1 John 4:7-21
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.
By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Saviour of the world. God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. So we have known and believe the love that God has for us.
God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgement, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us. Those who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.
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Did you ever write love letters? Send them to the person you loved. Did you keep any of those letters?
I did. I kept most of the letters Lindsay sent me and she saved a lot of the notes I sent to her. We wrote all sorts of love letters to each other. You know the sappy kinds with poetry and ones that were emblazoned with flowers and hearts and I don’t even want to tell you what the ones Lindsay sent me were like.
We still write each other love letters but they have changed over the years. Our Love is very different today that when we first got married almost 6 years ago it is very different from when we started dating as juniors in high school.
But those love letters we sent all those years ago are such sweet reminders of all the way we have come. They remind us of where it all started and all the ways we have grown and changed over the years. Those reminders are cherished memories. They are hallmarks of our life together. They represent different points in our life together.
Those love letters are special. I try to look over them regularly because we all need reminders about the ones we love.
We all need to have some love letters in our life something we can turn to and remember the love that someone has for us. Not all of the love letters are written on
paper as poems or flowers other are gifts, certain places, or smells.
I am convinced that God is in the love letter business. Because God is Love.
God’s love is vast and welcoming, the truest nature of God is that God is love and God’s love is for us all the time.
Many of you have probably heard it before but I want it to settle differently with you today.
Love is a word that is very flexible in meanings in the English language. He loves Jelly beans, to you love Elvis, to we love our dog, She loves her best friend, I love my Children, My wife loves me, or God Loves you.
Each of those things or people are loved in a different way to different degrees. The love I have for jelly beans does not compares to the love I have for my children.
In the same way God’s love for us is not for us the same as ours is for God or that our love for a spouse is.
God’s love is never failing. In greek the Language that the New testament was written in there were several words for love. The word for God’s love is Agape which is different from all other types of love in substance and function.
God is Agape I Corinthians 13:4-7 says it this way “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”
God is love. It is God’s very nature. The best thing about all this is that God is Giving love away every moment of every day. God is writting love letters every moment of the day addresed to you hoping that you will recieve it and come and abide with Him.
Abide and make a home within yourself for God as you are filled with the very stuff of God. Your love and Joy are the reflection of God to others. And you can become people who by sharing the surpassing love of God with others a person who sees God become larger in their own heart.
Learning that God loves you and teaching it to others is not the sort of lesson you teach like you would geometry or how to avoid run on sentences. You don’t have to be smarter than anyone else you don’t have to have any money. This sort of lesson is learned and taught by the way that you chose to live your life.
Some of the worlds greatest saints are people whose names are not going to be recorded in record books or novels. But they will never be forgotten by those people whose lives they touch. I am sure you can think of a person who was the embodiment of God to you by their generous compassionate love.
Those are subtle lessons at times some time we are to young to totally understand what is being done for us. But We can allways learn about love we should always be on the look out for God’s next love letter to us.
I dont expect to go into my yard to night and see written in the stars a message saying Kory Trinrud you are uniquely and wonderfully made I love you and care about you. But As I look up into the sky at night I know God has personalized a love letter for me and set it at my feet.
All I have to do is open it and know that God is good and God is love and when we abide in his love we are perfected along the way in our love for him and for others so we can teach with our lives the wonderful lesson that God is Love.
1 John 3:1-8
See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.
Everyone who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he was revealed to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Everyone who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. Everyone who commits sin is a child of the devil; for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The Son of God was revealed for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.
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When I was in college I worked with Athens First UMC in international student ministry. We had regular groups of international students we took on trips across Ga and we hosted a number of events for the students.
One of the events we had was a question and answers about Christianity session and showed a movie based on the book of Matthew on the life of Jesus. Afterwards one of the Indian students who was raised hindu but was nonreligious, spent most of the night quizzing me about sin.
This gentleman was asking me how it was we could not somehow work off our sins to make amends for what we have done and asked why christians believe that sin and good works are not equal weighted sides of the same coin.
He did not feel that he was sinful because he had lived a good life and had done good works for most of his life and had not committed any crimes therefore he was not in need of repentance.
It took my best efforts to try to explain to him what it is that Christians believe about sin. I hope that God forgives me for whatever errors I might have made in that effort.
I umm and ahh my way to an answer. I think about what I said today and realize that I just didn’t understand the question. I have also come to the realization that it is not a question that he alone has but most christians dont understand sin rightly.
I think many people would think to themselves that very same thing as my friend from India. I am no criminal I’m not so bad.
It is easy to think like that and miss out on what we are actually supposed to be focused on. These self defenses strategies are tragically flawed because instead of realizing that we need to change our behavior we try to think our way out of trouble.
Sin is lawlessness and we are called as Christians to be children of righteousness.
John tells us that it is impossible to be both lawless and righteous at the same time. We cannot become righteous without the intervention of Jesus Christ. We are righteous by his intervention in our life and in our world that has broken the ways of lawlessness and allows us to follow righteousness.
Christ makes us able to live righteously. But lawlessness is a only a step away at any given moment.
Because sin is still in our world and we are often careless as we follow Jesus down the roads.
Sin is a problem in our world in at least two distinct ways.
The first is that we are born into a sinful world and the effects of sin impact us from birth. We are born into a world that wants to weave a web to trap us and keep us enslaved and hopeless.
Even those who are sheltered from pain find that the effects of sin impact their life at some point. Sin creates ripples in relationship webs and distorts and destroys in ways that no one can ever control. An example would be how public or corporate greed extorting wealth makes and keeps a class of people poor. Or how a government would write laws that are unjust and destroy lives. Or people who profit off the addictions of others. None of these things are practically one person’s sin they are the sins of society that we all participate in on some level.
This sort of sin requires consciousness of all our habits and choices. The idea is that you should do no harm. a remarkably difficult thing to do in practice because it requires being very conscious of not doing unconscious harm to any one.
The other type of sin is the sort of lawlessness that we associate with the ten commandments. Still with that it is no easy task to be righteous to avoid sin because the standards are not only to avoid committing crimes but to do good and to love as you have been loved.
I think that it is a hard line to draw in the sand. John seems to talk about how we are either sinful and children of the devil or we are righteous and children of God. But that is a very simplistic reading.
I believe that we are all ensnared by the devil who operates like a spider trapping us in a web of lies and half truth. And for all our struggling to work our way free we find that we are even more trapped by the web because we cannot resolve the problems of the systems or even love our friends and family perfectly.
So we say we must not be trapped but rather be mistaken about things and if we only work harder it will be better.
But the thing is that we cannot do it only Jesus Christ the perfect one was able to live free of the traps of the devil.
Our work of righteousness is purely work of repentance. Repentance is about turning to face God.
I think about repentance like driving a car. If i’m going to head to Atlanta and I get on 85 south I am going to have to turn around at some point to get there and no amount of driving south is going to get me there. I will need to turn the car in the right direction.
But once I get going north I am no finished driving. We still need to make those slight turns to follow the road to stay in our lanes or to pass the semis.
Repentance and the path of righteousness are things that go hand and hand. It is by acknowledging that we are a wrong step away from getting trapped in that spider web that we are able to avoid being trapped and stuck for good.
Righteousness is an elusive things that requires constant attention. We must renew our strength in the Lord every morning.
Yesterday there was an incredibly rare occurence a man pitched a perfect game in the majors. Phil Humber he is just the 21st person to have done this. He had no hits no runs no base runners. It is one of the most difficult things to earn in all of sports. It requires attention to every pitch from first to last.
It is no easy task to be perfect and it is no easy thing to be righteous. Both require endurance, power and attention to details. Thankfully God is with us every step to call us to hope to believe that we can live the righteous life.
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| St. John |
1 John 1:1-2:2
We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us— we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.
This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.
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Over the next six weeks We are going to be going through the book of 1 John. This Book of the Bible was a letter written by John the apostle to an early Christian community. It was written to combat a rising tide of false teachings called Docetism. This was a movement that rejected the bodily nature of Jesus. Saying that he was just Spirit who came and taught.
This was a major problem for the early church. These men along with others who taught similar things were misleading Christians and teaching that Christianity was about only the spiritual life and that the body was a evil thing to be overcome.
John wants to dispel this thinking he does this by writing about his real experience with Jesus Christ and how he had seen heard and touched Jesus.
John talks about how these are the things that he knows about because he has seen and meet with Jesus. He is able to know all these things because they were the things that Jesus himself taught him.
These are the things John can testify to he has experienced them first hand. He knows that Jesus has come to make our Joy complete to show us that God is the light to the world and that we can turn from sin and walk in the light.
That is a testimony that you can trust. One of the witnesses to the life of Jesus talking about the meaning of that life.
This passage is very heavy on this notion that there is confidence in the testimony of John.
But we are reminded that we also have a testimony to the reality of Jesus Christ in our lives everyday too. Our testimony may not be that we walked and talked touched and saw Jesus daily throughout his ministry but we all have testimony to him if we are following him.
Testimony is an interesting thing because it is in the end the only thing we can talk about when it comes down to things. The way we live our life and the things we see and say are the only ways that we can know God.
I think that we don’t spend enough time considering our testimony. Our testimony is the on going story of how God is involved in our life. It is vital that every Christian know their testimony.
John Knows what his is his testimony is to the life that Jesus lived before him and his reflections on how the life of Jesus effected his life forever after.
He realized through Jesus that God is the light of the world and that People walk in the darkness of sin but that they don’t need too they can come into the light and they will be full of joy for the release from the bonds of slavery to Sin.
Testimony is a varied thing it is as unique as each person is unique. Each unique persons story adds to the unfolding glory of God’s story. As we tell our story we find that God is using our story and the stories of others to weave a tapestry with a myriad of colors and hundreds of thousands of intersecting strings. We can only see small pieces of this master piece but when we get a glimpse here and there it can take our breath away because God is light and is illuminating the whole world.
I have recently developed a fascination with documentary films I think that I could watch documentaries most every day and every time I see one I come away something unique.
There is something powerful about looking at the depth of human experience where you cannot help but see the face of God when you look for it.
One of the most fascinating stories I encountered recently was the story of Temple Grandin. Her story is fascinating Temple was born with autism. She didn’t speak for the first four years of her life. But Temple was born with a very unique mind. She had a photographic type of memory. She said she does not think in words but in pictures. Temple earned a Phd at a time when many people with autism were institutionalized.
Temple re-designed cattle stockyards and slaughterhouses so that cattle were kept from dying or from being injured before they were butchered. She revolutionized and modernized the cattle industry. A person who doctors wanted to institutionalize. Her mind worked so uniquely that she was able to see things differently and revolutionize an industry. Today she lectures around the world on autism and animal science.
She talks about how she did these things because she wanted her life to make a difference. She wanted her life to matter for something. She was able to make an impact on the world and on individuals and families with autism spreading hope and widening understanding. She shares what she has done as a person living with this condition as a testimony of hope to families with children with autism and to children who have autism she is person they can look up to.
I believe that Temple’s life it a testimony to her parents courage and dedication and to an education system that didn’t give up. And a sign that God Uses unique people to testify to his kingdom and to help usher it closer here on earth.
Testimony is a gift from God. John realized the gift he had been given by being able to know and fellowship with Jesus so he had to share it.
What is your story?
Do you feel that your story is not interesting or worth telling?
I sure used to think that to think that what I had to say about my life was not so great. But I realized that God was doing some great things around me I just had to begin to join in God’s unfolding story and allow myself to be woven into the tapestry God is creating.
I don't regret that decision because God has given me a life I am proud to live a life that I believe my children will be proud of and that I hope God will be glorified through.
So what about you what kind of testimony will you have? Will you come and walk in the light? So that Jesus might be reflected?
Turn yourself over to GOd and you will have a testimony of the living God.
Mark 16:1-8
Today we celebrate hope. We announce the hope of the resurrection the knowledge that death is not the end and that we have forgiveness because of the victory of Jesus over death and despair.
The story is one we have heard before a story that always brings fresh hope.
Have you heard the news this morning something strange is going on.
The Spirit has moved and has done something unexpected.
Terror and amazement have struck the women. The have seen something unexplainable.
They went to the tomb this morning to anoint the body of Jesus but they found that massive stone had rolled away the guards were gone and a man in white was standing there.
Shocked they remember him saying, “He has been raised, He is not here.”
Can you imagine the confusion the chaos of emotion.
All the they had gone through with the jubilation of the week and the entrance into Jerusalem. To the drama of the upper room to betrayal of Judas the denials of Peter, The crucifixion, and the death of Jesus all of it seemed so final so over the great expectations they had placed in Jesus had been dashed as the plot to execute him unfolded so quickly and was done so secretly.
However, all the drama of arrest and execution was nothing compared to what would unfold on Sunday morning.
All of history changed on this morning as the women came to the tomb and heard the announcement he is not here he has been raised. He has gone on ahead.
He was raised and we have a new hope that the resurrection of Jesus was the beginning of our salvation.
But for the women who came to the tomb on that Sunday morning all they were thinking about was how they could properly anoint Jesus body for burial. They were thinking how could they roll away that huge stone that blocked the entrance to the tomb.
It was a seemingly impossible task to take that stone and roll it away from the tomb. Certainly they must must have thought something was possible. Why else would they have gone. But hope was not in something in large quantities for them on that particular day.
They still went through to the Grave so they could at least attempt to do something for the body of Jesus to prepare it for burial.
Have you ever had a moment where you felt like the odds were stacked against you and that no matter what you did your efforts would not matter.
I was interested last week to see the hoopla that arose with the people who bought the Mega-millions tickets. The prize money was over half a billion dollars. ANd over-night normally sane people started to lose their minds.
People bought hundreds of dollars in tickets lining up for hours to buy a ticket and a chance at a better life.
I found it fascinating to see people going so crazy over the jackpot. It was one of those occasions where you think to yourself all the things you would do with all that money.
But the chances of winning are incredibly low. Astonishingly low in fact.
Some statisticians worked it out Here is a list of 5 things that are more likely to happen than for you to win the lotto.
You are 305 times more likely to be struck by lightning than you are to win the lotto.
You are 207 times more likely to get dealt a royal flush.
You are 7 times more likely to be dealt a royal flush, bet the winnings on 00 in roulette, and win.
You are 10,336 times more likely to be born albino.
And 3 times more likely to be put on death row and then exonerated
But still many play and a very few win.
They play the lotto because it gives them hope. But it is a distorted sort of hope the hope that is for material wealth for a life of ease comfort and shield from suffering.
This false hope that the we see in our society is in the end an oppressive thing that robs people of life while fooling them with hollow promises of material security.
The hope we have in Christ so fundamentally different, that the hope found in a lotto ticket, in Christ we have the hope for a resurrection of the death and life everlasting.
Hope is a rare thing especially in the face of the knowledge of our certain death.
Most people would plan and work and ignore that knowledge until the last minute until we were on death’s door.
The hope in christ is that we no longer have to fear death because with Christ we have the hope of resurrection the knowledge that Death is not the final word of our life.
One of my favorite analogies of the message of Easter comes from a professor of mine in seminary Tom Long.
He said the Easter message is like captured soldiers in sitting in POW camp huddled around a makeshift secret radio waiting to hear any news of the outside and and through the static the hear the crystal clear message that the war is over the enemy is defeated and their army is coming to liberate the prisons.
Imagine how their lives would be different. There is no more room for fear or anxiety. Their circumstances have not changed but their perspective on circumstances has been turned upside down.
The war is over Easter is here Jesus Christ has defeated death. He has allowed us by his victory to live our life free from doubt and fear to live a life that is not defined by our struggle and hardship but to live a life that is defined by the victory we have in Jesus.
We have a new hope in Easter a real hope. We don’t have the kind of hope that winning the lotto brings with its false security and illusionary comforts. We are not exempted from death by our hope but we can say to death where is your sting where is your victory for I know that because of Christ I will see the resurrection of the dead and the life everlasting.
Jesus’ death was horrific a terrifying thing and as we have reflected on that over the past couple of weeks we have focused on some of Jesus’ final words. His cry of Father forgive them, Today you will be with me in Paradise, it is finished and into your hand I commit my spirit.
I believe it has been a powerful study of those amazing words. But the Story of Easter is that Death no longer has the last word. God has the final word.
Resurrection reminds us that the worst things that happen to us is never the final word.
Though we walk through a world and face certain death, suffering, discomfort and fear. We know that those things cannot define us because we are people of a surpassing hope. We know that God will be with us in all of our trails and will not abandon us at the end.
I know that I never win the lottery. But the empty tomb is hope enough for me.
Maunday Thursday Sermon
Mark 14:32-42
They went to a place called Gethsemane; and he said to his disciples, ‘Sit here while I pray.’ He took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be distressed and agitated. And he said to them, ‘I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and keep awake.’ And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. He said, ‘Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want.’ He came and found them sleeping; and he said to Peter, ‘Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep awake one hour?
Keep awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.’ And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words. And once more he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy; and they did not know what to say to him. He came a third time and said to them, ‘Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? Enough! The hour has come; the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand.’
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I am a night owl. I always have been I have a real hard time getting up early even if early is actually only 7:00. When I was in college I would routinely stay up until 2 or 3 am.
It was never a problem until I had one of those nights where I was trying to stay up to pray. I could never do it no matter what kind of effort I put into it I would change the way I prayed I did other things but before long I would find myself resting in the Spirit.
I can relate to what the disciples must have been feeling on that thursday night after the Holy Supper.
The spirit was willing but the flesh was weak.
It is especially weak after a big meal that lasts late into the night.
I believe that the disciples really wanted to stay awake and pray with Jesus but despite their best efforts they too before long found themselves resting in the Spirit.
The apostle Paul says it like this in Romans 7
I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. And later
For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.
It is difficult to understand for ourselves why we do the things we do. Why do I still hold things against my wife or my friends or my family?
We have a simple but profoundly complex answer from Jesus and from Paul about the nature of humanity.
We are sinful. Our spirit is willing but our flesh is weak.
We cannot possibly do all that we want and more often we find ourselves doing what we hate and hating ourselves for it.
In this passage of Scripture Jesus is a telling us something profoundly important about our nature as humans.
The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. I don’t know that is he chastising his disciples really because he has just been spending the past hours praying to God that the cup of suffering might be taken from him because he could not bear the thought of the terror that awaited him.
It is a very human moment for Jesus. He is in need of the comfort of his friends and the encouragement that came from knowing they are praying for him.
Jesus prays here in the garden in a way that is so human it inspires us. The spirit is willing but we are weak.
But you know Jesus was able to conquer his fears. He is able to face his time of trial. He does this even though he was fully human. He leans on the spirit of God to sustain him.
He tries to encourage his disciples to do the same to lean on the power of the Holy Spirit to stay awake and pray with him.
Let your willing Spirit rest in Jesus.
That is what Jesus placing his future in the hands of God. Saying not my will but your will be done LORD. My spirit is willing but my flesh is weak I wish that this cup would pass away from me.
This struggle within Christ must have been one that was very intense because as he prayed here it is recorded that he was sweating blood as he prayed.
After he is praying so intensely he comes to speak to his disciples and finds them asleep.
In these last moments Jesus spent with his followers before his crucifixion he shows us one of the things about ourselves that we often want to ignore.
The idea is that we have this propensity to fail to not live up to what we are made to be because of the sin that holds us down and ensnares us.
But Christ reminds us that we are not children of the flesh only. We have the spirit of God within us we are more than the animals we have within us the image of God. We have been blessed with the spark of the divine.
We are freed by God and reminded by Jesus that we dont have to be slaves to sin but when we turn to God and repent we are called children of God.
I have a quote from Marianne Williamson, that I would like to share with you all now.
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?'
Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
Those late nights I used to keep have faded away as I have moved into the adult life. As has the notion of guilt in not staying awake to pray late into the night.
That notion has been replaced by the desire to let my soul rest in the hands of Spirit more often so that I can stop trying to do gods will in my own power but that I might give the power to God who is within me and can do through and with me far greater than I could ever hope to achieve on my own.
Luke 23:32, 39-43
Two others also, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him.
One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, ‘Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!’ But the other rebuked him, saying, ‘Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.’ Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ He replied, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.’
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What were their crimes these men who hung with Christ?
Were they thieves, murderers, revolutionaries? There is no real indication as to their exact crimes but we do know that they are guilty they are not wrongly accused or mistreated by the legal system of the time.
They admit to being guilty they are criminals.
But the one man sees Jesus and asks him to remember him when he gets to his kingdom. Jesus tells him you will be with me today in paradise.
It fits well that Jesus would have one of his final words be a word of reconciliation and offered to sinful marginalized people.
Just days before Jesus had been walking through the streets of Jericho and a man climbed up a sycamore tree so he could get a better view of this man Jesus. The man’s name was Zacchaeus and he was a very rich man he was the chief tax collector.
The other detail that I love for this story is that he was short. Well the text is sort of unclear about who is short. It says that Zacchaeus climbed the tree to see Jesus because he was short. No clear distinction about which of the two was short. Being a man who is somewhat short and who really would like to be more like Jesus I tend to think that it was Jesus who was short.
But Jesus walks up to a normal sized man in a tree and says to him Zach I eating with you today buddy.
Eating with someone in Jesus time was a big deal eating with someone was a acknowledgement of them as a friend.
As the religious people heard Jesus say that he was eating with Zacchaeus they started grumbling saying why does He eat with sinners.
The rumor mill about this rabbi who eats with sinners who would cast out demons and heal the sick, blind and lame.
The effect on Zacchaeus was much different. He immediately came to Jesus and confessed his sins and said, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.”
I liked what Bishop Schnase commented about this story when he was here saying, I wonder what Mrs. Zacchaeus said. You Did What? You gave away half of what we have?
Or maybe she turned to him and said finally there he is the man I married the one who is generous and kind. I have not recognized this man you have become.
We don't know what his wife said but we know what Jesus says.
Jesus responds, ‘Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.’
And he went with Zacchaeus to his house and ate with prostitutes and tax collectors and low lifes. He sought out sinners for it is not the well who need a doctor but the sick.
Jesus came to seek and save the lost. This was his mission on earth to find the lost. He was so much about this mission that even as he died upon the Cross he was seeking out the lost. He was looking for the lost things.
On the cross he found a man lost and in need right next to him and he cared for him and saved him and assuring him of the wonder of being with him in paradise.
There is no formula that the man had to follow. He did not have to pray the sinner’s prayer accept Christ into his heart he didn't have to be baptized or confirmed join the church or form a committee he didn't know anything of doctrine but Jesus welcomed him into the Kingdom.
You know what Zacchaeus didn't do any of those things either really.
Both of these men who were lost all they did was acknowledge their need for Jesus. They realized
Not that any of those things are wrong in themselves but if we think those things make us found we are certainly on the wrong path. It is Jesus Christ who saves us not what we say or do. We are saved by Jesus.
I have told the story before about playing bass in a punk rock band in college. I had a mohawk for a while, the upkeep was too much for me in the end. But I would not have done any of it if it had not been for my good friend and roommate in college who basically told me to buy a bass because we needed on for the band.
I really enjoyed being in the band playing in the bars downtown in Athens. Most of my Christian friends at the Methodist campus ministry thought that they just needed to pray for the bars from inside the church. Some of them who really were brave took sandwiches to the homeless in the evenings.
My college roommate was a Christian like some of those kids in campus ministry could never dream of being. He smoked and drank and cussed. But he knew the names of all the homeless people all the punk kids he knew their stories how their mom beat them or why they had been to prison.
I would come home some days and find people sleeping on the sofa because they had nowhere else to go.
He would buy people dinner when he was having trouble putting gas in his car.
He was a lover of lost people. Maybe because he knew what it was like to feel lost and looking for direction. He didn’t have to say Jesus loves you and pray with people every time he helped them out. That’s what the kids who make sandwiches loved to do. No my friend would just listen and speak words of peace and understanding.
He cared for the addicts and the addled because Jesus Christ had sought him out when he was lost on a dark road on a dark night of the soul.
My Friends at church would talk about staying unstained by the world and fleeing from temptation. But I believe that they for all their piety missed the better things that God would have.
It is hard to love and seek the lost when you have never felt as though you needed to stop and ask for directions.
Many of us are not lost we we have decided to follow Jesus long ago we have prayed the prayers been baptized confirmed we have studied and learned the teachings of Jesus. We have joined the church been on various committees.
But for all of our work on ourselves we have lost sight of the mission of Jesus to seek out the lost and to go the the margins to bind up the broken and to be present for the suffering. To comfort those who endure those long dark nights of the soul.
We have worked so hard to make sure that we resist temptation and that when we have a choice before us we will pick good over evil.
But so often we find that we our choices are not usually choices of good versus evil they are rather choices between; Good, Better and Best.
Wherever you are today you have a choice to make. Will you choose the best that God has for you will you make choices that put you in places where you can seek the lost and the broken.
So that you can Join in on Christ’s mission to the world to seek the lost so that we might be able to say to them today you will be with Jesus in Paradise.
Luke 23:26, 33-34a
As they led him away, they seized a man, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming from the country, and they laid the cross on him, and made him carry it behind Jesus. When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. Then Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.’ And they cast lots to divide his clothing.
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In the next couple of weeks we are focusing on the final words of Jesus that he spoke from the cross.
This is a exercise in which we think about the last things that Jesus said there are 7 things that Jesus is recorded as having said in the hours before his death as he was on the cross and those words are considered to be some of the most significant things that Jesus said.
As we approach Easter We are taking this opportunity to focus on the sacrifice of Jesus as it affects us and how we can live a life that more closely follows what he taught us.
To understand that sacrifice it is good to have first an idea of what that experience might have been like. It is always strange to me to think about the cross and how it has become our identifying symbol. Why do we wear crosses around our necks on tee-shirts put it on all of our logos?
We like to make it clean and pretty. You go to Churches that have the fifty foot tall cross that was made of mahogany and stained a rich dark brown like a nice piece of furniture.
Or we see celebrities and singers with the big gold crosses studded with diamonds edged in platinum.
We go to extremes to clean up the cross. But for me the real beauty of the cross is found in how ugly it was.
The cross was one of the single most terrible executions of the Roman Empire. The cross became for people of the empire a symbol of domination and a reminder of conquest. The Romans did not hesitate to torture and kill the non-citizens and slaves of the empire.
It was way to keep the general population from coming up with any ideas about rebellion, riots, or disorder.
It was effective in terrorizing the public. It was not only a means of executing criminals but also a way to bring maximum humiliation. If any of you have ever seen a crucifix and I would guess that you might be moved to see that depiction of Jesus’ suffering. However, you will likely not see any depiction that is all that close to the reality.
Jesus would not have been given any tighty whities, and prisoners are not allowed to take any bathroom breaks. It would have been dehumanizing and degrading.
The goal of crucifixion was to inflict the maximum amount of agony for the longest amount of time.
The word excruciating is in fact derived from crucifixion. The word means out of the cross.
Cicero the great Roman Senator called crucifixion the “extreme and ultimate punishment of slaves,” and the, “cruelest and most disgusting penalty.” Seneca said if you knew there was the likelihood that you would be arrested and crucified it was better to commit suicide.
It is always odd to think that this would have not been new information to Jesus he would have no doubt seen fellow Jews that were executed in this manner and knew how painful this was.
Yet Christ still faced his cross and allowed people to chain him and beat him and humiliate him and nail him up on that cross. It is hard to imagine Christ being able to do this.
Our text this week follows a witness to the cross Simon the Cyrene a man who was pressed into service of Rome and carried Jesus Cross up the hill to Golgotha. Simon was a unique witness to the crucixition he was in Jerusalem for Passover with his two sons Alexander and Rufus from Cyrene, Lybia.
As they arrived at the hill where Jesus was crucified they stayed perhaps forced to do so by the Roman soldiers who wanted to make them see the horror that would befall all those who opposed the empire or perhaps they were compelled to stay by the manner of the man who was being crucified here.
The man Simon is considered the first African to convert to Christianity and both his sons became followers who are mentioned in mark and Romans as being important members of the early church. Many scholars believe that Luke interviewed Rufus in putting together his gospel account and that He was the one who added this account of Jesus from the cross saying, “Father forgive them they know not what they do.”
Something must have struck them as they watched this public execution. I believe that those words of forgiveness of Jesus to those who were perpetrating these horrendous acts are some of the singularly most powerful that Jesus spoke in his whole ministry.
First I am in awe of Jesus’ ability to forgive the people who have chosen to be so evil as to torture and execute an innocent man. What an amazing God.
I have found that forgiveness is not usually an easy thing. It is easy natural even to resent hate or scheme against those people who wrong us. We are obsessed with getting even and we often think that God wants to take up for us and be on our side so the speak.
But God is not one to take sides. God is the God of all people.
And God forgave us all while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. That is an amazing thing to consider. What does it mean to us to know that Christ forgave us loved us died for us. Have you ever truly considered what this point? God of the universe came and lived with us. So he could show us the power of forgiveness and love over our natural impulses for revenge and hate.
We are all in need of Forgiveness. For we have all sinned turned away from God and we have failed to love our neighbors as ourselves.
You know when Jesus was on that cross and struggling to breathe he offered up a prayer to God for us all when he said, “Father forgive them they know not what they do.”
HE prayed that for those who put him on the cross but he also prayed that for humanity, for all of us he prayed asking God to forgive us because we don’t understand we don’t see all the wicked that we do.
Jesus saw it he understood it and he offers forgiveness to us. Your sins are forgiven because while we were still sinners Christ died for us. We have not earned this but it is a Gift from God, it is Grace from God.
We have the opportunity to respond to Gods forgiveness by living life as people who have been forgiven. We have the chance to forgive and love our neighbors and extend love and grace to those who are unloved and outcast.
This is the very good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
That when we confess our sins God is faithful and just and will forgive our every trespass.
Let’s pray.
