This summer, beginning on June 13th, I’ll be preaching through different interactions with Jesus found in the gospel.  From Peter walking on water to the woman caught in adultery, from Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead to Jesus healing the blind and the lame, these stories serve as pictures of the God we serve, in all of His power and compassion.  If you are not currently following any Bible reading plan, I would encourage you to spend your summer reading through the Gospels, the stories of Jesus’ life, and let God open your eyes anew to who He is and how He deals with His people.

As I prepare for this summer, I would love to hear from you – what story or stories are most meaningful to you, and why?  What is it about Jesus that attracts, intrigues, or challenges you the most?  Let me share a three of my thoughts below:

(1) I have always been fascinated by the fact that Jesus was a sinless friend of sinners.  In John 8:46, Jesus asks the Pharisees, “Can any of you prove me guilty of sin?”, and in Hebrews 4:15, we are told that Jesus was tempted in every way we are, yet was without sin.  Yet somehow, despite His perfection, it is obvious on every page of the Gospels that the outcasts and sinners of society loved to be near Him, while the religious people wanted to kill Him.  This just blows my mind.  I think that many Christians believe that in order to relate more to those who seem far from God, they need to be relevant to them, that perhaps by behaving more like the people of the world, we can seem more “real” to them and therefore point them more easily to God.  But here is Jesus, without one sin, and those who feels rejected by the religious elite (and therefore by God) just want to be near Him.  If that is not the case in our lives (or in our church), we would be wise to ask how we are different than Jesus.

(2) It can also be shocking to see how directly Jesus communicates with people, especially when He is confronting them.  I think that Jesus often gets a reputation of a meek and mild teacher and healer, a wise sage who is just loving and nice to everyone.  But the Gospels reveal someone who did not hesitate to sharply confront people, even his own disciple Peter when he turns to him and says “Get behind me Satan!” in Matthew 16:23.  The target of most of his sharpest criticism is the religious elite, something that should make all of us who are part of the church stop and reflect on whether or not we are displaying Christ to the world. 

(3) I am also encouraged and challenged by Jesus’ range of emotion.  In the gospels, we see Jesus weeping at the tomb of Lazarus, displaying zealous anger as he overturns the tables of the money changers in the temple, anxiously sweating blood in the Garden of Gethsemane, and tenderly touching and healing a leper.  Jesus was no robot impassively walking through this world, but he fully experienced everything.

What about you?  If you have any thoughts to share, post a comment below.  And consider reading through the Gospels with fresh eyes this summer.

As we approach Easter, I’ve been reading the passages describing the last days of Jesus’ life. This scene from Gethsemane is, for my money, the most moving of all the stories, and even as I sit down to type my thoughts on the passage, I feel like Jesus’ disciples in v. 40, where it reads “They did not know what to say to him.” The gut-wrenching magnitude of what is taking place here in Gethsemane is simply beyond words.

There are some who see the story of the cross as some kind of “cosmic child abuse”, where a vengeful Father violently sacrifices his innocent but unwilling Son in order to pay the penalty for the sins of the world. The account of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane shows a Savior who has been given a horrific taste of what He is about to experience, but chooses willingly to go forward to the cross. Look briefly at what happens in Gethsemane:

(1) Jesus’ is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death (v.34) – As he comes to the Father in prayer, v. 33 says that “he began to be deeply distressed and troubled.” Jesus, who already knew that He had come into this world to die, experienced something so terrible as He came into the garden that it caused him to feel like he was dying, even to the point of sweating blood (Luke 22:44).

(2) Jesus prays that the cup would be taken from him. More than a simple figure of speech, the cup throughout the Bible is a metaphor for God’s judicial wrath on human evil and sin. Read the following passages, and I believe you will understand why Jesus was sweating blood:

• Psalm 75:7-8 – But it is God who judges: He brings one down, he exalts another. In the hand of the LORD is a cup full of foaming wine mixed with spices; he pours it out, and all the wicked of the earth drink it down to its very dregs.

• Isaiah 51:17 – Awake, awake! Rise up, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of the LORD the cup of his wrath, you who have drained to its dregs the goblet that makes men stagger.

• Jeremiah 25:15-16 – This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, said to me: “Take from my hand this cup filled with the wine of my wrath and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it. When they drink it, they will stagger and go mad because of the sword I will send among them.”

• Revelation 14:9-10 – A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: “If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he, too, will drink of the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb

(3) As Jesus turned to the Father in prayer in Gethsemane, he found not the friendly face of the one with whom He has shared blissful intimacy for all eternity, but instead he found nothing – the Father was turning away from Him, giving Him a taste of the cup He was being asked to drink. No wonder Jesus prayed that the cup would be taken from Him. His agony was not because of the physical pain he was about to endure, but because of the agony of experiencing Hell, separation from His Father.

(4) And just to drive home the truth of what Jesus was about to do – he brings his three closest earthly friends with him, just to be with him in his hour of greatest need, and THEY FALL ASLEEP ON HIM. That just drives me to tears, because it is such a picture of me. I am sure Jesus didn’t ask his disciples for much, but at this moment he wants his friends near him, and they can’t even stay awake for moral support. That just cuts me to the heart. It’s as if the Father is saying, “This is who you are dying for. Do you still want to go through with it?”

Given all of that – the cup of wrath, the loss of the Father, the abandonment of His friends, the impending physical torture – I believe Jesus still could have chosen to say “no thanks,” to abandon the mission. But here in Gethsemane, Jesus chose to go forward to the cross, willingly, to drink the cup down to the bottom for you and for me, so that we might instead drink the cup of eternal life (remember that the next time you celebrate communion). If the cross did not convince you of God’s love for you, then watch Jesus in Gethsemane. He willingly endured Hell, the cup of wrath, the abandonment of His Father, all out of love for you. Believe, as Paul said in Romans 8, that if you there is absolutely nothing you could do to cause Him to give up on you, to reject you, to remove His love from you.

Whether or not a person believes that Jesus was God in the flesh, one thing should be apparent from reading the stories of his life – Jesus would have been impossible to make up.  Over and over we see Jesus saying things that do not seem to make sense and acting in ways that no man-made god or savior would be expected to act.  Jesus is above all else completely unpredictable, rarely behaving like the religious men of his time – which, of course, is just what we might expect from someone who is Holy, separate, different than us.

Case in point – check out Luke 23:26-31.  As we approach Easter, I’ve been reading some of the passages describing the last days of Jesus’ life.  In Luke 23, Jesus is carrying the cross towards Golgotha, where he will soon be crucified.  As Luke puts it:

As they led him away, they seized Simon from Cyrene, who was on his way in from the country, and put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus. A large number of people followed him, including women who mourned and wailed for him. Jesus turned and said to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. For the time will come when you will say, ‘Blessed are the barren women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ Then “‘they will say to the mountains, “Fall on us!” and to the hills, “Cover us!”‘ For if men do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?”

Here is Jesus, fresh off being beaten and whipped to within an inch of his life, stumbling so badly on his way to his death that the Romans pull a man out of the crowd to help Jesus carry the cross.  Some women who obviously loved Jesus are mourning and wailing for him as they watch this good man, who had done nothing to deserve punishment, being led to his death.  You might expect Jesus to turn to them and say, “I know, right?  Pretty bad, huh?” or to at least bless these women for their compassion.  But no – Jesus turns to them in his agony and says, “Don’t cry for me; cry for yourselves.”

Huh?  What is that, Jesus? 

Many of you have probably seen Mel Gibson’s movie, The Passion of the Christ.  That movie powerfully communicated the intense agony that Jesus suffered during the time leading up to his death, and certainly left many people like those women, mourning for Jesus as he suffered such an unjust death.  Imagine Jesus, up on the screen, turning and looking at the audience in the theater and telling them, “Do not weep for me.  Weep for yourselves.”  What could Jesus have possibly meant by saying those words to those devoted women?

To answer that question, I want you to first consider these words by Charles Spurgeon, a 19th century British pastor who is considered one of the greatest preachers of all time.  They are not simple to understand, but they are profound, so listen carefully to them:

You need not weep because Christ died one-tenth so much as because your sins rendered it necessary that He should die. You need not weep over the crucifixion, but weep over your transgression, for your sins nailed the Redeemer to the accursed tree. To weep over a dying Saviour is to lament the remedy; it were wiser to bewail the disease. To weep over the dying Saviour is to wet the surgeon’s knife with tears; it were better to bewail the spreading polyps which that knife must cut away. To weep over the Lord Jesus as He goes to the cross is to weep over that which is the subject of the highest joy that ever heaven and earth have known; your tears are scarcely needed there; they are unnatural, but a deeper wisdom will make you brush them all away and chant with joy His victory over death and the grave. If we must continue our sad emotions, let us lament that we should have broken the law which He thus painfully vindicated; let us mourn that we should have incurred the penalty which He even to the death was made to endure … O brethren and sisters, this is the reason why we souls weep: because we have broken the divine law and rendered it impossible that we should be saved except Jesus Christ should die.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

Are you starting to understand why Jesus said, “Weep not for me; weep for yourselves”?  Yes, it was terribly sad that Jesus died such an unjust death, just as it was sad when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, when a young woman in the prime of her life dies suddenly, and when any number of good people suffer for things they do not deserve.  But if that’s all Jesus’ death was – a sad ending to the life of a good man that should rally us to want to live like him and honor him – then in the end he is not so different than other good men and women who died unjustly.  When Jesus says, “Weep not for me; weep for yourselves,” he is telling those women that his death is not just an unjust atrocity, but something that was necessary in order to deal with a far greater horror. 

You see, ultimately, it was not the Romans or the Jews who nailed Jesus to the cross.  It was those women, weeping by the side of the road.  It was his disciples, running and hiding as Jesus was brought to the cross.  It was the audience in the movie theater, watching The Passion of the Christ.  It was you.  And it was me.  Jesus Christ carried the cross to Golgotha and allowed himself to be crucified there because the ones he so deeply loved were lost in their sin, separated from God, headed for eternal damnation, and there was no other way to rescue them than for the Son of God to carry that cross and die a sacrificial death in their place. 

Do not weep for the man on the cross.  Weep for yourself, for it is your sin, your self-centeredness, your rebellion that made it necessary for Jesus to die.  You are responsible; you are guilty.  The blood is on your hands.

And as you lay there weeping, look up, beloved, for the Holy One whom you have offended, the God-man who you are responsible for crucifying, is carrying the cross willingly out of His love for you.  He is headed for Golgotha, where He will experience His Father forsaking Him, turning His back on Him as the sins of the world are visited upon Him, as He experiences Hell for you.  As Jesus hangs there, arms outstretched, nailed to the cross, hear Him say to you, “This is how deeply I love you.  To the very depth of your self-centered, rebellious, doubting, stubborn heart, I love you enough to die for you.”

Do not weep for Him, for He willingly chose this death out of love for you.  Weep for yourself, that your sin made His death necessary.  And then let His majestic love wash you, cleanse you, save you, transform you, and raise you to new life.

Romans 5:6-8 – You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there.  Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.” (John 8:1-11)

I love this story.  I shared some thoughts about this passage in my sermon on grace a few weeks ago, and I want to revisit John 8 today, especially the words Jesus says to the woman caught in adultery.  Most people remember this story for his words to the Pharisees – “If any of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.”  With those powerful words, Jesus forever leveled the playing field, so to speak, by putting saints and sinners alike in the same boat – sinners in need of forgiveness, unqualified to condemn another. 

I’m most struck, however, by what Jesus says to the woman.  Not just what he says, but the order in which he says them.  First, he says, in essence, “I do not condemn you.”  Second, he says, “Go and leave your life of sin.”  I’m struck by this because I see in those two statements a reflection of the varying attitudes of many Christians and churches.  Many churches and people hold up the first part as the ideal:  “I do not condemn you.”  These are churches who proclaim “all are welcome here; come as you are,” comparing themselves all the while to those mean, un-Christlike churches that are so focused on sin and expectations of conformity to what they perceive as Biblical living.  These churches are good at creating environments where all feel welcome to seek after God without fear of condemnation or judgment.  Other churches and people like the second part – “go and sin no more.”  These are churches who see the value in holiness, believing strongly that God’s Word is truth and that conformity to that truth is where we experience eternal life.  Churches like these are good at taking seriously the message of the Bible and challenging people to higher standards of living.

Still other churches and people would proclaim the same things that Jesus did, yet in the reverse order:  “Go and sin no more, and I will not condemn you.”  In other words, “Get your act together and you are welcome here and acceptable to God.”  This is how many people see religion:  God accepts those who live according to His standards, while those who do not are outcasts, unloved, rejected. 

Jesus, however, does not fit any of those molds.  He begins with grace – you are accepted as you are, not because of anything you have done or haven’t done, but because I love you.  He forgives this woman without her even asking him to.  And then he moves on to obedience – “go now and leave your live of sin.”  He does not stop at acceptance, but challenges her to live a life of holiness.  The way of Jesus is not just acceptance and tolerance; nor is it simply expectations and standards.  It is grace, followed by obedience.  It is not “Obey, and you will be loved, ” but “You are loved; now obey.”  God loves you just as you are, but loves you too much to let you stay the way you are.  He wants you to be just like Jesus. 

Grace, followed by holiness, is the gospel.  Our salvation is an undeserved gift given by an unobligated giver.  We did nothing to earn it, but have been given eternal life freely by Jesus, if we would only accept it by turning from our sins to faith in Him.  And then, once we have accepted His gift of salvation, nothing can separate us from His love.  His grace will keep us with Him until the day we die.  But He will also spend the rest of our lives sanctifying us, calling us to a higher standard, to die to our sins and to live for Him, to allow Him to transform us into the image of Jesus. 

And this gospel is to be the model by which we live out all of our relationships – marriage, parenting, friendships, and in the church.  We begin with grace, loving and accepting not because someone has earned it, but because we ourselves have been shown grace when we did not deserve it.  Grace declares “I am on your side; I am for you, not against you, and I will not reject you.”  As it says in Romans 15:7, “Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.”  And with that foundation of grace, unconditional love, we call others to a higher standard, to put away their sin and to live for Jesus.  As it says in Hebrews 10:24, “Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.” Our relationships are to be marked not by simple tolerance (enabling others to remain in their sin), nor by brute law and expectations (measure up to this standard or you’re rejected), but grace followed by obedience.

May we treat those in our life as Jesus treated the woman in John 8 – “Neither do I condemn you.  Now go and leave your life of sin.”

I will never forget the narrator’s conclusion as he wrapped up the series.  He said, “we have heard about how Jesus was just an ordinary Jew, how there was nothing special or unique about him.  Having considered all that has been said, I believe that Jesus must have risen from the dead.  How else would you explain how a normal Jew with average followers who was crucified as a criminal could completely transform the world?”  I remember sitting upright, stunned at the narrator’s completely unexpected conclusion.  But he was right, and what he said made perfect sense.  If Jesus was just one of many would-be Messiahs who was killed, why didn’t faith in Jesus die off when his dead body was laid in the tomb (according to the Bible, it did… until Sunday), like it did for ever other would-be Messiah?  And if Christianity is just one of a number of myths including god-men who rise from the dead, then why hasn’t it gone the way of all the other myths?  Why has this Jesus-thing exploded all over the world?  Why are people’s lives still being transformed by an average Jew who was crucified 2000 years ago?  As the narrator said, the best explanation for the empty tomb, the post-mortem appearances, the changed lives of the disciples, the rise of the church, is that Jesus really rose from the dead. 

 There are so many reasons to reject God and the church.  You may distrust the supernatural aspect of the Bible, or be confused by the existence of so many different churches saying so many different things.  You may reject God because of the suffering you’ve experienced, or because you can not believe that one religion could be right and all the rest wrong.  But in the end, it all boils down to one question:  did God raise Jesus Christ from the dead 2000 years ago?  Was there one person in the history of mankind who was killed, only to be resurrected from the dead three days later, to never ever die again but to ascend into heaven?  Because if the resurrection of Jesus is not mere philosophy but historical fact, then everything changes.  There are countless religions and philosophies in this world, but only one that claims as a historical fact that a man who was also divine died, rose bodily from the grave to overcome sin and death, and is alive forever.

 If the resurrection is true, then you need to drop what you are doing and listen to this man who could not be defeated by death.  Think of how much credence is given to people who have near-death experiences and then write a book about it.  How much more should we listen to someone who spent three days in the grave, only to be resurrected to life?

 The apostle Paul put it this way:

If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.  15 More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead… And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.  Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost.  If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.  But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead. (1 Corinthians 15:14-15;17-20)

There is one thing more than anything else that would cause me to quit my job and go do something else.  If Christ has not been raised, if the resurrection is a sham, then I will quit my job tomorrow and find something else to do with my time. 

But the resurrection is true.  If you have any doubts, or if you have not been transformed by the power of the resurrection, come to NewLife this Sunday.  Or, if you don’t live near NewLife, find another Bible-believing church and allow the power and glory of the resurrection to transform your life.  Let us never lose the wonder at what occurred that first Easter Sunday, 2000 years ago.

That’s one loaded goat.

So once a year, this goat will be release into the desert with all of the sins of God’s people on its head.  Often, according to the Hebrew writings, the goat would even be pushed off a cliff, to guarantee that the goat would not return to the camp with all of the people’s sins (there’s a horror/comedy movie in there somewhere).  There were also a couple of traditions associated with this occasion.  One is that often it was a Gentile who would lead the goat into the wilderness; after all, what Hebrew would want to be that close to the entire sinfulness of the Hebrew people?  Another tradition was that a red cord would be put around its head, to symbolize the sin of the people.  Part of the red cord was tied to the door of the Temple, and apparently when the goat met its demise, the red cord would miraculously turn white, and the High Priest would proclaim to the people that God had accepted their sacrifice and forgiven their sins.

And so, year after year, the Israelites enacted this ritual, sending their sins into the desert on the head of a goat.  Every year the priest would get up, put on his sacred underwear, sacrifice the necessary animals, and wait for the red cord to turn white so that the sins of the people might be forgiven. 

But get this – apparently something happened to this ritual forty years before the destruction of the Jewish Temple in AD 70.  The Talmud (the collection of rabbinic reflections on the Scriptures) in Tractate Yoma 39:b records what I mentioned earlier, that on Yom Kippur it was customary to tie some red wool to the temple gate, and that miraculously, after the goat died to take away or atone for sin, the red wool always turned white as a sign to the people that they had been forgiven.  But during the forty years before the destruction of the temple and the altar in 70 AD, the red wool tied to the temple gate remained red – it never turned white again! In the Talumd, the rabbis concluded that God was saying, “I will not forgive, I will not forgive.”

Now think about those dates. We know the Temple was destroyed in 70 AD, so 40 years before that would be about the year 30 AD.  Can anyone think of something significant that happened about the year 30 AD?

Around the year 30 AD, a man named Jesus Christ was crucified on a cross.  Was this event just a tragic death of a great man, or was there something more going on that the Day of Atonement and the story of the red and white cord can shed light on?  Listen to what the writer of Hebrews has to say about it:

The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming– not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. If it could, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins… we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. (Hebrews 10:1-4; 10-12)

If the writer of Hebrews is correct, when Jesus died on the cross, it was more than just a tragic death of a great man.  It was a once for all reenactment of the Day of Atonement.  The great high priest Jesus has offered for all time one sacrifice for sins – Himself – and has sat down at the right hand of God, NEVER TO PERFORM THE SACRIFICE AGAIN!  As central as the Day of Atonement was to the people of God, after 30 AD it became unnecessary thanks to the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

The red cord no longer turns white.  The goat can no longer take away the sins of the people.  The ultimate sacrifice has been offered, and the high priest has sat down. 

What does this mean?  It means that because of Jesus, those who put their faith in Him have their sins forgiven once for all.  All you’ve ever done, are doing now, and will ever do is covered by the blood of Jesus Christ.  As verse 10 says, “we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”  We still confess and repent in order to be right with God, but our sin does not invalidate our standing before God – we have been made holy, and the high priest has SAT DOWN.  Our identity is now secure – we are forgiven, holy, beloved children of God.  There is no need for repetitive rituals that have no power to forgive sins.  We have been forgiven once and for all time.

Praise God for His mercy towards us, that Jesus Christ was sacrificed to take away the sins of the world, so that we might have eternal life and become a new creation in Him.

I wanted to end my interaction with the objections to the faith today by dealing with a challenge that Christopher Hitchens, author of God is Not Great:  How Religion Poisons Everything, throws out in his book and in most talks I have seen him give.  His challenge is meant to communicate the fundamental unnecessariness of religion, and goes something like this:

“It is argued that some religious people have done great things that have been motivated by their faith… Here is my challenge:  name me an ethical statement that was made or a moral action performed by a religious person in the name of faith that could not have been uttered or done by a person not of faith.  So far, none have succeeded in finding one.  Now, think of a wicked thing said or evil thing done by a person of faith in the name of faith.  No one should have a second of hesitation thinking of one.”

Hitchens’ point is that we have no problem seeing the harm that religious people have done in the world – as he puts it, suicide bombers are all men of great faith.  However, there is no benefit that religion provides that we could not get from someone without faith.  The most common response he receives, he says, is Martin Luther King Jr., but Hitchens always finds a way to explain the answers away (usually by downplaying religion as their primary motivator or highlighting those who have done similar things without faith as a motivator).  His conclusion is that since religion provides no benefit that a person of faith could not provide, the world would be a better place if there were no religion.

I obviously disagree with Hitchens.  Let me answer him by saying three things:

1) I am not sure the lack of a convincing answer to Hitchens’ challenge accomplishes what he thinks it does.  The Christian teaching is that every human being is created in the image of God.  One of the implications of this is that every human is capable of doing incredible acts of love, goodness, and creativity.  This means that we are not surprised when people of other religions or of no religion at all act in ways that are moral; in fact, we should expect that there will be people who do not follow Christ who are more moral than we are.  Therefore, to prove that there is no ethical statement made or moral action performed by a religious person that could not have been performed by a person of no faith, in the end proves nothing.

2) Hitchens is right to point out all the horrible things people have done in the name of religion, and in fact is in good company when he does that.  After all, Jesus himself spent plenty of time railing against the religious leaders of his day for how they had perverted the beauty of faith in God.  For example: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are” (Matthew 23:15).  Ironically, Jesus sounds almost like Hitchens in his anger against how religion can cause great destruction!  However, it should be fairly obvious that people have used just about everything to cause harm, and religion is no exception.  The flip side of the nature of man, Biblically-speaking, is of course that while we are all created in God’s image, we are all fallen as well, capable of incredible acts of wickedness and self-centeredness at the expense of the rest of the world.  In my opinion, a more accurate title for the book would have been We are not Great:  How People Poison Everything.

For example, look at this list of the worst genocides of the last 100 years, according to National Geographic:

China (1960s, 1970s), 30 million dead
USSR (1920s, 1930s, 1940s), 20 million dead
Germany (1930s, 1940s), 11.4 million dead
Japan (1930s, 1940s), 10 million dead
Pakistan (1970s), 3.1 million dead
Sudan (1960s, present day), 2.8 million dead
Nigeria (1960s), 2 million dead
Afghanistan (1980s), 1.8 million dead
Cambodia (1970s), 1.7 million dead
Turkey (1910s, 1920s), 1.5 million dead
Indonesia (1970s, 1980s), 1.2 million dead
Rwanda (1990s), 1 million dead
India (1940s), 1 million dead
(Source: Barbara Harff, National Geographic, Jan 2006, p. 30)

 As much as atheists love to point out all the wars fought in the name of religion, this list shows that by far the greatest injustices have been done in countries that have tried to either suppress religion or exploit it for political gain.  Hitchens argues his way out of lists like this by linking the leaders of these genocides to religion however he can (like claiming that Stalin could not have wielded so much power without an Orthodox Church that taught the head of the state was the head of the church), and by claiming his answer is a society founded on the ideals of humanists like Voltaire, Spinoza, Jefferson, Paine, etc., not a society like the ones listed above.  I think a fairer conclusion from the evidence is that people have used anything and everything in their quest for power, and that suppression of religious freedom is usually the grounds for the worst kinds of evil.

 3) Finally, the only answer to his challenge, from a Christian perspective, has to be Jesus.  Certainly the Christian faith is not about the great things man has done, but the great thing God has done for us in the midst of the world we have broken.  The only true “moral action performed by a person of faith that could not have been done by a person without faith” would have to be Jesus living a sinless life, taking on the full weight of sin and evil on the cross, experiencing Hell, rising from the dead, and conquering death.  Really, people can bluster all they want about the horrible things that have been done in the name of religion, and all the things they don’t like about the Biblical God, but in the end (and this has been the point of my whole series) it comes down to this:  either Jesus lived a sinless life, died for the sins of the world, and rose again to conquer sin and death, or he did not.  If that is all a myth, then none of the other arguments or side issues really matter. 

But if Jesus really did rise from the dead… then despite all the horrible things that have been done in His name, despite all the things we may not understand about God and life from our perspective, and despite all the vehement protests of those who dislike religion… Jesus really is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through Him (John 14:6).  That is the central answer to all the objections – investigate the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus for yourself, and then evaluate everything else in the light of that reality.

And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.  Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead…

1 Corinthians 15:17-20 

I’ve written many words on this blog over the last year on many different topics.  Some have probably challenged you; others have angered you.  Some have increased your love for God and other people; others have left you scratching your head.  This week, I want to leave all the other issues on the periphery, where they belong.  Only one thing truly matters, as Paul wrote in the verses above:  If Christ has not been raised from the dead, our lives are pitiful; all my pontificating and sermonizing has been “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”  But if Christ has indeed been raised from the dead…

When Jesus had finished saying all these things, he said to his disciples, “As you know, the Passover is two days away– and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.”

Matthew 26:1-2

In the end, it isn’t a matter of life and death whether God created in seven days or seven million years, whether or not the Bible allows for women to be pastors and elders, or whether or not God desires us to be wealthy in this world.  But there is one question that MUST be answered very carefully:  has Christ been raised from the dead, or was it all just an elaborate hoax?

While he was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived. With him was a large crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests and the elders of the people.  Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: “The one I kiss is the man; arrest him.”  Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, “Greetings, Rabbi!” and kissed him. Jesus replied, “Friend, do what you came for.” Then the men stepped forward, seized Jesus and arrested him.

Matthew 26:47-50

There are some who want you to believe it was a hoax.  They would tell you that Jesus died, that his followers were heartbroken, but then a rumor began to spread that he had risen from the dead.  Not physically, mind you, but spiritually.  And then people began to have visions of him, and they began to be inspired by the idea that Jesus had somehow risen from the grave.  And then, after a couple hundred years of passing down the story and elaborating on it over time, we ended up with the bodily resurrection story we have today.

The high priest said to him, “I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.”  “Yes, it is as you say,” Jesus replied. “But I say to all of you: In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

Matthew 26:63-64 

Others have tried their best to discredit the resurrection story through other theories.  Maybe Jesus didn’t really die, but was only “mostly dead.”  Perhaps the disciples stole the body.  Maybe Jesus was dumped in a common, unmarked grave, which explains why the disciples mistakenly thought the tomb was empty.  Or maybe Jesus never even existed and the whole thing is just an elaborate myth.

Then he released Barabbas to them. But he had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified. Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand and knelt in front of him and mocked him. “Hail, king of the Jews!” they said. They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again. After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him.

Matthew 27:26-31 

Why have skeptics and critics come up with so many possible arguments against the resurrection of Jesus?  Because believing that the resurrection actually happened is not like believing that Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492.  If Jesus really rose from the dead, EVERYTHING changes.  If Jesus was dead and lives again, then the world needs to listen to what He has to say, including the reality of sin, judgment, and our need for salvation.  There are many people who NEED Jesus to stay in the tomb, because a risen Christ would completely turn their lives upside-down and call into question everything for which they stand.

About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”– which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Matthew 27:45-46   

This Sunday, I will be preaching on the resurrection, doing my best to explain why I and so many others throughout history believe that it is a historical fact that God raised Jesus of Nazareth bodily from the grave almost 2000 years ago.  I will show why it isn’t just a hoax, and why the resurrection is the best explanation for the Christian faith that has exploded all over the world these past 2000 years.  And I will confront you with the reality that if the resurrection is true, then EVERYTHING must change.

After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men. The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.

Matthew 28:1-6 

If Christ has not been raised from the dead, then we are to be pitied above all men.  If tomorrow, someone finds Jesus’ body, then I am quitting my job and devoting my life to something else, something true.  But He HAS risen, and this is not just something I believe in mentally, but it is a revolutionary truth that has completely transformed my life and this world.  I encourage you to come to NewLife this Sunday, or to go to church wherever you live, and challenge you to invite those people whom God has put in your life that need to hear about the eternal hope and love found in the resurrected Christ.  Let everything else move to the periphery so that the risen Jesus might take center stage.

Today, I’m wrapping up my study of Jesus’ criticisms of the religious leaders of his day in Matthew 23.  I’ve been shocked by the directness of his rebukes over the past few weeks, and today’s words are no less harsh.  In Matthew 23:23-24, he deals with the contrast between the priorities of the religious leaders of his day and those of God, and in the process I think Jesus has a lot to teach today’s church about what it means to follow God:

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices– mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law– justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.  You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.”

I love the visual in that last line… two weeks ago it was Jesus Christ, freestyle rapper, and this week it’s Jesus Christ, stand-up comic.  But Jesus’ point is clear, isn’t it?  The Pharisees were so concerned about obeying every minute detail of the law, but in the process were missing out on the bigger, more important matters of justice, mercy, and faithfulness.  The motives of the Pharisees were good – in their desire for God to send the Messiah, the warrior-king who would liberate them from Roman oppression, they wanted the Jewish people to be as pure and holy as possible – but their desire for purity was causing them to act unmercifully towards those who did not live up to their standards. 

There are so many implications for us today that it’s hard to know where to begin.  I think that Jesus’ words raise two very crucial questions for us:

- What matters of lesser importance are occupying too much of our attention as a church?
- What are the more important priorities, according to God?

Let’s deal with the second question first.  Fortunately for us, Jesus tells us what God’s priorities are – justice, mercy, and faithfulness.  By saying this, he would have brought to mind Micah 6:8, a verse familiar to any Jew of Jesus’ day:  He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.  Justice, mercy, and humble faithfulness to God – that is what He requires of us.  I think it’s crucial for the American church, especially evangelical churches like our own, to pay close attention to these priorities.  What is the first priority listed by both Micah and Jesus?  Justice.  Maybe you’re surprised that the top priority given by Jesus is that His followers would work and live for what is right.  Perhaps you expected Jesus to say “salvation” as a 21st century evangelical would understand it, that Jesus’ priority for the Pharisees would be to save souls.  But he doesn’t say that – he asks the religious leaders of his day to make their lives about justice.

This past weekend we had two book discussions about Rob Bell’s Velvet Elvis, an excellent and thought-provoking book.  One thing that he wrote, which I’ve been hearing more and more from Christian theologians and speakers, is this: “The point of the cross isn’t(just) forgiveness.  Forgiveness leads to something much bigger:  restoration.  God isn’t just interested in covering over our sins; God wants to make us into the people we were originally created to be.”  Bell’s point is that the gospel is more than just the Four Spiritual Laws, more than just God forgiving our sins so that we can go to heaven.  The gospel is about God’s kingdom breaking into our world, about God calling people to be a part of bringing His justice, peace, love, and salvation to this world.  This is why when Jesus began his ministry, he said “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near” (Matthew 3:2).  Jesus was telling the people to rethink the way they were living and to enter into a way of life defined by the rule and love of God. 

Why do I bring this up?  Because Jesus’ list of priorities should tell us that the gospel is more than just personal salvation – it involves justice, mercy, and faithfulness. There is one theological school of thought that sees the world as a sinking ship, and the job of the Christian as one who rescues as many people off of the ship before it is destroyed.  This approach teaches that personal salvation is all that really matters, and that things like justice, peace, creation care, etc. only matter if they bring people to personal salvation.  I think Jesus’ words to the Pharisees and the rest of His teaching would say otherwise; God’s priorities include justice, mercy, and faithfulness because the gospel is not only about forgiveness but about restoration of both people and creation.  When God’s people work for justice and show mercy, they are living out the gospel, bringing the kingdom of heaven to earth, making right what has gone wrong. 

In Matthew 23:23, Jesus takes the Pharisees to task for focusing too heavily on the minute aspects of the law while neglecting the most important matters.  Is there any doubt that Jesus could easily level the same criticism against many churches today?  For example, in a previous youth ministry which I led, I inherited a list of rules that had been set up in order to protect the purity of the teens.  Among the rules were restrictions on what the girls could wear – how long their shorts or skirts had to be, how much skin needed to be covered – as well as restrictions on boys’ dress (i.e. how low their pants could sag).  Having come from a previous youth ministry that was very outreach-focused, I was used to kids showing up who might have broken the dress code but were there to seek out God.  I understood this church’s desire to protect the purity of their children, but I could see how such rules would either prevent outsiders from joining or cause them to feel immoral and condemned because they didn’t live up to the dress code.  If Jesus had been present, I believe he would have told the leaders of that ministry to practice modesty without neglecting the more important matters of justice and mercy, in order to not exclude those who did not meet their standards of purity.

It’s important to note that Jesus does not condemn the Pharisees for tithing; he is simply upset that they focus on purity issues while neglecting issues of justice, mercy, and humble faithfulness.  In the same way, we need to be sure that in our desire to be faithful to God, we don’t forget that Jesus’ priorities are extending justice and mercy to those who likely do not pass our purity tests.

I’d be interested in hearing what you think about this.  Do you see the church focusing heavily on matters of lesser importance and neglecting the more important matters of justice, mercy, and humble faithfulness?  What might Jesus use as examples today instead of tithing?  If you have any thoughts, please post a comment so that we might live out God’s priorities.

Last week I quoted Jesus’ criticisms in verse 13, where he took the Pharisees and teachers of the law to task for, as he put it, “shutting the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces,” arrogantly deciding who did and did not deserve God’s grace and favor.  Jesus even went so far as to proclaim that because of this, the religious leaders themselves would not enter the kingdom of heaven.  In verse 15, Jesus continues with another “diss”:

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.” (Matthew 23:15)

Can’t you just see his disciples jumping up, saying “Ohhh!” and high-fiving each other?

First of all, I continue to be astonished that Jesus actually spoke like this to those who were considered the religious elite of his day.  So many of us have been conditioned to see Jesus as meek and mild, holding the little children tenderly on his knee and carrying sheep safely home on his shoulders.  Sure, there was that time he overturned the tables in the temple and drove the money changers out with a whip (John 2:13-17), but by and large he was sort of like Mr. Rogers, teaching people to be good boys and girls and to love their neighbors, right?  Certainly Matthew 23 puts that myth to rest.  As tender and welcoming as Jesus could be to the people on the margins – the prostitutes, the lepers, the blind, etc. – he was just as demanding and harsh towards those who claimed to speak for God.  James, the brother of Jesus, recognized this when he wrote “Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly” (James 3:1).  As a pastor, I hear in this chapter a warning to be very careful in my desire to be faithful to God not to become a self-righteous Pharisee, the very people for whom Jesus reserved his harshest words. 

Jesus’ words in Matthew 23:15 teach us that it’s not just conversion that matters – it’s what you’re converting someone into.  It’s not enough to lead a person to turn from living for themselves to living for God, or to turn someone from doubt to faith in God – it’s critical to understand what kind of disciple you’re actually making.  Jesus’ words in this verse are such an incredible slam of the Pharisees.  It’s like he’s saying “You’re so willing to go anywhere in order to convert people, and you think that God is pleased with that, but the problem is that you’re converting people into disciples who are even more arrogant, judgmental, and evil than even you are.”  Can’t you just see the Pharisees’ jaws hit the floor on that one?  Jesus excoriates the Pharisees for turning each of their converts into “twice as much a son of hell” as they are without even flinching.  No gentleness, no “affirmation sandwich” – just strong words of judgment.   Incredible.

I’ve been fortunate through my work as a pastor to be in contact with leaders of many excellent churches who are seeing tens or even hundreds of people come to faith in Jesus in a given week.  Jesus’ words in this verse remind us that even more important than conversion numbers are what kind of converts you are producing.  The Pharisees may have celebrated the number of converts their efforts were producing, but in Jesus’ eyes all of their efforts were useless because they were only succeeding in producing more “sons of Hell.”  The obvious truth is that the church or ministry in which someone is converted is going to have a huge impact on the kind of Christian he or she becomes.  Churches who concentrate on the needs of the individual seeker run the risk of creating disciples who think that Christianity is all about God making him or her feel good.  Churches who teach that God wants us to be healthy and wealthy will produce Christians who believe that faithfulness to God is the best route to worldly success.  Loving churches concerned with works of mercy and compassion are going to produce Christians who think that being a Christian means serving the poor and needy.  And churches who believe that they are the keepers of the only true way to God and are able to judge who does and does not deserve God’s grace are sure to produce a nice big church of Pharisees

If you are involved in any sort of church or ministry leadership, ask yourself this question:  What kind of disciples are you producing?  Do those who come to faith in Jesus under your leadership or witness know the cost of discipleship, or do they think God exists to meet their needs?  Are you producing arrogant, self-righteous Pharisees who believe they are right and everyone else can go to Hell, or are you producing humble, Christ-like disciples who seek to serve and love their neighbor in the same way God has loved them? 

May God give us the wisdom to create disciples who are Christ-like, so that we might be spared Jesus’ words of judgment.  When it comes to battles, you can be sure that Jesus never loses.

“Hypocrites”
“Sons of Hell”
“Blind fools”
“Full of hypocrisy and wickedness”
“Snakes and a brood of vipers”

Did anyone say Jesus?  Surprised?  I’m sure many of you already knew the answer, but look at that list again and ask yourself honestly – can you believe how strong those words are?  “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild” said those things?  Not exactly the Mr. Rogers clone people expect, is it?

I’ve been preaching through a series on the parables of Jesus, and I’ve been struck by how many times he tells his stories with the religious leaders as the example of what NOT to do.   From the man who has been forgiven little in Luke 7 to the older brother of the prodigal son in Luke 15, to the Pharisee and the tax collector in Luke 18 (and many others…), Jesus takes many opportunities to warn people not to follow the example of the religious leaders of his day.  As a “religious leader” myself, I hear these comments and have to wonder, “Would Jesus say the same about me if he were here today???”  It can be tempting to read these words and think that they were only meant for the religious leaders in Jesus’ day, or that they can be applied to the various Pharisee-like religious people out there today, but the challenge is turn the spotlight on ourselves and ask, “In my desire to know and serve God, have I become the very thing that Jesus despised?”

During Sunday’s sermon, I referenced a verse from Matthew 23, the chapter where all of the above epithets are found.  In verse 13, Jesus begins to speak a series of condemning words he has for the religious leaders of his time with the following: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.”  I’ve been haunted by that one line – “You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces” ever since I read it, and have been trying to examine myself to see if I am guilty of that very thing.

The target of Jesus’ harshest words was the Pharisees, who were among the religious leaders of his day.  Each of the different religious groups (Sadducees, Essenes, Zealots, and Pharisees) was concerned with how to free the Jewish people from the Roman oppression under which they lived.  The Pharisees (from the Hebrew word “parash”, meaning to separate) believed that if the Jewish people were pure and faithful to God’s law and separate from pagan influences, then the Messiah would come and liberate the Jewish people.  So, the Pharisees steadfastly kept all of God’s rules, and even added more rules in order to help the Jewish people maintain their purity.  To the Pharisees, the laws were boundary markers, keeping pure people in and impure people out.  You can imagine, with such a focus on purity, that they were not happy with the Jews who broke God’s laws, because those “sinners” were preventing the Messiah from liberating the Jews.  It is so important to recognize that the goals of the Pharisees were admirable – purity, freedom, faithfulness to God – but something about the way in which they lived out those goals invoked the wrath of Jesus.

Read Matthew 23:13 one more time - “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.”  There was something in the way the Pharisees lived out their faith that was preventing people from experiencing God, and was in fact so offensive to Jesus that he proclaimed in this verse that not only were they preventing others, but that even the Pharisees would not experience God!

Okay – raise your hand if you can identify with what I just wrote.  Anybody feel like you’ve missed out on experiencing God because of the way Christian leaders have lived out their faith?  Anybody have a friend who has given up on church or God because of Christians who blocked their way, who “shut the kingdom of heaven” in their face?  And has anyone out there been guilty of shutting the door on those you saw as sinners?

I think that the Pharisees were so sure what was right and what was wrong that they looked down on anyone who lived in the “wrong” way.  I believe that they were so focused on keeping Judaism pure that they would rather have their holy huddle of pure Jews than open the door to complicated, messy, sinful people who weren’t sure what they believed about God.  Whatever their reason was, the effect was this:  instead of finding a God with open arms running to welcome back the prodigal, the Jews living on the margins in all their complicated, messy sinfulness, were finding the older brother with a disapproving look saying “you’re not wanted here until you clean up your act.”  And that unwelcoming, judgmental, arrogant attitude set Jesus off in a way that the sins of the Jews on the margins never did.  You can’t read the stories of Jesus without hearing loud and clear that Jesus hates it when religious leaders in their arrogance “shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces.” 

I’m sure it’s been clear from all I’ve been writing over the past few months that I place a high value on Jesus’ call not to shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces.  People will reject God for all sorts of reasons, but woe to me and woe to our church if the reason someone rejects God is our unwelcoming, judgmental, arrogant attitude.  The desire for purity and faithfulness to God is a good one, but if it causes us to choose the holy huddle over welcoming complicated, messy, “sinful” people who aren’t sure what they believe about God, then woe to us.  Likewise, the desire to know and live the truth is right, but if it causes us to look down on anyone who we think lives in the “wrong” way, then woe to us.  Let us follow God with all of our hearts, but let us learn from Jesus’ condemnation of the Pharisees that we must be careful not to appoint ourselves the judges of who deserves access to God’s throne of grace.

This will be the first of a series I will be doing on “killing the Pharisee within us,” looking at Jesus’ strong words in Matthew 23.  Please pray with me that in our desire to know and serve God, that God would help us to not become the very thing that He despises.  And if you have any comments or insights that can help us towards this goal please post a comment.

Three weeks ago I began a discussion on the tendency I see among evangelical Christians to use urgency and threats in order to motivate Christians to action and (they hope) those outside the church to repentance and faith in Jesus.  Over the past two weeks, I have illustrated how contrary this is in many ways to the ways Jesus motivated people to action and greater faith.  Jesus seemed to live and teach in a way that demonstrated the power and attraction of the Kingdom of God, compelling many to follow Him (oh that our churches would be that compelling!).  Last week we looked at how Jesus was not afraid to talk about judgment and accountability, although His teaching gives the impression that all (Christian or not) will face judgment for how they live in this life.  Christians aren’t off the judgment hook because they have “prayed the prayer”; Jesus’ words seem clear that all will eventually be accountable for their lives before God. 

As I look closely at Jesus’ teaching, however, I do find one particular area where he seems to use a lot of “urgency” language – when he discusses his second coming.  Whenever Jesus talks about his return to this world, his words practically communicate a sense of paranoia about our need to be always on alert for His possible return, lest we be caught sleeping, outside working on our roof, or (God forbid) pregnant.  So, to answer one of my original questions – yes, Jesus does use urgency at times in his teaching.  And if Jesus does it, then we had better pay close attention.  Listen, for example, to the following passages:

Matthew 24:42-44 -  Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.  But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into.  So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.

Mark 13:34-37 – It’s like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with his assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch.  “Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back– whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn.  If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping.  What I say to you, I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’” 

Can you hear the urgency in Jesus’ voice?  The need on our part to be alert and watchful?  And can you see how easy it would be for someone to read this literally and enter into a semi-paranoid state of insomnia, night after sleepless night, reacting to every cricket chirp with a “I’m working, Jesus!!!”?

Now, as I said before, I have struggled with the whole “second coming” thing.  Jesus’ words of warning conjure up for me images of a misbehaving teenager anxiously listening for the garage door to open, signaling the return of his parents.  Why do I need the reminder of the second coming to encourage me to be a faithful follower?  Shouldn’t I always be living my life that way?  Especially since it’s been almost 2000 years since Jesus left this earth, and 2000 years without a second coming???

Well, maybe the second coming wasn’t meant to just instill fear and paranoia into Jesus’ followers.  Jesus’ teachings about his second coming exhort his listeners to be about their master’s business, so that when he returns he will find them doing what he asked them to do and will reward them accordingly.  And what is the master’s business?  It’s to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:18-20), and to work to extend God’s kingdom of love, peace, justice, and redemption in this world. 

 Theologians often discuss the kingdom of God as being “already but not yet” – God’s kingdom of love, justice, redemption, etc. has broken into this world in the person of Jesus and through the work of the Holy Spirit through the church, but it will not reach its full form until the return of Jesus.  This means that those who are about their master’s business are working with Jesus’ second coming in mind, knowing that He will complete the work we are currently doing.  Those who are working for justice can do it anticipating the second coming of Jesus, knowing that when he returns he will judge sin and reign over this world with perfect justice.  Those who are working for the reconciliation of people to God and to each other can do so with the second coming as their motivation, knowing that when Jesus comes back to earth, every knee will bow to him and all who are God’s people will live together in harmony under His rule.  Those who are working for peace and spreading His love can do so in the knowledge that when Jesus comes back, “there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Revelation 21:4). 

This is why the Second Coming is so significant.  For those who are not following Jesus, his words should communicate a sense of fear and urgency, that they need to get their acts together, knowing that at any moment judgment could happen.  However, for those who are about the Father’s business, the second coming can become the greatest possible motivation.  As Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:58, “Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”  Those who are working for love, peace, and justice in this world know that their work is never in vain, because of the truth of Jesus’ second coming.

And that’s why the second coming is so important, Eric. 
 
“He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.”  (Revelation 22:20-21)  

Certainly there is no bigger way in which fear and urgency are used as motivators by Christians today than by using Hell.  Think about it this way – if there was no Hell, would that change the way you live?  If you knew that everyone who died would live forever with God, would you worry so much about sin?  Would you be motivated to give up sins in your life or sacrifice your comforts in order to serve others if Heaven was not a reward nor Hell a punishment?  What is your motivation for following God?  How much of a factor is fear of Hell?

And what about evangelism?  Why do you share your faith with others?  Is your motivation what you have been taught about Hell, that it is a reality for those who do not know Jesus, accept Him as their Savior, and follow Him as Lord?  If you knew everyone was headed for heaven, would you even bother worrying about “converting” people?  Or would you let people live the way they wanted to live and believe whatever they chose to believe?

And, most importantly, if fear of Hell is such a big motivator for righteous living and active evangelism, is this in line with what Jesus taught?  Or are we misreading His words?

A word of caution – some of you will probably be thankful that I am raising questions like these, while others of you may be upset at having difficult questions raised without thoroughly satisfying answers given.  I am not afraid of questions; on the contrary, I want to be the first to raise them, because many who will not darken the door of our church may be staying away precisely because they have not been satisfied by how Christians handle questions or those who ask them.  I pray that we may go boldly into the mystery of God, confident that even if we can not handle the questions or the answers, He is more than able.

Many of the thoughts and questions I raise in this essay are a product of Brian McLaren’s The Last Word and the Word After That.  McLaren is the master at raising questions to the surface that many Christians are afraid to acknowledge in the daylight.  Certainly Hell is among the biggest elephants in the church.  Ever since I could begin to question my faith, that was the biggest question of them all – how could a loving God send people to Hell?  Certainly unchurched English students everywhere are horrified as they read the brilliant preacher Jonathan Edwards’ sermon known as “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” where he says things like:  “The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you and is dreadfully provoked; his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire.”  McLaren comically puts it this way: “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life, and if you don’t love God back and cooperate with God’s plan in exactly the prescribed way, God will torture you with unimaginable abuse, forever.”  Anyone squirming yet?

Even after my teenage questions about Hell were somewhat pacified by answers such as “God doesn’t send people; they choose to go themselves” and “The greater question is how God could let anyone into Heaven,” that still doesn’t do away with the lingering questions which any Christian has heard (and wondered themselves) over and over.  Questions such as “what about the guy in Africa who is living in the woods and has never heard of Jesus?” or “What about the infant who dies in childbirth?  If he, like the rest of us, was born a sinner and never repented, how would he get to heaven?”  It can be hard to square the concept of Hell with our earthly understanding of fairness and justice.

The purpose of this post, therefore, will be more question-raising than answer-giving (next week I will answer every question and place it in a neat theological package with a cute bow on top… just kidding).  As I spent time meditating on the gospels and Jesus’ use of Hell, as well as reading McLaren’s book and a few others, here are a few of the observations that came to light that are worth pondering:

Observation #1:  Hell is used mainly in evangelical Christian circles today to describe an eternal punishment, an after-death separation from God for all who have not accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior, since they are still in their original state of sinfulness.  Hell is used as motivation for Christians to evangelize and convert people to their faith, because to let someone go to Hell without having a chance to hear and respond to the gospel is seen as unloving and the worst kind of apathy.   The gospel in this way of thinking is commonly seen as something like what is described as the Four Spiritual Laws – God loves you and wants a relationship with you, we have all sinned and broken that relationship, Jesus died to pay the penalty for those sins, and those who turn from their sin to put their faith in Jesus will have eternal life and their relationship with God restored.  Since the gospel is largely about life after death, Hell and heaven are of primary importance.

Observation #2:  Hell and eternal judgment in today’s evangelical Christian circles are things that followers of Jesus don’t have to worry about.  It’s those who have not accepted Jesus who have to worry about it. 

Observation #3:  Hell is never mentioned in the Old Testament.  In fact, Jews in the Old Testament were much more focused on God’s blessing in the earthly life – land, wealth, descendants - and there is no clear mention of heaven either in the Old Testament, although some have argued that it can be found in passages such as Psalm 23 (I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever), Job 19:26 (after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God), and 2 Samuel 12:3 (David saying that he will eventually go to his dead son).   If you check your NIV concordance, the first mention of Hell is by Jesus in Matthew 5.  After that, Jesus uses Hell, destruction, eternal torment, judgment, and similar expressions quite often in his teaching. 

Observation #4:  The closest Biblical parallel to our modern use of Hell is in how the Pharisees used Hell.  The Pharisees believed that the Jews were under Roman oppression because of the sinfulness of the Jewish people, and if those sinners would only repent and become righteous, the Messiah would come and rescue them.  They used Hell as a threat to motivate sinners to righteous living, much as Christians today use the threat of Hell as motivation to come to Jesus.

Observation #5:  Jesus used Hell, destruction, eternal torment, and judgment mainly in his discussions with the crowds who listened to him and with the Pharisees (religious leaders) themselves.  He did not use it as a threat to motivate people to “accept him as savior” for some purpose after death, but so that his listeners would recognize the importance of righteous and just living in the here and now.   Examples include:

Matthew 5:22 – But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, ‘Raca, ‘is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.

Matthew 5:30 – And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.

Observation #6:  Jesus’ message does not seem to be primarily about teaching people how to get their personal soul into heaven after they die, but about the kingdom of God that is breaking into this world and how to be a part of God’s reconciling work of love and justice in this world.

Observation #7:  Jesus never seems to use Hell in conversations about right belief or right doctrine.  Instead, it is always in reference to behavior that is contrary to God’s will, regardless of whether the listener is his disciple, a Pharisee, or just a member of the crowd.  In this way, Jesus seems to be communicating to all that they will face judgment and accountability for their actions, no matter who they are.  While the Bible teaches salvation by grace alone (not by works), there also seems to be clear teaching that we will be judged by our works, even if you consider yourself a Christian.

Hopefully you have been intrigued by these observations.  Each of these observations could be expanded into a whole book, I’m sure, but hopefully they have got you thinking about what Jesus really said about Hell vs. what we say about Hell today.  I plan on continuing the discussion next week, but I will warn you that there will be no nice, neat, tidy answers.  In the meantime, I would love to hear your thoughts on the matter.  Post your comments and observations on Jesus and Hell so that others might hear what you have to say on the subject.

Did anyone happen to read last week that apparently some leaders of the Church of Scientology  have decided that Tom Cruise is going to become the new “Christ” of their religion?  According to news reports, Cruise has been chosen to spread the word of Scientology and, as one leader said, “like Jesus Christ, he’s been criticized for his views.  But future generations will realize he was right.” 

Oh my God, where do I begin???

    Tom Cruise gets the news
      that he is the next Jesus

Let’s begin by explaining what Scientology is, for those unfamiliar with this “religion” (some would call it a cult, others a self-help philosophy).  Scientology was developed by L. Ron Hubbard, an American science fiction author, in 1952, and claims to offer “an exact methodology” to help humans achieve awareness of their spiritual existence across many lifetimes and to become more effective in the physical world.  The ultimate goal of Scientology’s teaching is to get a person’s soul (known as a thetan) back to its native state of total freedom (Operating Thetan), where a person can have control over matter, energy, space, time, thoughts, form, and life.  All this is another way of saying that, according to Hubbard, humans are by nature good people whose freedom is corrupted by painful circumstances of life, but through his methods can regain their full spiritual and physical potential as humans.  Scientology’s proponents claim that Hubbard’s teachings have saved them from many problems and helped them realize their highest potential as a person and in business.  Its detractors, however, claim that the Church of Scientology is an elaborate moneymaking enterprise promoting a pseudo-science that exploits it members (especially financially) and harasses its critics (in fact, a 1980 Reader’s Digest issue had a quote from Hubbard – whose authenticity is disputed by Scientologists, of course – where he said “Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous.  If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion.”)

  A Scientology Center in
    Hollywood, California

Scientology has come to the forefront in recent years as a result of a few bizarre episodes.  The first was a truly awful science-fiction movie released in 2000 called Battlefield Earth, based on a book by Hubbard and financed by prominent Scientologist John Travolta, who also starred in it.  Rottentomatoes.com, which compiles reviews from numerous print and web-based movie critics, gave it a 3% approval rating (3 out of 115 recommended seeing it), with Roger Ebert saying “Battlefield Earth is like taking a bus trip with someone who has needed a bath for a long time. It’s not merely bad; it’s unpleasant in a hostile way.”  A second episode was a 2005 interview with Tom Cruise where he criticized actress Brooke Shields for using anti-depressants to deal with her post-partum depression, spreading the Scientologist tenet that psychology and psychiatry are evil (and horrifying women everywhere in the process).  A third recent event was the cancellation by Comedy Central of a March 2006 South Park episode that would have made fun of Scientology, followed by the quitting of Scientologist Isaac Hayes (who played Chef) from the show because of so-called “religious intolerance” (even though he had no problem with the show’s numerous offensive jabs at Christianity).  The South Park incident supported the depiction of Scientologists as antagonistic to any critics of their beliefs.  Finally, there was the recent “silent birth” of the baby of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, based on the Scientologist belief that the delivery room should be as silent as possible to prevent any words spoken during the delivery from being reassociated later in life with the traumatic birth experience.

Through it all, Scientology has gained prominence not because many people in America are members of this church (55,000 Americans in 2001 would have called themselves Scientologists, according to a City University of New York poll), but because the church has targeted celebrities with great success, recruiting figures such as Travolta, Cruise, Hayes, Holmes, Kirstie Alley, and Beck to become church members. 

And now, apparently, they have found their Messiah in Tom Cruise.

  Tom is psyched about
       the promotion

The announcement that Tom Cruise has achieved Jesus-level status in his religion brought to mind a passage in Mark’s gospel where Jesus is telling his disciples what it will be like in the last days:  “At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or, ‘Look, there he is!’ do not believe it.  For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform signs and miracles to deceive the elect– if that were possible.  So be on your guard; I have told you everything ahead of time.” (Mark 13:21-23)  Now, I’m pretty sure when Jesus said this he didn’t have Tom Cruise in mind.  But it is instructive to see how Jesus foretold that all sorts of people would rise up, some with even the ability to perform miracles, and draw people away from the only true Messiah.  Take heed to Jesus’ warning – there will be many out there who will deceive you into thinking that they are greater than Jesus, and not all will be as ridiculous to believe as Tom Cruise.  
 
The truth of this story is that if all it takes to be a “Messiah” is to believe strongly in a cause or religion and advocate it for on a large-scale level, even in the face of criticism, then there have been lots of Messiahs in recent memory.  Hitler was a Messiah, believing strongly in Nazi Germany and spreading that message despite (just a little) criticism.  Osama Bin Laden is a Messiah for radical Islam, spreading his message despite criticism.  Just because Tom Cruise believes something strongly and is spreading that message in the face of severe criticism does not make him worthy of respect or admiration, any more than Hitler or Bin Laden deserve a pat on the back for their efforts.  What matters is whether or not he is advocating the truth.

Is there any other statement in the English language that is at once so profound yet so utterly overused and meaningless to the majority of the people who hear it (including many Christians) than “Jesus loves you”?  I mean, as far as much of the world is concerned, you might as well be telling them “Barney the purple dinosaur loves you.”  What’s the big deal about Jesus loving me?

And while we’re at it, don’t forget the other one – “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.”

So… that’s supposed to make me feel what exactly???

For those who have experienced the reality of a God who is perfect and awesome and the Creator of all things; who have realized that although we rebelled against Him and pretty much told him to get lost, He came after us and experienced horrific betrayal, alienation, and crucifixion in order to rescue us from the disastrous direction we were heading, there are few statements more powerful and emotional than “Jesus loves you.”  This phrase communicates an acceptance, forgiveness, and embrace so deep within our souls that we have been forever transformed as a result.  The intense human longing to be known completely, loved perfectly, and embraced eternally has been met in the person of Jesus Christ.  Words can never do justice to that reality.