“As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.”

The Second Sunday of Easter – John 20:19-31

We read in John 20:21, “As the Father has sent Me; even so I am sending you.”  And, earlier, in John 17:18, we read Jesus’ words to the Father: “As You sent Me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.”

John Chapter 1 tells us, “He came to His own and His own received Him not.”  As Jesus sends us out, and as we seek to minister for Him, we sometimes encounter the same rejection.

They plotted against Jesus.  So it sometimes happens to us.  He had no permanent home.  Sometimes we are called to experience that too.  They trumped up false charges against Jesus.  So it sometimes is with us.  They whipped and mocked Him.  Some of us may face that degree of opposition and persecution.  Jesus died after three years’ ministry.  None of us knows how long we may have.

But there is a worse danger than any of these.  In the mid-16th century, Francis Xavier (1506-1552), a Jesuit missionary, wrote to Father Perez of Malacca (today part of Indonesia) about the perils of his mission to China.  He said,

The danger of all dangers would be to lose trust and confidence in the mercy and love of God…  To distrust Him would be a far more terrible thing than any physical evil which all the enemies of God put together could inflict on us, for without God’s permission neither the devils nor their human ministers can hinder us in the slightest degree.

The greatest danger anyone who is on a mission from God can face is to distrust the mercy and love of God.  If we can avoid that danger—if we can keep our trust in God’s love and mercy, then all other dangers lose their sting.  God causes every arrow of the enemy to become a scepter in our hand.

John W. Alexander, who was for 20 years president of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, said, “Each instant of present labor is to be graciously repaid with a million ages of glory.”  That is the same assurance we find in Scripture—a promise to all who follow and serve Christ.

From the time of His temptation in the wilderness to his agonizing decision in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus escaped the danger of distrust.  Therefore, God has highly exalted Him!

All of us who know the Lord are on a mission for Him.  This is now our life and our calling.  “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.”

Whether our calling is to a foreign mission field or someplace much closer to home, spiritual assaults and opposition mean that our mission is still dangerous—and that the greatest danger is distrusting God’s love and mercy.  If we succumb to this distrust, all is lost.  But if we are victorious here, we know the true joy of life in Him; and nothing can harm us for all eternity.

 

The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

by Robert S. Munday+

No matter how hard I try to think of an alternative, I can’t escape the conclusion that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the greatest event in the history of the world—except, perhaps, for one other event, the one that happened three days earlier—namely, his death. 

So what I would like to do is ponder two events with you from Matthew 28:  (1) that Jesus was crucified; and (2) that Jesus has risen from the dead and is alive and will be with us to the end of the age and for all eternity.  There would have been no need for the resurrection if Jesus had not died; and there would be no saving significance to His death if He did not rise.  Both are utterly crucial. 

I.  Jesus Has Been Crucified – The time is early Sunday morning.  Mary Magdalene and the other women have come to the tomb of Jesus.  They see an angel whose appearance is like lightning (Matthew 28:3).  Then, according to Matthew 28:5-6, “The angel said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid; for I know that you are looking for Jesus who has been crucified.’”  This is the first important fact in this text: “Jesus has been crucified.” 

Jesus said to His disciples several times that this was His destiny.  For instance, in Matthew 17:22-23: “Jesus said to them, ‘The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men; and they will kill Him, and He will be raised on the third day.’”  In Acts 4:27-28, the disciples prayed these words to God: “Truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever Your hand and Your plan predestined to take place.”  The death of Jesus was not an accident or merely the result of a great injustice.  It was the plan of God.

This is the teaching that runs throughout the New Testament:  “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son . . .” (John 3:16).  “[God did] not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all” (Romans 8:32).  Jesus was crucified by design, not by accident. 

II.  He Is Risen – But the Cross of Christ can’t be precious to us if Jesus is still dead.  So the resurrection of Jesus is just as crucial as his crucifixion.  And so we see the second important claim of this Gospel passage: “The angel said to Mary and the others, ‘He is not here, for He has risen, just as He said.  Come; see the place where He was lying.’” 

The resurrection of Jesus demonstrates His triumph over death and His authority over all things.  From there He works out His saving purposes in the world—with authority over all nations and industry and business and science and education and entertainment and weather and stars and light and energy and life and death.  He is Lord over all; and His purposes and His promises cannot fail.  And, as we are in Him and living for Him, He is with us—in all His majesty and power and authority—to the end of the age.

Why do we veil the Cross during Lent?

The Rev. Timothy Fountain, writing on the website Stand Firm explains:

Thoughts on veiled crosses

Some of you veiled your church’s crosses at the start of Lent.  Others waited until Holy Week.  Or maybe it’s not a custom where you are.

I muse on the practice from time to time.  There’s a certain contradiction or at least irony in the tradition.  We are proclaiming the cross, after all, and with intensity in Lent and Holy Week as we look at the burden of our sins and the Lord’s gift of his body and blood for the forgiveness of same.  Good Friday comes with a rubric, "If desired, a wooden cross may now be brought into the church and placed in the sight of the people," and some anthems, including

We glory in your cross, O Lord,
and praise and glorify your holy resurrection;
for by virtue of your cross
joy has come to the whole world.

So why veil what we’re so busy exalting?

My working answer is that veiling the cross does exalt it, via a negative path.  Hiding it reveals a tremendous absence, “What if the cross of Christ never existed?  What if that reference point didn’t exist for our understanding of life?  What if that sign never intruded into history and culture?”

I worked questions like those into a Lenten sermon decades ago.  I still remember a woman who came up after and said, “I felt all the air go out of the church when I thought about those questions you asked.  They were terrifying.”

So there’s power in veiling crosses for Lent.  It intensifies big questions, “What if we are left in our sins and our own self-justifying efforts to ‘balance them out?’  What if there’s no decisive God-given remedy for the human dilemma?” 

And in aggravating that tension, the veiled cross sets up the strong medicine of Good Friday and the glorious recovery announced at Easter,

We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.  Romans 6:6-11 ESV

A Savior, Not a Genie

Palm Sunday
Matthew 26:14 - 27:66
by Robert S. Munday

Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey, fulfilling the prophecy of Zechariah 9:9 — “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.”

Jesus’ triumphal entry fulfilled many prophecies—prophecies of the coming Messiah—prophecies of the Son of David coming to claim His Kingdom.  When the week got worse; and, of course, we know it got much worse, He fulfilled other prophecies—prophecies about His death, such as those from Isaiah that tell us the meaning of what He would do for us:

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

But here is where Jesus ran into trouble: In fulfilling these prophecies, Jesus failed to fulfill the expectations of the people.  Jesus had performed many miracles, healed many people, and raised the dead.  The people must have been waiting for a showdown.  Surely the obnoxiously pious Pharisees, corrupt old King Herod, even the oppressive Romans were no match for Him.  Even their cry “Hosanna,” which is a cry of praise, is a Hebrew expression of praise to a Savior.  The word means, literally, “Save!” or “Save us now!”

They were looking for someone to free them from their political and religious oppression.  When, four days later, Jesus was arrested and stood mute before the Sanhedrin, Herod, and Pilate, the people realized they had lost their “hero” and turned on Him.  And when asked by Pilate to choose, they shouted, “Give, us Barabbas!”—a murderer.  They—and, unfortunately, people today—rejected Jesus because He was not the kind of salvation they were looking for.

If salvation were like finding a lamp with a genie inside who gave people three wishes, people would become Christians in droves.

But what do you think they would wish for?  Probably things like becoming the richest, the most powerful, and the most attractive.

What would we have? ...a world full of people trying to become the richest, the most powerful, and the most attractive.  It wouldn’t be any different than what we have now, would it?

Some might choose to live forever—still lost, alienated from God, dead in their trespasses and sins.  But Jesus is not the genie who would give us three wishes and leave us lost in our sins, nor the kind of savior who would let us live forever, alienated from God.  He is the Savior who died for our sins that we might be united with God and live with Him forever.

Lazarus' Resurrection and Ours – John 11:1-45

by Robert S. Munday+
 
Resurrection and eternal life are not blessings laid up for us in some remote future: they are present.  When Jesus said to Martha, “Your brother will rise again,” she answered, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day”—meaning that this was a small consolation.  There was her brother lying in the tomb dead.  This meant that he would never again live in the home they shared, never again exchange a loving word or joyful moment.  What comfort is there to sustain Mary and Martha now that he is gone?

If you have ever known parents who have lost a child, it is an especially tragic occurrence—to lose a child who they can hardly bear to have out of their sight for a whole day, about whom they become concerned if he or she is even an hour late coming home; it is perhaps the worst pain one can experience in this life.  It is no doubt some comfort to be told that they will someday be reunited—but not much.

This is not the comfort Jesus gives Martha.  He comforts her, not by pointing to some far- off event that is vague and remote, but to His own living person, who she sees, and knows and trusts.  Jesus assures her that resurrection and life are in Him, and that all who belong to Him, while they might suffer for a moment in death, will not be harmed by death but merely changed.  And, because of Him, they will live forever.

I have a friend who used to e-mail his friends each day a humorous excerpt from a book known as The Grim Reaper’s Book of Days.  The entry for Nov. 3 says: “On this date in A.D. 60, according to Church tradition, Lazarus, friend of Jesus, died—again.”  We tend to forget about that last part don’t we?

The Bible says that for the sake of love—not just love for Lazarus, but out of love for Mary and Martha—and for everyone who hears or reads this story until Jesus comes again, Jesus demonstrated the power of God and raised Lazarus from the dead.  That is, Jesus brought Lazarus back from infinite joy in the presence of God to resume a life fraught with sin and sickness, stress and frustration—and, in the end, to face the horrible enemy of death a second time.

My conclusion is this: God loved Lazarus and his family and took him out of heaven in order to show the power of Christ over death.  And God loves all of us enough to take us out of this world—at the end of our lives or at Jesus’ return—to show that Christ is Lord over life and death, and time and eternity.  At the last day, He will resurrect us, not merely resuscitate us into our old bodies to have to die again like Lazarus, but to give us immortal bodies like His own resurrection body, to live with Him forever in the kingdom and in a new heaven and a new earth.  And, because Jesus is truly Lord, He calls us to believe in Him, to treasure Him above all things, and to live lives that give Him glory.

What’s the Place of the Bible in American Christianity? Surprising Results from a New Survey

There are some surprising results from a new survey on Americans' use of the Bible.  The complete 44-page report is worth reading in full, but they’ve nicely summarized some of the most interesting findings.  Here are a few of the findings that jump out from the survey report:

• There is a 50/50 split among Americans who read any form of scripture in the past year and those who did not. Among those who did, women outnumber men, older people outnumber younger people, and Southerners exceed those from other regions of the country.
• Among those who read any form of scripture in the past year, 95% named the Bible as the scripture they read. All told, this means that 48% of Americans read the Bible at some point in the past year. Most of those people read at least monthly, and a substantial number—9% of all Americans—read the Bible daily.
• Despite the proliferation of Bible translations, the King James Version is the top choice—and by a wide margin—of Bible readers.
• Half of those who read the Bible in the past year also committed scripture to memory. About two-thirds of congregations in America hold events for children to memorize verses from the Bible.
• Among Bible readers, about half had a favorite book, verse, or story. Psalm 23, which begins, “The Lord is my shepherd…” was cited most often, followed by John 3:16.
• Bible readers consult scripture for personal prayer and devotion three times more than to learn about culture war issues such as abortion, homosexuality, war, or poverty.

Read it all.