Confrontation in Nazareth (14)

 

“Sacrifice and meal offering You have not desired; My ears You have opened; burnt offering and sin offering You have not required. Then I said, ‘Behold, I come; in the scroll of the book it is written of me. I delight to do Your will, O my God, Your Law is within my heart. I have proclaimed glad tidings of righteousness in the great congregation; behold, I will not retrain my lips, O LORD, You know’” (Psalm 40:6 – 9; see also Hebrews 10:5 – 10).

 

When Jesus says in Nazareth, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing (Luke 4:21), He is also fulfilling Psalm 40:6 – 9. We may hear five voices in Psalm 40: the voice of David, the Voice of Jesus Christ, the voice of the man or woman in Jesus Christ, the Voice of the Body of Christ, and the Voice of the whole Christ. In Christ, these voices are One, they are the Voice of many waters.

 

In Hebrews 10, Psalm 40 is quoted from the LXX, and here we have the notable, “Sacrifice and offering You have not desired, but a body You have prepared for me.” As with the “voice” of Psalm 40, so with the “body” of Psalm 40. We see the body of King Daivd, the body of Jesus Christ in the Incarnation, the body of the individual man or woman in Christ, the corporate Body which the Father prepared for the Son – that is the Body of Christ, and we may also see the Body of the whole Christ – Head and Body.

 

I expect it may take us time to meditate on these things and to begin to “see” them in Christ, but that is as it should be, they cannot be understood or “seen” in the natural (1 Corinthians Chapter 2).

 

Paul writes in Ephesians 2:10, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”

 

We all have a purpose and destiny in this life, and it has many dimensions and unfolds in many ways...none of which we can fully understand, such is the mystery of it all in Christ. We all are called to say, “I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do” (John 17:4).

 

We are called to say this as individuals, as marriages and families, as local congregations, as the Body of Christ. As an individual I am called to not only say this for myself, but if I am married I have a calling within my marriage, if I have a family I have a calling as a member of my family, and I have a calling as a member of Christ’s Body, both locally and transcendently. I must not think solely in terms of myself, my calling and purpose and destiny is so much more than “Jesus and me,” it is about others, both those who know Jesus and those who have yet to meet Jesus.

 

Are we encouraging one another to discover and fulfill our callings in Christ Jesus?

 

Are we as husbands and wives seeking to discover and fulfill what has been written the book for us to fulfill?

 

Are our congregations viewing themselves as a people with a calling and destiny for their particular time and place that manifests itself in worship, the building up of the Body of Christ, and sacrificial mission to the world?

 

When our brothers and sisters venture out to discover their calling, do we, as the people of Nazareth say, “Who does she think she is?”

 

When someone in our midst speaks of the widow of Sidon or of Namaan the Syrian, do we respond with anger or with thanksgiving and compassion?

 

Should someone bring into our presence a Sidonian or Syrian will we embrace them, love them, care for them, and protect them?

 

Dear friends, in one sense until the Book becomes our book it is just a book. When Jesus reads Isaiah 61 in the synagogue in Nazareth He makes Isaiah His book. Yes, yes, for sure it has always been His Book, but in an incarnational sense He is consummating (or beginning the consummation) it when He reads it and then says, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

 

Now we know and believe that the words of the Bible are the words of God, the Word of God. We also acknowledge that this Word was delivered through human beings, and as such carries the flavor of the person just as wine carries the flavor of the cask in which it was aged. With this in mind, until the Word of God becomes your Word in Christ, until it ages within your heart and soul and mind and spirit, until it resides within you…you cannot call it yours, you can only call it something “out there.”

 

O dear, dear friends! The New Covenant is not “out there”! It is “in here.” “I will put my laws upon their heart, and on their mind I will write them” (Hebrews 10:16). Do we see that the Old Covenant is external, while the New Covenant is internal? Can we see that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit come to live within us in the New Covenant?

 

We are called to say, “This Word is mine in Christ. I will read this Word and live in this Word among my brothers and sisters. Together we will read this Word and live in this Word and manifest this Word to one another and to the world.”

 

I recall one morning in a small group about eight years ago. We were in John Chapter 14, the first few verses, about the Father’s House. There was much talk, much speculation, and the guys tended to talk over each other at times. As I listened I heard one of the men quietly say, “If it isn’t happening within you, if it isn’t real inside of you, then it doesn’t matter.”

 

I think I may have been the only one who heard what this brother said, and I have often wondered if I should have called a “timeout” and asked him to repeat himself. I wish I had done so.

 

Jesus invites us to know Him in the koinonia of His Word, to share His Life in His Word, to read Isaiah aloud, to read Psalms aloud, and to confess, “This day this Scripture is being fulfilled in my life, in our lives, in the Body of Christ; this day we are becoming one with the Word and the Word is becoming one with us.”

 

In the scroll of the book it is written of Christ Jesus, of you in Christ, of me in Christ, of us in Christ.

 

 

 

 

Cruciform Lives

 

Good morning friends,

Below is a note I wrote to a friend after a recent conversation. 

Are we living cruciform lives?

Much love!

Bob

Dear friend…some follow up thoughts…

 

I was thinking about one of the blessings of old age can be the Cross, it can be coming to the end of our strength, if we not yet done so, and having our hip knocked out of joint as Jacob with the Lord – it is good to walk with a limp.

 

“What happened? Why are you now walking with a limp? Did you have an accident?”

 

“O no, no accident, Jesus Christ brought me to the end of my own strength. Would you like to join our fellowship?”

 

Jesus says to Peter, “When you were younger, you used to gird yourself and walk wherever you wished; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will gird you, and bring you where you do not wish to go” (Jn. 21:18). John tells us that Jesus was signifying by what kind of death Peter would glorify God.

 

Then Jesus says, “Follow Me!”

 

Peter later writes, I am presently “knowing that the laying aside of my earthly dwelling is imminent, as also our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me” (2 Peter 1:14).

 

Dear brother Paul writes, “But my it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal. 6:14).

 

Peter writes of the way of the Cross, the cruciform life; Paul writes of the way of the Cross, and John writes of the way of the Cross. In Revelation it is those who do not love their lives even unto death who conqueror, those who follow the slain and risen Lamb, those who have the testimony of Jesus.

 

Lately I’ve been thinking that Romans 1:1 – 8:35 is all to prepare us to be the sacrificial lambs of our Good Shepherd of Romans 8:36. Lambs who have supreme confidence that they are more than conquerors through Him who loves us. If we fall short of Romans 8:36 we have fallen short of our calling and glory; indeed, perhaps Romans 8:36 is the redemptive answer to Romans 3:23, perhaps it demonstrates the recovery of the glory that we lost.

 

In any event, when we are old we can learn…more than ever…to allow ourselves to be carried to the Cross, by the Cross, on the Cross, through the Cross…with outstretched hands as we participate in the sufferings of Christ (Phil. 3:10; Col. 1:24; 1 Peter 4:13; Galatians 2:20).

 

Dead men need not respond to the world, for all that is in the world…is not of the Father (1 John 2:15 – 16). Was John wrong when he wrote, “The whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19)?

 

Are there exceptions?

 

Of all people, the elders of the Israel of God (Gal. 6:16), the Church, ought to display “the wisdom from above” which is “first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits…” sowing what we say and do in peace (James 3:13 – 18).

 

How often the Holy Spirit has convicted me of being an ass! How often He has convicted me of not displaying 2 Timothy 2:24 – 25! “The Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition…” Ha…what a fool I have often been!!!

 

Much love,

Bob

Confrontation in Nazareth (13)

 

 

 

As I continue to ask myself why Jesus begins His ministry in His hometown of Nazareth with confrontation, I am drawn to John 2:13 – 25 and the beginning of His ministry in Jerusalem. Consider that in this passage He introduces Himself to Jerusalem by making a whip of cords and driving out those who are making merchandise of worship. “Take these things away; stop making My Father’s house a place of business.”

 

Then He says, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”  These are words that will be used against Jesus in His “trial” before Caiaphas, the priests, and the Council (Mt. 26:61).

 

In spite of Jesus’ words and actions in John 2, in the next chapter a Jewish ruler named Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night. Once again, Jesus begins with a challenge, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (Jn. 3:3). Why begin with a challenge, why not ease Nicodemus into things, into a relationship with Himself?

 

Unlike the crowds, unlike the group of religious leaders of which Nicodemus is a member, Nicodemus listens to Jesus, asks questions, and believes (John 7:50 – 52;19:39)

 

What else do we see in John’s Gospel? Consider this pattern:

 

In Chapter 4 Jesus challenges His disciples’ ingrained notions about people outside their racial, national, and religious identity, for He leads them to Sychar, a village in Samaria, and begins His ministry in Samaria with a woman and her village, remaining with them two days. It is unlikely that any of Jesus’ disciples ever contemplated having social or religious communication with Samaritans, they were unclean, they were despised, they were to be avoided.

 

Do you think that the disciples were going to write home and tell the folks of their own home synagogues of what they had done with Jesus? Do you think the first words out of their mouths on their return to Galilee was about the wonderful experience they had in Samaria?

 

Consider, when Jesus says that the “fields are ripe unto harvest” (Jn; 4:35) He is saying it while they are in Samaria!

 

Was this a great experience for the disciples, or did they reluctantly live with it since they wanted to be with Jesus? After all, you can hardly jettison a way of thinking and living that you’ve grown up with, that you’ve been religiously taught, in the course of one or two days. Ponder what Peter went through in Acts Chapter 10, in the council in Jerusalem of Acts 11, of the turmoil that he bought into in Galatians 2.

 

When Peter and John returned to Samaria in Acts Chapter 8, were their hearts and minds transported back to the events of John Chapter 4?

 

In John Chapter 5 Jesus heals in Jerusalem on the Sabbath, stirring up more opposition.

 

In John Chapter 6 He calls Himself the Bread of Life, teaching that we must eat His flesh and drink His blood. Jesus is the true Manna from heaven, giving food that is superior to what Moses gave. Not only does this teaching alienate the crowds, but many of His “disciples withdrew, and were not walking with Him anymore” (John 6:59 – 71).

 

John Chapter 7 shows us some in the crowd were accusing Jesus of having a demon, and the religious leaders sending officers to arrest Jesus.

 

In John Chapter 8 the religious leaders attempt to stone Jesus to death (we’ve explored this in a previous reflection).

 

John Chapter 9 shows Jesus healing on the Sabbath yet again and the religious leaders once again attacking Jesus.

 

In Chapter 10 the religious leaders accuse Jesus of having a demon and being insane, and they once again attempt to arrest Him.

 

We see a continuing conspiracy to murder Jesus in John 11:53.

 

Chapter 12 brings us to Holy Week, a week of escalating tensions leading to crucifixion.

 

I have preached through the Gospel of John in one morning with a focus on Jesus and His signs, with His revealing Himself to be the I AM; the Bread, the Light, the Life, the Resurrection. I could also preach through John with a focus on conflict, for from beginning to end there is conflict, indeed, we see the introduction to conflict in John 1:5, “The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”

 

For decades I have viewed the unrelenting conflict in John in the framework of Sonship; the issue is whether Jesus will confess His Father or cave into pressure and persecution and deny Him. This is our challenge as well, will we confess our Father, our Elder Brother, and the sonship we have in them? Will we maintain, by God’s grace, our testimony that our Father is bringing us to glory in Jesus Christ? (Hebrews 2:10 – 13; Rom. 8:29 – 30; and of course the Upper Room).

 

Simply put, will we confess that we are saints and no longer sinners? What will be our core identity in Jesus Christ? (Christians are termed “saints” in the Bible far far more often than any other term). Why do we insist on denying this glory of the Gospel?

 

Also, in the framework of John’s Gospel, this attack on Jesus Christ’s identity relentlessly comes from the religious leadership, just as it does in our own day. The Romans are not the enemy of Jesus in the Gospel, the world at large is not the enemy, it is the people who ought to know better that are the enemy to the confession of the Son and the Father. Of course the resistance and outright persecution will come from the greater world and from the Roman Empire as the Gospel spreads, but it begins in the realm of people who should know better – and once they begin their attack they will continue it, from Jesus to the Apostles, to Stephen, to Paul, and beyond. Furthermore, the attack will come from without and within the professing church – then as now.

 

But what I want to say is that I’ve never realized how Jesus could have avoided much of this opposition, whether in Jerusalem in John, or in His hometown of Nazareth (and elsewhere in Galilee), by not directly challenging and confronting religious culture, and racial and national identities. Jesus did not have a gradual approach to His revelation of grace and truth.

 

Jesus could have healed on days other than the Sabbath, and of course He did. Why heal in synagogues on the Sabbath? Jesus could have accepted the following of those who were believing in Him (in some measure) in John Chapter 8, rather than confronting them with not being free and then telling them that the devil was their father…not a method likely to retain followers.

 

In Luke Chapter 4, Jesus need not have introduced the widow of Sidon or Namaan the Syrian into His message, He knew it would not be well received!

 

I’m not really sure what this all means. It is challenging to me and I don’t fully understand it. It does make me wonder how many times I’ve taken the easy way out in teaching and preaching, and in interacting with other pastors, in parachurch small groups, and so forth. I wonder how many times my own witness to others has been watered down.

 

I am surprised to be going down this road in my exploration of the Confrontation in Nazareth, Luke 4:14 -30. I had no idea I’d be here. I began this with simply a sense that I wanted to explore this passage, and now here I am…with questions…plenty of questions.