Sermon notes 23.04.2006

Friends, yesterday I had the privilege to preach the word at my church. The sermon notes are downloadable HERE.

Amigos, ayer me tocó el privilegio de compartir la palabra en mi congregación. Si a alguien le interesa, la prédica (en inglés) la pueden descargar AQUI.

Thoughts on the Holy Week, Behold the man!

After the account of Jesus’ trial and torture, Pilatus brings him in front of the crowd and shouts: “Behold the man! Behold your king”. This statement is a key. It has lots of implications for us. Actually, Pilatus is showing a tortured man, but prophetically, he reveals humankind, the state of the fallen humanity as result of sin and evil. That’s how broken men and women look like. That is also what evil and the powers of this age do to God’s image.

It is also political. Human empires only know how to torture and humiliate others! (Similarities with recent facts are not pure coincidence). Even those who were expected to recognise him as king, doesn’t. Nobody wants to see the revealed brokenness of humanity and one’s own life. Empires cannot resist different kingdoms or the challenge of their ways and philosophy. So they have to kill those who oppose, intellectually or militarily. But the Cross, though perceived by the Empire as its own victory, is indeed the place of its own defeat. For once and for all, Jesus defeated the powers of evil and sin. Yes, He inaugurated a Kingdom, but a different one, not from this world but for this world, with the rule of true love, of humble service, of forgiveness of sins and of radical inclusiveness.

It is at the Cross where the true humanity is restored, and creation healed. It is the climax of history, when God, so loved the world that He sent His only Son to give His life for. Just to finalise, I want to quote again Tom Wright:

This is the love which shines out at the very moment when the darkness seemed after all to have overcome the light.

And if it is true that that love must transform our whole lives, our public life, our grasp on truth on the one hand, our dealings with Caesar on the other, this can only be if we are first grasped and transformed by that same love at the very deepest level of our won personalities.

About the picture above:

The picture Forgiven reveals the heart of God toward you. As you look at the painting you see not only Jesus wrapping His arms around a fallen man, you see Him wrapping His arms of mercy around you. Your eyes say, "Jesus is holding a broken sinner." Your heart says, "Jesus is holding me." When you look at the cross you will never need to question if He loves you. He came for you -- He died for you -- He lives for you. What a tremendous price has been paid -- more than all the riches in the entire world. This price was paid so that you could know the joy of being forgiven. ROY LESSIN

The scene of Forgiven is Mt. Calvary. A despairing man has a mallet in one hand and a large spike in the other . Both symbolize that each of us is responsible for Christ's death on the cross. Jesus Christ is holding up this broken man; at Christ's feet are broken chains, representing the sin that was to overcome at Calvary. There is a trace of blood on Christ's hands, and in the place where blood has fallen, lilies have grown.Thomas Blackshear II

Thoughts on the Holy Week, it is all about love

When Jesus is asked in Matthew 22.34-40 and Mark 12.28-34 on what is the greatest commandment of the law, his answer astonishes “love God above all, and your neighbour as you love yourself”. One of the listeners (in Mark’s account of the story) gets the point loving God and the neighbours is worth of all the sacrificial system.

For a first century Jew, the places where heavens and earth intersect were the Temple and the Torah (the Law). Jesus is saying now that the intersection between heavens and earth is love, as the fulfilment of the law, and making hence the Temple unnecessary. This is again a revolutionary concept!

I believe that God created humans as relational beings. Our primary call is to love God and live in loving relationships. That was the original idea pictured in the story of the creation and the Garden of Eden. We were made in God’s image, bearers of His image for every generation. But we know that this only lasted for a limited time, and that sin entered the world and contaminated thereafter all our perceptions of love, of relationships and of the image of God. We are all broken people. Jesus comes to fulfil the requirements of the sacrificial law and start the new creation, by restoring in people the ability to love God, to love others and to love themselves as well. The actions of Jesus are finally the re-humanization of human beings, enabling us to be true bearers of His image.

Psalm 86.11 prays “teach me your way, oh Lord, and I will walk in truth; reunite my soul so I can fear you” (own translation). What a key prayer. The Cross of Jesus is where we are taught how to become humans, where the old ways are nailed and left. The price has been paid. And the Cross is the place where we get the truth, the truth of our identity, of who we truly are in Jesus. Yep, the Cross is the place where the pieces of our broken souls are joint together and ‘reunited’ to enable us to love God, to love our neighbours, and where our true being is restored, so that we can love ourselves as well, since we are God’s creatures, being in process of restoration, but confident that we are His works, hence a reason to praise Him, the Creator and author of each of us.

Psalm 139.14 “I praise you Lord for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are your works, and my soul knows it well”

Jesus’ sacrifice enables us to praise the Lord for whom we are! And of course, the implication is for our entire world. If we can simply live a loving lifestyle, bearing God's image, and being who we truly are, then the Kingdom of God is there!

Blessings!

Thoughts on the Holy Week, political implications

Matthew 22.15-33 is the portion of the Scripture suggested by NT Wright for Tuesday of the Holy Week in his book "The Scriptures, the Cross & the Power of God, Reflections for Holy Week".

This passage is revolutionary itself. The question on the tribute to Caesar and the Resurrection explain both the cleansing of the Temple and the meaning of the Passion. Jesus' answer concerning the taxes makes reference to a "anti-tax" movement, lead by a certain Judas some 20 y before, and that already claimed the Kingdom of God as their motto. Helas, Judas and his followers were crucified and the movement banished. However, in the hearts of people, the ideas of the Kingdom and about resurrection were growing echoing the prophets (like Daniel). Resurrection meant, and still means, not only a small place of heaven assured after death, but it implies God putting things in order and restoring from now on. That's the Day of the Lord, or the last days, that we are living since the Resurrection of Jesus! Resurrection as explained by Jesus implies transformation into a new mode of bodily life.

Of course, Jesus' answer on what is owed to the Caesar should be seen in that perspective. He was the Messiah, the true King, bringing a different kingdom, not born in the depth of the seas, but in God's heart. And of course, His kingdom had to struggle against Caesar's! The coin's legend in the side with Caesar's face was "Tiberius Caesar, Son of God, Son of the Divine Augustus" while in the other together with an image of goddess Pax (peace) was the legend "Pontifix Maximus". That was the offering of the worldly kingdom, wealth and "peace" as long as one did not disagree with it or question it ... similarities with the picture above? The powers that are not divine, are however ordained by God, and must hence be respected and held to account by God's people!

Jesus calls the powers of the age to account, but not with a military revolution, but by redefining power (political and religious), as a serving power! Through His sacrifice He brings the true peace to his followers and generations to come.

I just want to quote Bishop Wright's conclusion:

Put the Caesar-question and Sadducee-question back together, and what do we find? We find Jesus, on the way to the cross, drawing together upon himself the great evils of the world, the imperial systems with their financial demands, and the great hopes of the world, hopes for God to release the slaves, to raise the dead, to set the world to rights. The Scriptures give us the grounding for this hope; the power of God assures us that it will come. That message provides both the deeply personal meaning of Holy Week and the deeply political meaning for today in a world that still groans under the slavery of the empire's financial demands.

Hopefully, more will come!

Be blessed,

Armando

Thoughts on the Holy Week

For many Christian traditions this period of the year is devoted to think and reflect on a particular part of the Scripture: the days preceding the death of Jesus at the Cross and to finalise with the climax of history, the Resurrection of Jesus. And so, I found it's a good occasion to write some thoughts about.

The Gospel of John makes a clear account of the days. E.g. "On the sixth day before the Passover feast" (John 12.1), he was anointed by Mary, and later on he entered in Jerusalem (v 12-19) as the coming King. I think that John's gospel makes often links to the book of Genesis, like the first verses of John 1 that bring your mind to the first verses of Genesis 1. And they are therefore speaking of creation. Genesis speaks about the creation of natural things, John, points to the cosmic event of the new creation, and the joining of heavens and earth, and the coming of the Kingdom of God.

When Jesus started his ministry, he announced the nearness of the Kingdom of God. And as we can see during this week, he embodied that announcement.

Now, the story between Israel and God is the story of God's people rebelling against God, and being punished for it with exiles and slavery; but it is always the story of God coming to rescue and save his people, and to restore them. Keeping this in mind, Jesus comes with the announcement of the Kingdom, the time is fulfilled, the Kingdom of God is at hand. Finally, heaven and earth will converge in a unique action that will be the final defeat of all powers of evil.

So the first thing when we see Jesus being anointed by Mary, someone who by listening to Jesus understood what was going to happen, we see the preparation for the most important event in history, that would be performed by Jesus, the only one who could do so. The next day, he enters Jerusalem in a donkey, and he is greeted as King. Subversive, because there was indeed a king in Israel those days, and a roman emperor too! But the King comes on a donkey ... strange figure, since the expectations of 1st century's Israelites were a victorious warrior Messiah, not a humble man sitting on a donkey. When God comes, apparently he never comes as expected by human beings. After that, he cleanses up the temple. Oups, again doing what it was an attribution of kings to do. Solomon and Nehemiah built temples; Hezekiah and Josiah cleansed the temple and celebrated the Passover!

The temple stood as the place for the forgiveness of sins (individual and collective), and the place where God's presence was expected to be. It was a place where both heaven and earth converged. Jesus is claiming temple rights: he forgave sins and spoke of knowing the Father and listening to Him.

But of course, so many pointing to a different Kingdom were also accompanied by a clear challenge to the powers in place particularly the Roman Empire. All his teachings could be summarised in "love God above all, and your neighbours as you love yourself". This idea challenges the understanding of power pointing to being servants to others instead of oppressing others!

More will come soon!