Monthly Archives: October 2013

What Is The Right Thing To Do?

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WHAT IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO?

“On another Sabbath He went to the meeting place and taught. There was a man there with a crippled right hand. The religion scholars and Pharisees had their eye on Jesus to see if He would heal the man, hoping to catch Him in a Sabbath infraction. He knew what they were up to and spoke to the man with the crippled hand, ‘Get up and stand here before us,’

“Then Jesus addressed them, ‘Let me ask you something: What kind of action suits the Sabbath best? Doing good or doing evil? Helping people or leaving them helpless?’ He looked around, looked each one in the eye. He said to the man, ‘Hold out your hand.’ He held it out — it was as good as new! They were beside themselves with anger, and started plotting how they might get even with Him.” Luke 6:6-11 (The Message).

Another nail in His coffin! The religious types were becoming more and more enraged with Jesus. What raised their wrath against Him?

Wherever He went, He bumped into need after need after need — people who were enslaved by all kinds of things; demons, deformities, diseases and, worst of all, the burdens that their own so-called spiritual leaders put on them which God never intended for them to carry. These things enraged Jesus as much as His compassion angered them.

Here was another stand-off — on the Sabbath — another set-up in the synagogue and they waited to see what He would do. He had already cut them down to size by defending His disciples against their accusation of “working” on the Sabbath by rubbing grain in their hands. Now it was His turn. Jesus would never turn away from need, and they knew it.

Jesus didn’t need to read their minds. He only needed to look at their faces and read their body language to know what they were thinking. I think He was having fun. ‘What should I do?’ He shot at them, ‘Leave the man in his suffering just because it is a day called “Sabbath” or heal him because the Sabbath is as good a day as any to be kind?’

The hyper-religious ones didn’t even answer. They couldn’t without exposing their wicked hearts. Then, to crown it all, Jesus did nothing! He spoke! Was it wrong to speak on the Sabbath? They hadn’t tied that one up with a rule yet! Jesus didn’t even use the word “heal” or any equivalent. What’s wrong with, ‘Get up and stand here before us,’ and ‘Hold out your hand’?

The scribes and Pharisees were floored. Without doing a thing, Jesus healed the man just like that! They had no answer for that one but they were angry anyway; angry because He had got the better of them again, making them look like fools in the eyes of the people; angry because He had shown up their selfish indifference to the suffering of others; angry because He had ignored their rules and they were always right, so they thought; probably angry most of all because they could not understand how He did what He did and they were not willing to admit that God was working through Him.

The Pharisees aside, what was Jesus teaching by His actions, to us as well as to those who were with Him? Sabbath is much less about going to church as it is about reaching out to people in need. Sabbath is about resting from our own work to do the work of God. Sabbath is not about a day. It’s about a lifestyle, resting in the work of Jesus that frees us from slavery to our own selfish ways so that we look beyond ourselves to lift the burden off other people’s shoulders.

Jesus was insisting that righteousness is not about not doing wrong but doing right; not abstaining but taking action for those who had no power to act for themselves. He defined wickedness, not as doing wrong, but as not doing right. The rich men in His stories were charged with greed and indifference, one for hoarding his bounty instead of sharing, and the other for ignoring the poor man at his gate.

What about you? Are you a stickler for laws, or are your eyes and ears open to the poor?

 

 

Not Rules But Rest

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NOT RULES BUT REST

“On a certain Sabbath Jesus was walking through a field of ripe grain. His disciples were pulling off heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands to get rid of the chaff, and eating them. Some Pharisees said, ‘Why are you doing that, breaking a Sabbath rule?’

“But Jesus stood up for them.’Have you never read what David and those with him did when they were hungry? How he entered the sanctuary and ate fresh bread off the altar, bread that no one but priests were allowed to eat? He also handed it out to his companions.’

“Then He said, ‘The Son of Man is no slave to the Sabbath; He’s in charge.'” Luke 6:1-5 (The Message).

Always a contentious issue — the Sabbath! This time it was the disciples who were in trouble with the Pharisees, not Jesus.

The Sabbath was God’s gracious gift to His people and a reminder that He also rested after completing His work of creation.

When He had rescued them from slavery in Egypt, He reminded them of the Sabbath and built it into their marriage contract at Sinai, firstly as sign of His covenant with them, and secondly to provide the weekly cycle of six days of work to one day of rest to remind them that they were not machines but humans, and that rest was as necessary for them as their work.

So overzealous had their rabbis become over the years that they had turned the people into slaves of the Sabbath, hedging it up with so many petty rules that they had forgotten its real purpose. Instead of a day of rest, it had become a day of “don’t do this; you are not allowed to do that,” until they could hardly move for rules. And the Pharisees were the self-appointed “policemen “of their yoke!

Jesus was never a slave to their prescriptions or their opinions. His yoke was one of kindness and mercy as a mirror of the disposition of His Father. He had not come to reinforce their petty religious nonsensical traditions which had no value in either honouring the Father or helping the people to love and care for one another. He had come to show them what God is like and to teach them how God runs His realm.

They said, ‘It’s better to starve than break our rules, and our rules say that picking grain and rubbing it in your hands is reaping, and reaping is work.’ Jesus said, ‘My disciples are hungry and God is more concerned about that than about rules.’ To illustrate, He drew their attention to what their own great king, David, did when he was hungry. He did what was even more glaringly wrong in their estimation. He actually broke a law of God, not even one of theirs, and nothing happened to him.

So then, what is the Sabbath and how does it apply to us now? Sabbath has significance in two ways — a creation ordinance of God to provide us with a regular day of rest once a week, and a prophetic picture of the rest from our religious “labour” that God has provided. Jesus invites us into a permanent rest from trying to gain access to God by our own futile efforts.

No amount of trying or “doing” will ever be enough, but Jesus did it for us by getting rid of our sin and giving us access to the Father as His sons and daughters. Sabbath is no longer a rigid, religious, one-day-a-week rest, but a permanent and perpetual rest of faith in Christ that sets us free from observing laws in order to gain God’s favour.

We are now God’s sons and daughters, no longer lost and in a far country. We have come home to Father’s house and can lively freely with Him as His children, not as slaves.

Have you come home to His rest?

 

 

The Bridegroom Is Here!

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THE BRIDEGROOM IS HERE!

“They asked Him, ‘John’s disciples are well-known for keeping fasts and saying prayers. Also the Pharisees. But you seem to spend most of your time at parties. Why?’ Jesus said, ‘When you are celebrating a wedding, you don’t skimp on the cake and wine. You feast. Later you may need to pull in your belt, but this isn’t the time. As long as the bride and groom are with you, you have a good time. When the groom is gone, the fasting can begin. No one throws water on a friendly bonfire. This is Kingdom Come.

‘No one cuts up a fine silk scarf to patch old work clothes; you want fabrics that match. And you don’t put wine in old cracked bottles, you get strong, clean bottles for your fresh vintage wine. And no one who has ever tasted fine aged wine prefers unaged wine.'” Luke 5:32-39 (The Message).

What was that all about? Weddings; wine; mending old clothes? How did that answer their question about fasting and prayer?

John was the last of the Old Testament prophets, who had faithfully practised and taught his disciples the requirements of the religious system he represented. Part of the ritual was the daily prayers and the required fasting which he and his disciples had engaged in while he was alive. He had not been a disciple of Jesus in the sense of following Him as the Twelve were doing.

Although Luke did not record the circumstances of John’s death, we can assume that by this time Herod had killed him, and that his disciples were continuing where he left off.

Those who questioned Jesus had noticed the difference between John’s and Jesus’ disciples. While John’s followers were practicing their religion, Jesus and His disciples seemed to be a happy-go-lucky lot, going to banquets and feasting instead of fasting.

Jesus answered, using the imagery of the Old Testament Scriptures. Wine and weddings were familiar pictures of Israel and her relationship with God. At Sinai after their deliverance from Egypt, God invited His people into a marriage relationship with Himself, using wedding talk to engage their understanding of how He viewed the union He desired to have with them.

The life He offered them to return to, in spite of their persistent waywardness and spiritual adultery, was like spicing up their lives with wine. “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.” Isaiah 55:1 (NIV).

On the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came, the followers of Jesus were accused of being drunk, and they were — on the new wine of the Holy Spirit! Jesus had not come to patch up an old, worn-out religious system with “a silk scarf”. He had come to bring something altogether new, so radical in its newness that it could never be poured into the old wineskins of rules and ritual, which is what Judaism had become, another “ism” of performance which most of them could not keep up.

The kingdom of God is a kingdom of joy and celebration. They had to learn that their God is a joyful, glad God, not a mad or sad God. This was all about a wedding and at a wedding no one fasts! When Jesus turned water into wine at a wedding, He made enough of the best quality wine to keep the celebration going for many days.

Jesus had lit a fire because the kingdom of God had arrived, and He wanted no one to put it out by dousing it with old rigid practices that extinguished its joy. The wedding feast had begun, the new wine was flowing, hearts were being set ablaze because the Bridegroom had finally come!

Where do you fit in? Are you still clinging to the old stuff that makes you want to abstain? Come, join the party because the Bridegroom is here.

Do You Know You Are Sick?

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DO YOU KNOW YOU ARE SICK?

“After this He went out and saw a man at his work collecting taxes. Jesus said, ‘Come along with me.’ And he did — walked away from everything and went with Him.

“Levi gave a large dinner at his home for Jesus. Everybody was there, tax men and other disreputable characters as guests at the dinner. The Pharisees and their religion scholars came to His disciples greatly offended. ‘What is He doing eating and drinking with crooks and “sinners”?’ Jesus heard about it and spoke up, ‘Who needs a doctor; the healthy or the sick? I’m here inviting outsiders, not insiders — an invitation to a changed life, changed inside and out.'” Luke 5:27-31 (The Message).

Levi? A tax man? Jesus called him? And then Levi throws a party and invites all the scum from the underworld? And Jesus goes there?

What was He thinking? And then He actually eats with them? Isn’t that taking things a bit too far? Jesus was the God-man remember, and God was eating with them!

We are so used to reading the story that it doesn’t impact us like it impacted those religious men. How could this Jesus, who said He was God, whom Habakkuk said was of purer eyes than to look at evil, actually sit down and eat a meal with known “sinners” — people who habitually and deliberately broke the law and did nothing about it? They probably never went near the Temple, let alone offered a sacrifice to atone for their wickedness.

To share a meal with someone in that culture had great significance. You never ate with someone with whom you had issues. Eating a meal was a signal to everyone around that you were reconciled. God reconciled? To these people?

By celebrating with the “outsiders”, Jesus was making a profound statement. God and sinners were reconciled! But how could that be? Where was the sacrifice? He was there, with them, right before their eyes — the Lamb of God, slain from before the foundation of the world, taking away the sin of the world. The world? Yes.

These despised outcasts were just as much sons of God as the scribes and Pharisees who thought they had exclusive rights to God because of their “performance”. In Jesus’ story of the “prodigal son”, both sons were in the far country, the younger one in body and the older one in attitude. For the father, it was more difficult to win his older son back than the younger because he was so convinced that he was right.

Jesus not only taught but He showed that God is far less concerned about what people do as He is about who they are. On the basis of the atoning sacrifice of His Son, the Father receives whoever is willing to come home because they are sons and daughters — wayward yes, but nevertheless His children. “‘For in Him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your poets have said, ‘We are His offspring.'” Acts 17:28 (NIV).

That was something the Pharisees could not understand because they based everything on their performance, especially what they did for public scrutiny. What was in their hearts was unseen and therefore irrelevant, so they thought.

Jesus’ little barb must have hit home because they had nothing more to say. ‘It’s the sick who need healing, not those who think they are well.’ The greatest of all tragedies was that they were blissfully unaware of how sick they really were. It’s those who think they are okay who need the healing the most.

It’s better to be honest than to be fooled. The riff-raff of society in Jesus’ day welcomed Him because they knew how sick they were. There was a connection because He responded to their honesty. He could not connect with the religious people because they had built a wall of pretence they were not willing to demolish and only they could break it down.

What about you? Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.

Where Was The Sacrifice?

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WHERE WAS THE SACRIFICE?

“That set the religion scholars and Pharisees buzzing. ’Who does He think He is? That’s blasphemous talk! God and only God can forgive sins.’ Jesus knew exactly what they were thinking and said, ‘Why all this gossipy whispering? Which is simpler: to say ‘I forgive your sins,’ or to say ‘Get up and start walking?’ Well, just so it’s clear that I’m the Son of Man and authorised to do either, or both…’ He now spoke directly to the paraplegic: ‘Get up. Take your bedroll and go home.’ Without a moment’s hesitation, he did it — got up, took his blanket, and left for home, giving glory to God all the way.

“The people rubbed their eyes, incredulous — and then also gave glory to God. Awestruck, they said, ‘We’ve never seen anything like that!'” Luke 5:21-26 (The Message).

Aha! Now it’s clear what the scribes and Pharisees were up to. They were not after Jesus because they loved His teaching or what He was doing. Far from it. They had a more sinister motive for following Him from one end to Israel to the other.

At this early stage in His ministry they had already recognised Him to be a threat to their cushy lives. Instead of applauding Him for rescuing a man from his miserable existence, they pounced on Him for “blasphemy”.

Well, from their point of view, it must have been exactly that. No man had the right to declare anyone else’s sin forgiven unless, of course, he was a priest and the offender had offered the appropriate sacrifice prescribed by the law. But Jesus was forgiving sin as though He were a priest — and where was the sacrifice? They were outraged at His audacity. Wouldn’t you be? But wait a minute. Jesus? Sacrifice? Makes you think!

Then He went and poured fuel on the fire by sending the man home, walking! That put the cherry on the top! He challenged them and they lost. He couldn’t do that unless He had the authority and power from God to heal a man. That meant that He also had the authority to forgive sins, and that pulled the rug from under them.

The people, on the other hand, loved what Jesus was doing. They had nothing to lose and everything to gain by listening, watching and believing in Him. He was so different from their religious leaders who nit-picked about everything and added more and more petty rules to burden their lives. They were excited about what God was doing. They were not interested in theological skirmishes when they were seeing God at work in front of their very eyes.

But what about the paraplegic? It took the determined faith of his four friends to get him in front of Jesus but after that they could do no more for him. It was over to him. What would he do? Hearing Jesus say, ‘I forgive your sins,’ was easy. He didn’t have to do a thing — or did he? Even that took faith and prepared the way for the next step — ‘Get up and walk.’

But what did his sins have to do with his paralysis? As a Jew he was obliged to offer sacrifice for the forgiveness of his sins, but as a paraplegic it was impossible for him to do that. After years of being stuck on a sleeping mat, what a mountain of sin he must have carried on his conscience! But now he was being told that his sin was forgiven — and what’s more he felt it!

With an inner peace he had never experienced in his life, he could activate his unresponsive body in an instant in response to Jesus’ instruction, and that happened too! It took his faith to step into forgiveness and healing.

The scribes and Pharisees were dumbstruck. They had nothing to say to counter His visible proof of His claim — “Son of Man” — and they knew what that meant! But instead of fuelling faith, it only fuelled angry hatred and made them even more determined to do him in, if they could only find a way.

What do Jesus’ words and actions say to you? Do you say that He is the Son of God? It’s a question you and I will have to answer — eventually.