begins to grow in new and unexpected ways. Jesus talked a lot about money, warning us how easily money and wealth can become the source of our comfort and peace, becoming a god to us. Paul warns in his first letter to Timothy that the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. When followers of Jesus practice the gift of generosity, Luke recognizes that God gets the praise for the impact of the Holy Spirit on the hearts and lives of those early followers of Jesus.

After Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit into individual believers of Jesus in a new and special way, these new believers in Jesus made their faith in Jesus the core of their lives. As Luke tells us, they devoted themselves to learning as much as they could from the apostles’ teaching, they structured their time around fellowship together, being together and growing closer together as a community, growing closer to each other through breaking bread together, which included eating with each other and celebrating the Lord’s Supper together, and they prayed and praised God constantly. This helped them to get to know each other better and in deeper more personal ways, leading to deeper caring for each other. The more you know someone, the more you start to care for them. Through Luke’s eyes, we begin to see how the church, the body of Jesus, is given as a gift for the life of the world as it brings new and deeper ways of living together.

We see in chapter 4 the impact of the Holy Spirit play out in the church as the followers of Jesus become more other-centered, more one in heart and mind. This description of the church follows right after Peter and John are dragged in front of the Sanhedrin and told to stop teaching and peaching in the name of Jesus. Luke writes, “Peter and John replied, “Which is right in God’s eyes: to listen to you, or to him? You be the judges! As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” They then go back to the believers and pray, and “after they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.”

The Holy Spirit is at work in powerful ways and we see its impact as the new community of believers grows closer together; we see heart change happening as several wealthier members are led by the Spirit to great generosity and sell parcels of land in order to provide for those who were struggling. God’s generous character is pouring into his people, shaping them more into his image. In a sermon by Bishop Barron, he writes, “From the time of Marx, Feuerbach and Freud, we’ve heard the critique that religion is a wish-fulfilling fantasy, a game of “pie in the sky when you die.” The readings for this second Sunday of Easter give the lie to this criticism, for they show how those who were convinced of Jesus’ resurrection were also deeply committed to a more just society.”

There was no dependence on governments to provide for those who were struggling in your community, the church took personal responsibility for taking care of the poor, the widows, orphans, and others. This echo’s God’s charge to Israel in Deuteronomy 15:7–11, “If anyone is poor among your fellow Israelites in any of the towns of the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward them. Rather, be openhanded and freely lend them whatever they need. Be careful not to harbor this wicked thought: “The seventh year, the year for canceling debts, is near,” so that you do not show ill will toward the needy among your fellow Israelites and give them nothing. They may then appeal to the Lord against you, and you will be found guilty of sin. Give generously to them and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to. There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore, I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land.”

Jesus is generous in his gifts of grace, forgiveness, and acceptance, flowing them out generously, especially to those on the fringes: the have-nots, the rejected and unwanted, the unseen and uncared about. Our generosity with the financial resources that God has given us is one of the ways we imitate Jesus’ generosity to us. Generosity sees the world in terms of “us” instead of “them and us.” The early church was so impacted by the resurrection of Jesus and the coming of the Holy Spirit, that “no one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.” They embraced the truth that we don’t really own anything, we’re simply stewards of whatever God has given us, called to manage and develop its potential so that it can be used for the purposes and will of God and the kingdom of heaven.

Professor Troy Troftgruben comments on the generosity found in the early church and the idea of having communal possessions, writing, “Luke’s depiction of communal unity and sharing would certainly have appealed to prevalent virtues in antiquity — whether the principles of historic Israel: “There will be no one in need among you,” Deuteronomy 15, Greek ideals of friendship: “Among friends everything is common,” Aristotle, Eth. nic. 9.8, ideal philosophical communities: e.g., Iamblichus, in the Life of Pythagoras, 30.167, or the practices of hospitality: e.g., Pliny describes one’s possessions as belonging equally to one’s guest, Ep. 1.4.3, …. And so, given ancient virtues and Christian convictions, Luke’s audiences likely found the idealism of Acts 4:32-35 more appropriate than surprising…. the community’s generosity itself becomes a tangible “sign” that authenticates its message of Jesus.”

Several early church Fathers believed this description of the early church should be the model of the church and expanded on; including St John of Chrysostom and Augustine. Augustine wrote, “The believers, it says, had one soul and one heart (Acts 4:32). There were many souls, but their faith made them one. There were so many thousands of souls; they loved one another, and the many became one. They were on fire with the love of God, and from being a multitude they achieved a beautiful unity. If love made so many souls one soul, what love must there be in God, where there is no diversity but total equality?”

St John proposed that everyone should sell everything they had and place it in one pool of resources from which everyone would draw from it whatever they needed, creating a more just community. Several church communities over the centuries, influenced by the early church practices, by the principles of the Year of Jubilee given to Israel, and by a desire to withdraw from the regular world set up commune-like communities where no one owned anything, everything was shared equally in a spirit of generosity. For many reasons, these communities never became the norm, yet following Jesus does create a different kind of community with values and ways of living that seem odd, and even suspicious to those outside the community, while also creating a longing in their hearts for a place of deep belonging and living where they’re known, accepted, and cared for. These communities the early church Fathers described were not so much about money, but about living well in community together in a spirit of generosity and justice where people aren’t forgotten or discarded because they don’t measure up. The church is more hospital than country club, a community where we encounter the Great Physician and find healing and hope.

The Holy Spirit guides us and shapes us into the image of God, both individually and as a church family, and this speaks to the core of who people are, speaking to the community found within God himself and how it’s lived out in each of us and the church. Generosity and sacrifice walk hand in hand, Jesus’ generosity in forgiveness, as seen in his journey to the cross, death, and resurrection, was a sacrifice given so that we can receive salvation from our sin, from our past brokenness and hurts. We’re shown Jesus’ generosity again in the pouring out his Spirit into our hearts bringing new life and hope.

Is the Holy Spirit working in your heart, creating a desire to be more generous towards others as a reflection of Jesus’ generosity to you? Jesus taught us to give so that our right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing. Jesus uses hyperbole, or exaggeration here, to encourage generosity. Wise people keep track of their generosity to help them recognize ways to be more generous; this also helps them to recognize when the need may be more about offering a generosity of time to help teach others how to save and to be generous, or to when it’s time to be generous with your skills and talents to walk alongside someone in need, or when it’s time to be generous with grace, forgiveness, compassion, and love.

With the Spirit’s help, we learn generosity and to encourage each other in how to be more generous, helping us show the world who God, Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit is, and the kind of God we love and follow.

 

The Gift of Prayer-an Act of Trust - 1 Chronicles 5:18-22

     

This morning we’re spending more time than usual praying. Our denomination recognizes the importance of prayer and calls us to hold a prayer service each spring at the start of the planting season. We also take this time to pray for many other things that are important. Prayer’s a gift from God, an invitation to come and talk to him and with him; an act of trust and faith, coming to God with open hearts, meaning that we don’t try to hide stuff in our minds or hearts from him. Prayer acknowledges who God is as the creator of the universe; our creator who created us in his own image in order to have a special relationship with us.

In our scripture passage this morning, the historian tells us of one of the countless battles that Israel found itself in with its neighbours. Three of the tribes in Israel were mostly involved in these battles as they were situated on the east side of the Jordan River. They were the first line of defense for Israel against their eastern neighbours. The tribe of Gad especially had a reputation for being fierce warriors and did not back down easily from a fight, often at the front of the battle lines. Gad was born to Leah, one of the patriarch Jacob’s wives, who at Gad’s birth prophesied about him “A troop cometh,” pointing to a warrior like future.

As warriors, the temptation is to trust in your strength and skills and your fellow warriors to defeat your enemies in battle. This easily leads to pride and boasting, yet this is not the case with these warriors. During the battle against the 4 tribes, all connected to the Ishmaelites, descendants of Abraham’s first son by the slave girl Hagar, Israel’s warriors cry out to God in the battle, trusting in his divine power over their own mortal might and power. The historian writes, “God delivered the Hagrites and all their allies into their hands…. He answered their prayers because they trusted in him.”

Prayer is an act of trust, trusting that God listens to our prayers and will respond in ways we can understand, even if he answers them differently than we expect or want, trusting that he answers them because his love for us. Prayer has always been a large part of Jewish life, scripture has an entire book, Psalms, which are prayers. Many other prayers from many of the people in the Bible are also recorded. Israel knows that God wants them to come to him, to spend time with him talking to him regularly, and prayer is how we do this.

Israel developed several prayers that they would use regularly throughout the day. The most well-known prayer is the Shema, found in Deuteronomy 6 and is recited twice each day, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.” This prayer calls Israel to remember who God is and who God calls us to be, a good reminder to all of us. It also calls us to be deliberate is teaching our children who God is and what God expects from his people. Prayer is not just a conversation with God, it’s also a time to remind us of who God is, and even to remind God of the promises and commitments he’s made to us. Jewish prayers praised God for his actions and how God involved himself with his people. The deliverance of his people from Egypt and his defeat of opposing kings and armies are recurring themes in the biblical prayers. For the Israelites, God’s character leads him to act, and his good deeds on behalf of his people need to be told again and again, often in prayer.

The Israelites also developed a series of prayers called the Amidah. The Jewish Virtual Library tells us, “The Amidah is a person's opportunity to approach God in private prayer, and should therefore be said quietly. The words must be audible to oneself, but one should be careful to pray softly enough not to disturb others. If one is alone, it is permissible to raise one's voice slightly if it helps concentration. It is forbidden to interrupt the Amidah even to greet an important person. One should not even acknowledge a greeting. Only a grave emergency justifies interrupting the Amidah, since it is considered a conversation with God.” The Amidah was a collection of 18 prayers, petitions, and blessings to be offered three times a day and during synagogue services. Each benediction ends with some form of “Blessed art Thou, O Lord.” It may sound like Israel depends on formal written prayers, but they’re simply ways of helping them to have personal prayer times with God, helping them focus their minds and hearts on talking to God.

Prayer isn’t always easy for all of us. Even Jesus’ disciples asked him to teach them how to prayer after they saw how important it was to Jesus to spend time in prayer regularly with his Father. Matthew places the Lord’s Prayer in the Sermon on the Mount, a collection of Jesus’ teachings. Matthew places it specifically in a section where Jesus is teaching on “acts of righteousness,” making prayer an act of right living with God. At the heart of right living with God and each other is knowing God, not just the facts, not just theology, but having a relationship with God and that involves communication, both talking and listening to God. This is where prayer comes in.

Just as we’re all created differently from each other, with different personalities, in the same way there are different ways to pray that help us to pray in ways that shape our hearts according to our differences. For myself, I find praying in groups more challenging, yet I love talking to God while walking alone in the morning. I also find it meaningful to pray the words of the Bible, often using the psalms to help me express my thoughts and heart to the Lord and to guide me into a deeper time of prayer. I also find myself praying shorter prayers during the day, taking to heart Jesus’ warning in Matthew 6 to not babble like the pagans, trying to influence God through the number of words instead of the intent of my heart.

Over the centuries, various ways of praying have been used to speak to God, and to take time to be still and know that I am God. I mentioned praying the Bible. Praying the Bible takes passages from the Bible written by different people who brought their praise, their sorrows, their struggles and questions, many times hard questions to God, and uses these written prayers to begin their own prayers and give themselves the words to talk to God that they might not otherwise know how to say. A friend recently mentioned how he used Psalm 23 to pray after his mother died, focusing especially on the lines, “even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you are there,” and “surely your love and goodness will follow me.” These verses helped him to share his grief and trust in God to God.

A member of the church in Montreal finds it helpful to write out her prayers; the practice of writing helps her share with God her joys and sorrows, but especially her questions. It keeps her disciplined in her prayers. A teen in Allendale told me how music helped him pray, using the words of praise and worship songs helped him tell God how he loved God and to thank God for Jesus and his Spirit.

Our hope lies in the trust we have that God listens to our prayer. Jesus gives us several parables that show us how to approach God. In Luke 18, Jesus tells of a widow asking for justice from a judge, who refuses her until her persistence finally convinces him to give her justice. This parable is less about persistence, but more about how God is not like the judge, God “will see that they get justice, and quickly.” In Luke 11, Jesus tells the parable of the man who has an unexpected visitor show up late at night and so he goes to knock on his neighbour’s door for some bread to feed his visitor. The neighbour, with grumbling, gives him bread, but Jesus tells us to “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”

As Amy Boucher Pye writes, “Prayer changes people because God changes people. He takes those of us who are scared, anxious, bitter, disappointed, and vindictive and morphs us through his Spirit into brave, loving, hopeful, generous people.” Prayer draws us closer to God, building trust while bringing us strength. There’s nothing you cannot bring to God. If you’re like most people, your deepest times of prayer will be during your hardest times. These will be the times when you find yourself at a loss for words, when tears stream down your face and your throat is choked up and hope is fading fast. When these times come, you don’t need words because God knows the words you need to say even before you know what or how to say them because his Spirit is in you. This is when all the times you spent talking to God in prayer become a gift as they’ve built your relationship with God, they’ve taught you trust in God, and they’ve given you the strength to come to God in trust and hope. Prayer, a gift of relationship and hope from God built during the normal times of life for the hard times. May the Lord bless you in your times of talking to God.

The Gift of Gifts - Romans 12:1–13

                    

Good Friday and Easter show us the commitment and love of God and Jesus to us, on the gift of grace God showers on us. But God has given us so many other gifts as well, gifts like grace and forgiveness, gifts to use in life. This morning we’re reflecting on the gift of gifts, or talents, and why they’re given to us. Those who know the Heidelberg Catechism will recognize Paul shapes his letter in the same way; he begins with a discussion on sin, then moves to the salvation we receive through Jesus, and ends his letter, beginning in chapter 12, on living out our faith out in a spirit of gratitude to God.

Paul begins this last part of his letter with a call to give ourselves over completely to God. Paul uses the language of sacrifice and offering, the language of gift; we offer ourselves to God as a gift, becoming a possession of God. This takes a depth of humility and trust in God and Jesus that is not always found today, humbly giving our lives, our dreams, and our hopes to God to be used by him and for him, trusting that Jesus knows us better than we know ourselves, trusting that wherever he leads us, whoever he is calling us to be, and that whatever he calls us to do, that he’s working all things out for our benefit.

Paul gives us a powerful picture of the church as the body of Jesus made up of many members all connected to each other. Paul even says that we belong to each other, a shocking and uncomfortable image for many people today who believe that no one has rights over them and we’re only responsible to ourselves, and only grudgingly to a few others after first looking out for ourselves. God created us to live in community with others. Paul tells the church, made up of both Jews and Gentiles that they belong to each other. A part of your body cannot decide it doesn’t need the other parts, but the individual parts are responsible for serving the entire body, not just itself. We’re not individuals with our own agendas, we belong to God and each other. When we fail each other, we all hurt. Paul goes deeper in 1 Corinthians 12, “Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body…. in fact, God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.”

As the body of Jesus here on earth, Jesus wants a healthy body with all the different parts working together to create a body filled with vitality and life. The Holy Spirit gives us different gifts and talents so that we can build a healthy church focused on Jesus as our head, helping each other discover our gifts, and then investing in each other to help us develop these gifts to their potential, giving each other the opportunities to use them and creating a healthy church filled with life and love and excitement about being Jesus’ body.

We’re all interconnected with each other, our strength and health as a church are impacted by each other as we’re connected to Jesus. This is part of the image of the Lord’s Supper; just as many heads of grain come together in the bread and many grapes come together for the wine, so we come together as the body of Jesus. We’re many very different people, but we come together and become more than we can be on our own, something more beautiful and wonderful. The church is not about serving us, we’re each given different gifts to be used to build up the body of Jesus, to build a healthy church community centred on Jesus and focused on helping each other discover and grow our gifts and bless each other to become a gift from God, given for the life of the world.

Paul lists a bunch of gifts here to help build up the church, prophesying, serving, teaching, encouraging, giving, leading, and showing mercy; but this is only the beginning of the gifts found in the church and each church will show different gifts according to the place and role Jesus calls us to be. But there are so many other gifts in the church, there are those who pray, there are those who live out of a sense of joy no matter their situation and revealing the power of the presence of the Holy Spirit in them. At its heart, the church is made up of people filled with the Spirit of God, Bonhoeffer writes, “everything in the church depends upon it being clear that the church is not an ideal to be achieved, but rather a spirit filled reality in which by the grace of God we participate.”

I’ve seen in Bethel gifts that touch others such as the gift of creating cards filled with scripture filled words of encouragement and little prayers; gifts are exercised quietly in the background in phone calls to friends who are experiencing difficult times, or meals delivered. In Montreal there was a man who struggled with mental disabilities and who messed himself during the worship service and a young father quietly walked him out of the sanctuary and into the bathroom and cleaned him up, offering the gift of dignity and compassion and showing all of us what being a servant looks like. These are things that touch our souls, shape our souls, giving us glimpses into who Jesus is, who we can be, should be, how to build someone up in respect and honour.

My greatest passion is to reach people who haven’t accepted Jesus as their Lord and to encourage everyone in the church to be part of this, but Paul reminds me that we first need to be a healthy body of followers of Jesus in order to be good witnesses to the difference Jesus makes in our lives. This means investing in each other, using our gifts to build each other up, to encourage each other, to be devoted to each other in love, honouring each other above ourselves in humility. I love Paul’s call here to “never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.” This flows out of being a healthy body of Jesus. At its heart and foundation, the church is a spiritual relationship with Jesus through the Holy Spirit that is lived out with each other for the purpose of blessing the world.

When we serve each other, helping each other to grow in our gifts to serve each other, we’re ultimately serving Jesus and revealing Jesus to the world. In using our gifts to serve each other, we’re imitating Jesus who came to serve rather than be served, and connecting to Jesus spiritually in deeper ways. Jesus served us by going to the cross in order to wash away our sins. He bought us with his blood to set us free to serve, to imitate him. We all have different talents and abilities, just like a body has different parts that do unique and important jobs. If we’re willing to use our gifts and talents for God, he blesses them and this helps the church to work together for Jesus.

There are times when churches there may be some gifts in short supply during a certain season of the church needed to help it grow more into who Jesus is calling us to be. This is the time to turn to God and ask for those gifts to be given to us. Gifts that we can ask for are the gifts to listen to those who have hard questions about faith and church without being judges, but loving them and allowing them to open their hearts as part of figuring out who Jesus is. Then there are the gifts of exploring culture and the place of the church and in wisdom in engaging culture with wisdom and grace. Jesus told us in John 14, “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” Our gifts are not static, we can learn and develop new gifts when needed, Jesus will give them to us, we’re called to be faithful in using them. This is part of being in the image of God, being creative and able to grow in new areas of our lives.

One of the gifts I really appreciate are the gifts of creativity because these members give me a glimpse into the creative aspect of God, glimpses into the glory and wonder of God, but so often these gifts are not as appreciated as other gifts like leadership, teaching, etc. yet when the tabernacle and temple were built, God especially raised up these gifts of creativity and wonder to help us experience the presence of God in deeper and unexpected ways. I am offering my study this summer as a canvas for those of who you who have these gifts of creativity in the arts to express what faith, the world, and what beauty and wonder look like to you. Our vacation time will be in the August, so it gives you some time to think and pray and create!

Bret Lamsma writes in Reformed Worship, “As we use the gifts that he has given us to praise him, we can’t help but grow as well. We grow in understanding about who God is and who he created us to be. Our faith in who God is grows. And our connection to God’s people and the larger story of salvation grows as well.” May we continue to grow together as Jesus’ body growing our gifts in love for God and each other.

The Gift of Time - Ephesians 5:1-20

Easter is past and we’re now in the church season of Eastertide. Good Friday and Easter remind us of the gifts Jesus has given us of forgiveness, grace, and acceptance; among others. In this season of Eastertide, we’ll be reflecting on a few gifts God has given us and how we can use them to grow more like Jesus and to build his kingdom here. This morning we’re reflecting on this passage in Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus and how we allow the Holy Spirit to form us and how that shapes how we use our time. Each of us is given 24 hours each day and how we use these hours, how we walk through these hours, and what we focus on in these hours, shapes our faith and who we are.

Paul begins by encouraging the church to “Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” The word “Follow” is not a command, but the way it’s written shows that this is what they are already doing, “Following God’s example right now at this time, walk in the way of love.” Paul’s reminding them that as followers of Jesus, our lives are all about being like Jesus, walking his way, the way of loving God and neighbour, giving our lives to God as our offering and gift.

As Paul, and other Biblical writers do, he shows us 2 ways of living and being, 2 different ways of using our time; one focused on walking Jesus’ way and the other focused on the way of the world. The ways and culture of Ephesus was very different from the way of Jesus. Ephesus was both a business and cultural center, connecting east and west. Ephesus was an influential center for magic and the practice of the occult, drawing mystics and exorcists from around the known world. It was also home to the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, goddess of the hunt, wilderness, nature, and childbirth. She was much loved by the people. The goddess was also a great source of income for businesses in Ephesus, which created a confrontation between Paul and these business people.

Luke tells of this confrontation in Acts 19, “About that time there arose a great disturbance about the Way. A silversmith named Demetrius, who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought in a lot of business for the craftsmen there. He called them together, along with the workers in related trades, and said: “You know, my friends, that we receive a good income from this business. And you see and hear how this fellow Paul has convinced and led astray large numbers of people here in Ephesus and in practically the whole province of Asia. He says that gods made by human hands are no gods at all. There is danger not only that our trade will lose its good name, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be discredited; and the goddess herself, who is worshiped throughout the province of Asia and the world, will be robbed of her divine majesty.”

Jesus’ way is different, as Carol Penner writes, “calling Christians to become part of the kingdom of Light, to give up with ways of darkness, to be different than people in the world. When people around you are greedy and are worshipping money, you are called to be a follower of Jesus. When people around you are treating their sexuality lightly and loosely, you are called to be pure, to treat these sexual gifts with reverence. When everyone around you is partying and getting drunk and using foul language, you are called to be a follower of Jesus, to be a light to the world.”

Paul calls the church in Ephesus to “be careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity… understand what the Lord’s will is… Be filled with the Spirit… always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Choosing how you’re going to live your faith out in the world was a big thing in the early church, they looked closely at the things they did during the day and week and began thinking about whether they aligned with who Jesus is and with what Jesus taught, using the idea of light and darkness, or day and night. They realized that what they believed shaped their values which then shaped how they lived and who they were becoming as followers of Jesus. It all begins with accepting Jesus as your Lord over Caesar or any of the other gods and goddesses. When we follow Jesus together as a church, then others will see a community of people who will have different priorities and values which determines how they use their gifts, skills, and time.

Followers of Jesus are always going to stand out from the culture around them. It’s no different today. Today we’re in a transition from the modern culture to a postmodern culture; our foundations of belief and value are changing. Jim Leffel of the Crossroads Project mentions some of the ways culture has changed over the past 20 years, and how people’s understanding of things has shifted. Reality is now in the mind of the beholder. Reality is what's real to me, and I create my own reality in my mind. There’s a growing assumption that people are unable to think independently because they’re molded by their culture and that we cannot judge things in another culture or another person’s life because their truth is just as legitimate as mine. There’s a lack of trust in authority since authority is based on someone else’s belief on how things should be. It leads to a lack of a solid foundation on which to build a life together as a community or society as everyone creates their own values and beliefs. One result is a growing lack of respect for others who think or believe differently from me.

If you look at how these changes in how culture sees and understands life, you begin to understand how some of these new beliefs and values have even entered the church today. All religion, including Christianity, is reduced to the level of opinion as everyone decides what’s true and real for themselves. This leads to a different idolatry today, we ourselves have become our own idols, we make ourselves the creators of truth, and deciders of who belongs to my community. God and Jesus get put to the side unless they affirm our beliefs and truths.

We find our identity, hope, salvation, meaning, purpose in Jesus and not in ourselves. But before we call others to follow Jesus with us, we need to truly embrace Jesus as our Lord and Saviour, to commit ourselves to following him in all areas of our life in a spirit of thanksgiving and gratitude, completely giving ourselves over to Jesus and his truth and way. Christianity declares that it is unique and that it does matter what we believe, we believe that sin exists, sin has consequences, and anyone ignoring those truths will face those consequences. We believe in grace and forgiveness, that Jesus took all our sin onto himself in order to make us right with God the Father. Because of what Jesus did, we are now adopted children of God, precious children whom Jesus paid that huge cost to save, and this means serving him and not ourselves.

Because of how immense Jesus’ sacrifice is, faith and forgiveness is given to us as a free gift from God the Father, and our response is to accept Jesus as Lord and respond to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. This shapes our lives and how we use the gift of time. Paul addresses this in verses 15-20, “Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Wisdom is rooted in God and the way Jesus called us to follow. Living as wise is about living well in relationship with God, others, ourselves, and creation. Wisdom looks like taking the teaching and life of Jesus seriously, understanding what the Lord’s will is, allowing Jesus to shape our priorities, our values, and how we live and use our time. Faith in Jesus forms what we believe, our character, and what we do. At the heart of our faith is relationships, loving God more than anything else, and actively loving our neighbour. In loving our neighbour by feeding them when they’re hungry, giving water when they thirst, clothing them when naked, visiting when sick or in prison, we are actively loving Jesus too.

Wisdom living is kingdom focused, asking ourselves, “How can we live out the values of justice, righteousness, shalom, hospitality, and being a blessing in our community so that it is a place of flourishing for all.” We can use our time to please ourselves, to focus on building our kingdoms, and following our dreams, or we can live in gratitude, thanking God for everything and using our gift of time wisely to raise our children and youth to know Jesus, to invest in others to help them see who they are in Jesus, and to create healthy communities, both in and outside the church, that help each person to discover and develop their God given gifts to benefit and bless each other.

Were You There… When He Arose - Mark 16:1-8

                

What does Easter mean to you? That’s a question that was asked of me this week and it made me think. Easter’s about resurrection and new life, it’s about renewal and restoration with God, it’s about hope and grace, it’s about the gift of forgiveness from our sins, and for me it also includes a certain amount of fear due to some of my own history and ways of understanding Jesus and God. For many of us, Easter begins with Palm Sunday, but for me it’s always begun with Jesus raising Lazarus from the grave a few days before that, so Easter is framed with the resurrection of Lazarus and Jesus. In between are lots of ups and downs spiritually and emotionally, lots of pain and uncertainty, and for me, a realization that I’m so much like the people we’ve been looking at the past number of weeks. I experience ups and downs in life and even faith, knowing how undeserving I am of what Jesus went through.

The love and commitment on the part of Jesus to walk that journey of taking all my sin on himself and experiencing the rejection and separation of God so I don’t have to, does scare me because I know that I can never live up to that love and commitment. As Tim Keller writes, “The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.” All I can do is accept his act of love with a grateful heart and try to let that love and commitment shape who I am. Gratefulness and hope is what Easter is for me.

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, is the cry of the church on Easter morning!  The cross and the tomb are empty. Jesus was crucified and gave up his life while hung between heaven and earth on that tree, rejected so that we don’t have to experience God’s rejection due to our sin. After Jesus breathed his last breath, everything changed. Mark writes his Gospel to call us to see Jesus, to stand in amazement about who Jesus is. Mark wants us to go “Wow, that’s who Jesus is!” The women who come to anoint Jesus’ body are alarmed at the angel’s presence, but there's the sense that in their alarm, they're also amazed and overwhelmed with wonder at this young man in his white robes and the news he gives them. All these emotions are wrapped together. This is a normal human reaction to encountering the sacred, the unknown, the unexpected. When we first encounter the sacred, the unknown or the unexpected, it can be overwhelming, fear and amazement. These times to open ourselves to the unexpected, the possibilities that the unknown and sacred hold.

G.K. Chesterton describes this scene so well, “On the third day the friends of Christ coming at daybreak to the place found the grave empty and the stone rolled away. In varying ways they realized the new wonder; but even they hardly realized that the world had died in the night. What they were looking at was the first day of a new creation, with a new heaven and a new earth; and in a semblance of a gardener God walked again in the garden, in the cool, not of the evening but of the dawn.”

The young man speaks, "Don't be alarmed, you're looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He is risen. He is not here. See the place where they laid him!" Where are you looking for Jesus, for hope, for direction in your life? This morning, are you walking to the tomb, the place of hopelessness and endings, looking for hope, for someone who understands you, who understands life? This is why Easter is such good news, because Jesus is risen, he's alive! Jesus' followers have mourned, they've grieved but now hope is given! The resurrection shows us that Jesus really is who he says he is and all his promises are true. Jesus forgave sins, he healed, he raised people from the dead, he encouraged and built them up to be more than they ever thought they could be, he told us that God is our Father and we are his beloved children. All these things we can trust because of Easter.

"But go, tell his disciples and Peter, 'He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.'" The ones being called to go meet Jesus again are the very ones who abandoned and denied Jesus; the ones afraid and hiding in an upper room are being called into the day to come see the one who gives freedom from fear and courage to move forward confessing their allegiance anew to their rabbi. Jesus is calling you to meet him, no matter what you’ve done, no matter how many times you’ve walked away from him, he invites you to come and follow him, walking with him through life, inviting you to give up your old life so you can have his new life. Repent and believe is all that Jesus calls you to do.

It’s believed that Mark is telling Peter’s story in his Gospel, and so it makes it special that the angel’s encouraging message is not only to the disciples, but especially to Peter. "Tell his disciples and Peter," Peter’s singled out by the angel. Brash bold Peter couldn't live up to his boasts, brave Peter turned out not to be so brave after all and now he cowers in shame and embarrassment. The followers of Jesus are called to go to Galilee to meet him there. They're told to remember what he taught them about himself.

The empty tomb is news that’s not meant to be kept to ourselves. “But go, tell,” The two verbs are command verbs. The angel is talking to the disciples through the women, Peter especially. Jesus is already going ahead of them to the place of his early ministry in Galilee, “there you will see him, just as he told you.” During the Passover meal Jesus had reminded them of what the prophet Zechariah wrote hundreds of years earlier, “I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered,” but right after quoting Zechariah, Jesus goes, “But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.” The disciples are the sheep who have been scattered in the painful events of Jesus’ crucifixion and burial; the shepherd is now gathering his scattered sheep, filling them with strength and hope again.

The women walked through the darkness of hopelessness and loss on Friday and Saturday, but now light is beginning to shine through. Just as the sunrise marked the beginning of a new day, this young man in shining white robes offers the light of hope to the women. It's a new day, it’s a new time in history with the resurrection of Jesus; the Holy Spirit is flowing out into the world, soon to be given personally as a gift to those who follow Jesus. It’s new covenant time, when the Law’s no longer simply commandments written on tablets of stone, but the presence of the Holy Spirit in each follower of Jesus.

Jesus' death and resurrection not only brings us freedom from sin and the washing away of the stains and disease of sin that infects us; it's new life and who you’re becoming as a follower of Jesus and child of God, free from your old identity shaped by shame and guilt into a new identity shaped by the image of God you're created in. As you embrace Jesus’ teachings, his life, and his Spirit, you start to look more like Jesus, to act like Jesus, and to even think and love like Jesus.

Jesus' death and resurrection is confirmation of God's deepest love and commitment to you; a sign that God never gives up on you and is willing to go to extraordinary lengths to show you that "neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, not any powers, neither height nor depth, not anything else in all creation, will be able to separate you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord," as Paul writes in Romans 8.

Mark goes on, "trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid." The tomb is empty, the call is to go see Jesus. This is so not what they were expecting. Mark says they were trembling and bewildered, the words used also mean astonished and amazed; the reality of the resurrection is sinking in!

Francis Chan tells us, “By rising from the dead, Jesus proved his power over sin and death. The Father accepted his sacrifice on our behalf, and we are redeemed—restored to a relationship with him.” Through the power of the Holy Spirit, God’s presence is always with us. We’re never alone. We have God’s resurrection power in us. We’re loved. The resurrection reminds us that Jesus’ love gets the final say. That’s the best news ever. Jesus offers us gift upon gift in what he did for us. When we trust in him, we find new life and hope and in response, we’re called to worship and celebrate. At Christmas, we celebrated Jesus’s first coming and we now look forward to his return. During Easter, we celebrate everything Jesus has done for us and look forward to the ways we can gratefully serve him here. Just as the angel told the women to “Go and tell,” we’re also called to go and tell the world about the resurrection and new life found in Jesus. 

Were You There… Beneath the Cross - Mark 15:33-39

             

It’s Good Friday, a day like no other in the history of humanity, the day God dies on a cross because humanity doesn’t feel safe with God with us, with God moving into the neighbourhood, as Eugene Peterson translates John 1:14 in The Message, “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, generous inside and out, true from start to finish.” The world gathers under the cross to watch the Word silenced.

A darkness like no other darkness covers the land for three hours. The historian Eusebius writes, “Note how clearly was fulfilled the prophecy of our Savior’s passion. It was to be a day in which “there shall be no light.” “From the sixth hour to the ninth hour there was darkness over all the earth.” … This was also fulfilled figuratively by his priestly persecutors, for among them came darkness, cold and ice, following upon their indignities to the anointed One. Their understanding also was darkened, so that the light of the gospel did not shine in their hearts, and their love to God grew cold.” Jewish and early church teachers often used the things going on around them to describe God and our faith life, here pointing us to the darkness in our own souls because of our disconnect with God and Jesus due to the sin in us.  

In the darkness, it feels as if the light of the world has been extinguished, that evil has triumphed. For those beneath the cross, it looks as if Jesus just isn’t strong enough, yet appearances can be deceiving. Augustine talks about the power Jesus shows on the cross, “Those robbers crucified next to him, did they breathe their last when they wanted to? They were held fast by the chains of the flesh because they were not the creators of the flesh. Fastened by nails, they were tormented for a long time because they were not masters of their infirmity. But the Lord took on flesh in the virgin’s womb when he wished it. He came forth to humanity when he wished it. He lived in history as long as he wished it. He departed from the flesh when he wished it. This is a sign of power, not of necessity.” Jesus knows what he’s doing, he isn’t forced onto the cross, he isn’t forced to die there, Jesus chooses to do so in order to defeat Satan and death for us.

As the darkness lifts, Jesus cries out, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani.,” My, my God, why have you forsaken me? Jesus is experiencing the loss of connection between himself and the Father and the Spirit for the first time in eternity; Jesus has never experienced this before. One writer describes it this way, “The longer the love, the deeper the love, the greater the torment of its loss… Jesus was experiencing our judgement day.” Jesus is forsaken by God so that we never have to experience God forsaking us; the judgement that is supposed to be ours falls on Jesus instead. Mark wants us to feel what Jesus experiences for us. Mark wants us to feel Jesus’ agony in verse 34, his point is not theological or doctrinal, though Jesus’ atonement for our sin is part of what’s happening here. Sometimes we need to simply hear and feel what the gospel writers tell us instead of interpreting them.

Scott Hoezee takes us to the Apostles’ Creed to help us understand what’s happening as Jesus cries out, “You didn’t want anything to do with me; you will never have anything to do with me, and that is the experience of hell, and that is what Jesus did. So, in the Apostles’ Creed, according to the Reformers anyway, when we say the line: He descended into hell, Calvin says that was this moment on the cross; not a literal descent into a place, but the moment of being abandoned by Father and Spirit, which is sin’s greatest and worst punishment.” We have pictures of hell being a place of brimstone and fire, but these images are not even close to what hell really is. Hell is separation from God: the God who is life and gave us life through his own breath, God who is unconditional love, a love we see lived out among us in Jesus. Jesus tastes the bitterness of hell for us.

The people beneath the cross hear Jesus wrong, thinking he’s calling out to the prophet Elijah and they try to ease his thirst, but Jesus refuses their offering. Then, with a loud cry, Jesus breaths his last. The unthinkable has just happened, God has died just like anyone of us, poetically, the universe bows its head and weeps. Mark tells us that when Jesus died, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shakes and the curtain separating the Holy of Holies from the world is ripped apart and the Holy Spirit flows out of the temple and into the world. Tim Keller writes, “This is God’s way of saying, “This is the sacrifice that ends all sacrifices, the way is now open to approach me.” Now that Jesus has died, anyone who believes in him can see God, can connect to God. The barrier is gone for good.” The Spirit of God now flows into the world from the Holy and Holies, the earth shakes, and graves are opened as God’s life pours out of the Holy of Holies.

Jesus’ death is as extraordinary as his birth and life, so much so that even a Roman centurion recognizes what the Jewish people and leaders didn’t, “Surely this man was the Son of God!” Mark begins his history of Jesus by sharing with us who Jesus is, “The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” and the whole point of Mark’s gospel is to get us to sit up and go “Wow! This is who Jesus is,” and he ends with a pagan, who has no theological training or knowledge of the promised Messiah, sitting up and confessing, “Wow! That’s who Jesus is!”

The saddest part is that the Jewish leadership, and even the disciples, have failed to recognize who Jesus really is. Up to this point in Mark, no one has figured out what the centurion has, that Jesus is the Son of God. The centurion is Roman, the only Son of God he would have acknowledged would have been Caesar; the Roman coins at the time were inscribed with “Tiberius Caesar, son of the divine Augustus.” Yet this Roman soldier, who has seen horrific things, and done horrific things as a soldier and was very comfortable with people dying, confesses Jesus as the Son of God! Something gets through the darkness he has lived in, and through, and reveals to him Jesus’ identity; the Holy Spirit pouring out of the Holy of Holies makes his first stop in this man’s heart.

The Holy Spirit is still flowing through the world, sustaining it, restraining evil, and entering hearts and lives that are open to Jesus and seeking God. In the darkness of our sin, our brokenness, the Holy Spirit comes with the healing light and hope of Jesus. This Good Friday, allow the Holy Spirit flow into your heart, and know the forgiveness and grace found on the cross in Jesus.

Were You There… as Demonstrators - Luke 19:28-40

Were you there as Jesus rode into Jerusalem? It was a crazy day, so many people around for the Passover, and now the rabbi Jesus shows up and it’s like something straight out of the prophets; he’s riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, like a king of old. Wow! The people went crazy, can this really happen? It felt so good sticking it to the Romans and the Pharisees who were always trying to keep the peace for the Romans. Let’s go!

Jerusalem’s the centre of Jewish life. Here’s where David and Solomon ruled their empires. Here’s where the Roman governor has his palace as well. Even Rome sees Jerusalem is the centre of power of this area. But Jerusalem’s also the religious centre of Israel. The temple’s been rebuilt and Jewish pilgrims come here from all over. Every Jewish man dreams of making at least one pilgrimage to Jerusalem in his lifetime. Jesus is heading into the centre of both the political and religious centres of power in Israel, and he’s on a collision course with both.

Jesus sends two of his disciples into town to pick up a colt. We know from the other Gospels, that this colt is a donkey and has never been ridden before. We read over this quickly, but it’s all a piece of the parable Jesus is playing out in front of everyone. An animal dedicated to God for the temple or synagogue was never used for regular work, so this colt, which has never been ridden before, is now being used only for God’s purposes.

Jesus tells the disciples that if anyone asks why they’re untying the colt to say that the Lord needs it. Sure enough, the disciples go and find the colt, untie it and when asked by the owners, say exactly what Jesus told them to and they’re allowed to take it. The disciples take the colt to Jesus. They understand part of the parable Jesus is acting out. The disciples put their cloaks on the colt and set Jesus on them. Pictures from the Old Testament are running through their heads; Zechariah’s words are running through their head, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” 

The king they’ve been waiting for is finally here. Jesus is the lawful heir to the throne of David. Thoughts of armies, battles and victories fill their heads as they begin to shout out and praise God for all the miracles they’ve already seen. The miracle they’re getting ready to celebrate is the miracle of defeating Rome and putting Jesus on the throne in Jerusalem. After-all, how can Jesus be defeated with the power he has; over nature, disease and even death! Didn’t he say that God’s his father? That means God’s on our side and if God is with us who can be against us.

I can see Peter and Judas talking with each other as they put Jesus on the back of the colt. Both are passionate supporters of Jewish independence and want Jesus to take control. I can hear Peter already saying, “Hey Judas, I think Jesus finally gets it, he’s going to claim David’s throne. Maybe we should send word out to the villages to tell the men to get ready.” Judas replies, “I thought Jesus would never see things our way. All that talk about loving our enemies. Finally, we’ll be free again.” Both Peter and Judas have dreams for Jesus and neither one understands Jesus’ talking about going to Jerusalem to die. They only hear what they want.

Jesus rides into Jerusalem as king. This is happening just before the Passover. For the Jewish people, Passover is more than a religious observance. It’s when they celebrate liberation from slavery. During Jesus’ time, they also used this opportunity to express their longing for political freedom from Rome. Jews who claimed to be “messiahs” in the past had often caused riots during Passover, so the Romans now brought extra troops into Jerusalem during the Passover season. The Roman soldiers did not hesitate to shed blood to keep the peace.

On the Sunday before Passover, Jesus comes out of the wilderness on the eastern side of the Mount of Olives, where the prophecy said the Messiah would come from. People spread cloaks and branches on the road before him. Then the disciples “began, joyfully, to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen.” The crowd begins shouting, “Hosanna,” a slogan of the ultra-nationalistic Zealots, which means, “Please save us! Give us freedom! We’re sick of these Romans!” The palm branches had been on Jewish coins when the Jews were free. The palm branches are not a symbol of peace and love; they’re a symbol of Jewish nationalism and the people’s desire for political freedom. The people don’t really understand what Jesus is doing.

They give Jesus the red-carpet treatment. The people take off their cloaks and lay them on the road before the colt. They’re showing Jesus all the honour they would normally offer the emperor or his representative. This is turning into a big and very public demonstration. Pilgrims are here from all over the empire, and many of them join in the parade, waving palm branches. The crowd becomes a royal escort for Jesus as they approach Jerusalem. This is like the picture that Paul has in 1 Thessalonians when he describes the return of Jesus when he comes to claim his kingdom.

Jesus and his disciples come near to the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, and the crowd begins to praise God for all the miracles they’ve seen. They shout, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” The dreams of the people are clear, they want to experience God’s blessings again through a God appointed king. The hope is that Jesus is the promised saviour who’s coming to rule on David’s throne forever. They echo the angels’ words from the night Jesus was born, now proclaimed for everyone to see and hear.

The Pharisees tell Jesus to get things under control, but Jesus tells them, “I tell you, if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out!” Jesus is accepting the crown of kingship the people want to place on his head. But Jesus is not the king the people really want. When David put Solomon on the throne, Solomon rode in on a donkey rather than a warhorse because Solomon was a king of peace, not a warrior king like David. Solomon was going to be the king without blood on his hands so that he could build the temple of God without defiling it. Solomon was a king who built, not destroyed. Solomon’s reign was characterised by peace, growth, and wisdom. Jesus is showing the people that he’s a king in the tradition of Solomon. He’s not here to battle the Roman Empire; instead, he’s here to bring peace and build something new and glorious to God the Father: the church.

Despite all the misunderstanding, Jesus knowingly rides into controversy, pain, and death. In the middle of all the hopes and dreams for a warrior king, Jesus rides in as a king of peace. However, the crowd is so blinded by their hopes and dreams for political freedom, that they only see Jesus as a warrior king. Demonstrators always have demands, they want change to go their way, they support those who promise to change things to what they want. Not much different today, we keep looking to political leaders, to organizations that come together to gain influence, to give us freedom and what we want, but all they do is use us for their visions.

Our freedom is freedom from sin, from the power of Satan, not freedom as our world defines it. We’re free to serve, to humbly be Jesus followers. We’re free to serve the kingdom of heaven, not get caught up in the kingdoms of the world, our kingdom is so much more! Freedom is free, joyful, satisfying obedience to God. But we’re not used to kings today and what a king requires of us. We choose our leaders and expect our leaders to please us and follow our desires; kings in the time of Jesus were absolute rulers and the people submitted to them. Absolute obedience was demanded. Are you willing to accept Jesus as your king under these circumstances, or are you more like the people shouting “Hosanna;” desiring a king who fits their wants instead?

Jesus brings in a new kingdom characterised by forgiveness and grace, rather than power and oppression, a kingdom where leaders get on their knees and serve, and where forgiveness is offered 70 times 7 times. Jesus turns the whole world upside down with his new kingdom. The question is, “which kingdom do you choose to belong to, the world’s kingdom of power and strength and oppression; or Christ’s kingdom of forgiveness, grace and humility?” Are you willing to follow Jesus completely? On Good Friday we’re celebrating the Lord’s Supper and Jesus calls us to reflect on our lives and our allegiance. In the Lord’s Supper, we declare that we choose Jesus as our king of peace and commit to serving him as he taught us to serve: humbly and completely, in every part of our life, and with our whole heart.