Sermon: I Believe in The Life Everlasting

I Believe in the Life Everlasting

John 6:53-68 NIV

⁵³Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. ⁵⁴Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. ⁵⁵For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. ⁵⁶Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. ⁵⁷Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. ⁵⁸This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever.” ⁵⁹He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.

⁶⁰On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”

⁶¹Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you?⁶²What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! ⁶³The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. ⁶⁴Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. ⁶⁵He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him.”

⁶⁶From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

⁶⁷“You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve.

⁶⁸Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.

The Last Line of the Apostles’ Creed

We’re almost there!  Today we look at the last line of The Apostles’ Creed — I believe in the life everlasting.  And so the Creed that began with Creation — I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth — now ends without an end.  We affirm our belief today that this life is not all there is, that there is a life that extends beyond our ability to see or know completely and that is the life everlasting.

You will remember that last week we spoke about the resurrection of the body.  We discovered that we are not disembodied spirits — that’s Greek or Roman thought, not Christian theology — but rather we are given new bodies, changed bodies, spiritual bodies unlike anything we can imagine.

Some scholars speculate that this line of the Creed was added at a later date, and that is entirely possible.  The reason it was added, some think, is because in both Greek and Latin the word for “resuscitatation” and “resurrection” are the same.  But there is a big difference in the two ideas.

Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha, was resuscitated.  Jesus brought him back from the dead — and he really was dead and everybody knew it.  But Lazarus died again.  So, perhaps some of Jesus’s followers were confused at the idea of the resurrection of the body.  It’s great to be raised from the dead, but were they going to die again?

This last phrase clarifies and expands on the phrase we looked at last week — “I believe in the resurrection of the body.”  So, not only are we going to be raised from the dead, we aren’t going to die again.  That’s the whole point of “resurrection” — resurrection is the defeat of death and the triumph of life, and this phrase in the Creed affirms that the resurrection life in Christ goes on forever — everlastingly.

But what of this life everlasting?  The renowned skeptic and atheist, Bertrand Russell, said that the worst thing he could think of was an eternity that did not end because it would be incredibly boring.  I must agree with Russell in the sense that I do not look forward to eternity either if it’s going to be boring.  Fortunately, the life everlasting is not boring.  Let’s take a look at what we can find out about it from the passage we read today, and from others as well.

The Life Everlasting Is Given by Jesus and Sustained by God

Jesus is teaching at the synagogue in Capernaum, the city he went to after he was rejected in his hometown, Nazareth.  There is some support for the ancient belief that Simon Peter’s house was in Capernaum, and that Jesus stayed there while in the city.  In Capernaum the ruins of a 4th century synagogue were found about 1900.  But, it was almost 100 years later that archaeologists discovered that the 4th century synagogue had been built upon the foundation of a much older structure from the 1st century.  That foundation was most likely the foundation of the synagogue in which Jesus delivered this “Bread of Life” message.

This is very early in Jesus’s ministry, and his references to eating his flesh and drinking his blood are totally lost on the disciples.  His hearers still don’t get it even when he says —

“This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever.”

They do understand the reference to manna in the desert.  This of course was the way God provided, the way God sustained the lives of the people of Israel during the 40-years they spent wandering from the captivity of Egypt to the promise of the land of Canaan.

You know the story — because they are nomads, pilgrims, they cannot stop to plant and harvest.  God provides from them each day an amount of manna which was sufficient for that day’s provision.  On the day before the Sabbath, God provides two days’ worth so they do not have to do the work of gathering on the Sabbath.

Now flash forward to the New Testament, to Jesus teaching his disciples how to pray.  We call it The Lord’s Prayer, and in it Jesus tells us to pray for God to “give us this day our daily bread.”  Just as God had sustained Israel in the desert one day at a time, Jesus reminds us to pray that God will do the same for us.

And, that daily sustaining comes from God, both now and in eternity.  Jesus is the Bread of Life, and God sustains us in eternity through the work of Christ on our behalf.  In other words, the life everlasting is a life provided by Jesus and sustained by God.  The life everlasting is similar to God’s provision for Israel, but something greater and more lasting than the manna.  After all, those who ate the manna all died.  Those who partake of the life of Christ all live.

The Life Everlasting Is a Difficult Idea

Some of those who heard Jesus had real problems with what he was saying, and John says “many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.”  They turned back to what?  To their old beliefs, to their old way of life, to their old ideas and old fears.

• They turned back because they could not believe that anything greater than the Exodus experience could ever happen to the people of God.
• They turned back because they could not believe in life that goes on forever.  After all the first century was a difficult time.  Life was hard, conditions were rough, mortality was high, hope was in short supply.  This business of another life, a life eternal, a life everlasting was too mystical for them.
• They turned back because they missed the real work of God.

And, here’s where we need to spend some time.  Here’s what most of us have heard and believe:

• God created and loves us, and God has a wonderful plan for our lives.
• Sin has separated us from God.
• God sent Jesus to die on the cross and rise from the dead to bring us salvation.
• Trusting in Jesus is the way to gain eternal life.

Basically, what I have just outlined for you is “The Four Spiritual Laws” or the plan of salvation, as it was called years ago.  And, that’s what we believe.  That’s what I believed when as a 6-year old Primary boy I gave my life to Jesus.  That’s probably what you believed, too, when you accepted Christ and became a Christian.

And, there’s nothing wrong with that.  But there is a more complete way to look at what God is doing, and why we have or need eternal life.

First, eternal life isn’t an after-thought, as in, “Oh, now I’m saved, and so I guess part of the deal is I get eternal life.”  Eternal life is the main thought.

The only problem with the Four Spiritual Laws approach is its like looking through a microscope at a tiny part of the universe.  You can see that part really well, but you really should be looking through a telescope to get the big picture.  Here’s the telescope view of what God is doing and why we need and want life everlasting:

• God did create us, but God also created the world, the universe, the Garden of Eden, all the plants, animals, the earth, the sky, the oceans, the fish, the air, all living things, and us — human beings.  So, we are part of and one of God’s creations.
• Everything is going along just fine in this new world that God has created.  So well, that God sees everything God has made and says after each and every creative act — “That’s good.”
• And when God creates humankind, Adam and Eve, we are the high point, the culmination of creation.  We are uniquely made in the image of God, and God breathes into us the breath of life.  The word for breath and spirit in Hebrew are the same, so in essence God breathes the Holy Spirit into us this new creation we know as mankind.  So far so good.
• God places Adam and Eve in a lush, wonderful fully-stocked garden.  They have to do a little caretaking, but basically all their needs are met, including companionship with God. Everyday, God meets them in the garden.
• Until one day, Adam and Eve don’t show up to walk with God.  God goes seeking for them, finds them hiding because they are ashamed at their nakedness.  God knows what has happened, but God leads Adam to confess that he has sinned, he has disobeyed God.  Adam confesses that he sought to be god himself, rather than obey God.  Of course, Adam tries to lay the whole business off on Eve, but God is having none of it.
• So, everything God has done is messed up.  The Garden of Eden is now off-limits to Adam and Eve.  They whole deal is thrown off track because of the sin of disobedience to God.
• So, God sets about reconciling creation back to God.  God calls people to help accomplish this task.  God calls Noah to save enough of creation so God can begin again.  God calls Abraham to be the father of a great nation.  God calls Moses to lead God’s people out of bondage in Egypt.  God calls David to be king of Israel, and on and on.
• God also calls prophets so God’s voice is always heard, even when the people disobey.
• Then God sends Jesus, God-in-the-flesh, Immanuel, God-with-us to reconcile creation.
• Jesus lives, dies, God raises him from the dead, Jesus ascends back to heaven, and sends the Holy Spirit.
• Jesus calls followers to help proclaim God’s new creation, the new people of God, the new Kingdom of God.  Jesus teaches the disciples to pray “thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
• God is clearly reconciling creation back to God.
• And then, God plans for all of creation to be back in fellowship with God — to be in God’s presence as Adam and Eve were in God’s presence in the Garden of Eden.
• So, we get a glimpse of eternity in several passages of scripture, and one of the more interesting is in Revelation.

“So, what’s the difference in the Four Spiritual Laws, and this?” you ask.

Just this — the Four Spiritual Laws approach focuses the microscope on us — God loves us, our sin is the problem, God sent Jesus for us, God will save us.  And that’s true.

But, a better perspective is the telescope view — Here’s what God is doing.  God is creating, reconciling, and redeeming.  God is at work on the whole of creation, not just us.  God is putting everything to rights again.

Jesus says in the Book of Revelation, ”  Behold I am making all things new.”  Jesus doesn’t say, “Behold, I am making all new things.”  No, Jesus is making all things — all of creation — new again.  Just as it was in the Garden, just as God intended.

Our own personal salvation is a microscopic part of God’s greater plan to fix everything that went wrong.  And we find ourselves being invited to get fixed, and get in on what God is doing for all of creation.

So, I’ve said all of that to say that eternal life doesn’t start when we die.  Eternal life started when God created the world.  We did not exist before our birth, but when we make our appearance on God’s stage, that is when eternal life begins.

The Life Everlasting Isn’t Just About Time

But, the life everlasting, eternal life, isn’t just about time.  We tend to think that eternal life is just about life going on forever.  But it’s more than that.

Eternal life is about life with God.  In Revelation 21:22, John says, “I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.”  In other words, God is right in the middle of his people.

And, this is the New Jerusalem, the New Heaven and the New Earth.  This is creation made again into what it is supposed to be.  But this time, we’re not in a Garden, we’re in a city, a gigantic, three-dimensional city that sings!

And, in the words of the Isaac Watts’s Amazing Grace —

When we’ve been there ten thousand years

Bright shining as the sun,

We’ve no less days, to sing God’s praise,

Than when we’d first begun.

No, everlasting life isn’t about time, it’s about life with God.  It is everlasting because God sustains it.  It is everlasting because the giver is The Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the End.  It is everlasting because His Kingdom shall know no end.  It is everlasting because there is no place else to go, and nothing else to do.  When you’re in the presence of God, there is no other place to be.

And so we sing with the saints who have gone before us —

Come and go with me to that land,

come and go with me to that land,

Come and go with me to that land where I’m bound.

No more crying in that land,

no more crying in that land,

no more crying in that land where I’m bound.

Come and go with me to that land,

come and go with me to that land,

Come and go with me to that land where I’m bound.

Sermon: I Believe in the Church

Here’s the sermon I’m preaching tomorrow as I continue the 13-week series on The Apostles’ Creed.  Tomorrow we come to the phrase, “I Believe in the Church.”  I hope your Sunday is a great one!

I Believe In The Church

¹³When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”

¹⁴They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

¹⁵“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”

¹⁶Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

¹⁷Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. ¹⁸And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. ¹⁹I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”  — Matthew 16:13-19 NIV

Down To Earth Faith

We have come to that part of the Apostles’ Creed concerning the Holy Spirit.  Last Sunday we looked at the statement, “I believe in the Holy Spirit…” and noted that the Creed is divided into three sections.  The first section affirms our belief in God the Father; the second section, our belief in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord; and this section affirms our belief in the Holy Spirit.

The statements in this section are brief, to the point, and packed full of meaning.  Today we come to the statement about the church.  If we pick up the “I believe” part from the opening words of this section, we would affirm, “I believe in…the holy, catholic church; [and] the communion of saints…”

That’s it —  four words for the church, and four more to describe the indescribable relationship of all God’s people, the communion of saints.

But what we also need to notice here is that the scene shifts.  Our attention moves from the past to the present.  From heaven to earth.  From that which is other-worldly, to that which exists now.  We move right down here where we live, to the church.

And, when we say we “believe in the church” we do not mean that in the same way as when we say, “I believe in God the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only, son our Lord.”  We do not even mean it the same way as our affirmation that we “believe in the Holy Spirit.”

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the Persons of the Trinity.  By affirming our belief in them, we affirm they exist, they are unique, and they are worthy of our worship, obedience, and love.  But our belief in the church is different.  When we say we believe in the “holy, catholic church” — or even just “the church” — we are affirming God’s gathering of the church, Jesus as head of the church, and our place in the church here and now, and in the age to come.  This affirmation also means we share a common belief, a common family, a common place with others in the present and coming Kingdom of God.

To say I believe in the church is to say I believe in the people of God, I believe in family, I believe in those who are with me now, those who have gone before, and those who will come after in this crazy, patchwork quilt of humanity touched by God we call the church.  We are not affirming belief in some idea of the church, some abstraction, but in the real church, with all its messiness, failure, and struggle.  We are affirming that God is at work in this church, and in all of God’s churches wherever they are, and whatever they look like.

Some Hints About the Church

We get some hints about the church from this passage we just read today.  Jesus’ ministry is well underway.  The initial euphoria of being with Jesus has faded, and he and the disciples are now in the day-to-day mission of announcing the Kingdom of God with both words and deeds.

But not everyone gets it.  Some have followed for the food.  Some have sought out Jesus for healing, either for themselves or others.  Many have been amazed by his teaching, only to drift back into the routine of their lives without changing what they do.

Others have expressed and acted out their opposition, none more vehemently than in Jesus’ own home town of Nazareth.  There they heard him proudly until he began “puttin’ on airs” and sounding likely a phony, if not dangerous, messiah.  There they ran him out of town.

Of course, the rumor mill was working overtime, as they say.  Imagine life in a community without television, radio, newspapers, magazine, telephone or the internet.  How did people communicate?  Well, they communicated the same way we do today — they talked to each other about one another.  They gossiped, they discussed, they expressed opinions, they drew conclusions, and they sized up the situation.

Jesus, of course, was well aware that people were talking about him.  So, he asked the disciples what they had heard:

“Who do people say the Son of Man is?”

And the disciples gave Jesus the answers he was looking for:

“Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

In other words, people believed that Jesus was somebody extraordinary.  Somebody special.  They said Jesus was a John the Baptist come to life; an Elijah returned as they expected; or a Jeremiah because of the plain, straightforward way he put things.  But, whoever they thought he was, they knew he was somebody special.

But then Jesus asked, “What about you?  Who do you say I am?”

Apparently this put the disciples on the spot because nobody answered immediately.  Maybe they don’t want to hurt Jesus’ feelings because they know Jesus is not John the Baptist because John is dead.  They know he’s not Elijah the Old Testament prophet who was expected to come before the Messiah came.  They know he’s not Jeremiah the fiery Old Testament prophet.  So, they’re at a loss for words.

If they say, “Hey, Jesus, come on.  We know you’re not John the Baptist, or Elijah, or Jeremiah” that sounds they don’t think as highly of Jesus as total strangers do.  But, they can’t figure out what to say, or what Jesus really means by the question.

Of course, brash, talkative, impetuous Simon Peter has an answer.  Peter blurts out —

“You are the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.”

The Bible doesn’t say this, but I am sure all the other disciples are embarrassed for Peter, who has stuck his foot in his mouth again.  “Okay,” the disciples are thinking, “Jesus is a great guy, a terrific teacher, and he does amazing things — but the Messiah?  Come on, Peter, this is way over the top!”

But then Jesus breaks the embarrassed silence.

“You’re right, Peter.  You’re exactly right, and you’ve said more than you even know.  God revealed this to you, not any person.”

Imagine now how all the other disciples feel.  Pretty small.  Kind of like when you were in school and someone answered the teacher’s question with what you just knew was the wrong answer.  But then the teacher says, “Exactly right.  Good work.”  And then you felt like a dope.  Now you know how the other disciples felt.

What Does This Have To Do With Church?

Okay, so that’s a great story, and we can put ourselves right there with the disciples because we would not have done any better than they did playing Jesus’ version of Jeopardy.  But, what does this have to do with the church?  Listen to what else Jesus says to Peter:

¹⁷Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. ¹⁸And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. ¹⁹I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

Without even knowing everything that this means, even the beginner Bible student can figure out Jesus is telling Peter some good stuff.  But, let’s take a moment and figure it out.

First, Jesus tells Peter that “you are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church.”  In English, this can be confusing.  Why is Jesus dragging in a rock?  Where did that come from?

How many of you like a good pun, also known as a “play on words?”  It’s kind of like the helpful phrase I remember the teacher telling us in the third or fourth grade when we were trying to learn when to use the word “to” and how to spell it correctly.  The teacher reminded us that there are “three tos” in the English language.  Which is a pretty cute way to remind yourself to use the right “to,” too!  Okay, enough of that.

Well, this business about “you are Peter” and “upon this rock” is a play on words.  Peter’s name would have been spelled P-E-T-R-O-S — “Petros.”  The word for rock in Greek was  spelled p-e-t-r-a, and pronounced in a similar manner, “petra.”

So, Jesus was really saying, “You’re name is Rock, and on this rock I will build my church.”  Rock, rock — get it?  Okay, I didn’t say it was a funny play on words, but it is one nonetheless.

The main point here is that Jesus will build his church on the rock of Peter’s confession — Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

Of course, our Roman Catholic friends believe that this passage proves that Jesus chose Peter to be the first pope.  Neither history, nor scripture support that assertion.  It would not be until about the third century that the Bishop of Rome would gain ascendancy over the Bishops of Jerusalem, and Alexandria, among others.

And of course, Peter was not a rock.  Peter will deny Jesus, not once, but three times when Jesus is arrested.  So, it is not Peter, or Peter’s faith, or even faith like Peter’s that Jesus was affirming, but Peter’s statement, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”

It is that statement, that belief, that affirmation that is the entry point, the foundation, for belonging to and believing in the church.  No one who does not affirm that “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God” can be part of the church, for the church is the body of Christ.  She is not a club, or a civic organization, or a fraternal order, or a sorority of the like-minded.  The church is the Bride of Christ, the people for whom Christ died, and the presence within whom Christ now dwells.

What Can We Say About The Church?

So, the first thing we can say about the church is — the church is comprised of those who believe that Jesus is God’s Messiah, God’s Anointed One, the savior of the world.  It is not enough to believe that Jesus is  or was a great teacher; members of other religions believe that.  Muslims and Jews both add Jesus to their lists of great ethical teachers.

It is not enough to believe that Jesus was an extraordinary figure, a man-among-men, a uniquely gifted holy man, a mystic who could do strange and wonderful things.  While all of those things might be true about Jesus in some way, that is not why he came to earth, that was not his mission on earth, and that is not his continuing ministry to earth.

Paul said, “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.”  I Corinthians 12:3

But, now let’s move on to what else Jesus says about the church.  Secondly, Jesus says that “the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”  Now, usually we think that this means, “The devil can’t do anything to the church.  Hell can’t hurt the church.  The forces of evil cannot stop the church.”

That’s not at all what this means, although those statements are true.  Here Jesus is saying, “The gates of hell will not be able to stop the church on its victorious march.”

Do you remember the old black-and-white western movies?  Some of my favorites were movies like John Wayne’s Fort Apache, but it could be almost any western featuring the U. S. Cavalry, and Indians.  Of course, we now know that we were stealing the lands owned by native Americans, but that’s not my point.  My point is that in those movies, almost always there comes a time when the fort is under attack and they’re forced to close the gates.

And, for dramatic effect, as the gates are closing, the lone rider who many thought would be lost, comes riding in just in time to get inside the fort before the gates are closed.  Then, the Indians attack, but usually the gates hold and the Cavalry is victorious.

Okay, you’ve got that scene in your head.  Only imagine the fort is hell, hades, the world of the dead, and the church is launching an attack on the gates.  But this time, the gates don’t hold.  The church breaks through, death and hell are defeated, and God’s Kingdom is triumphant.

That’s what Jesus was saying.  The church, his church which he builds on the rock of confession, will triumph.  The church will win.

But Jesus goes on —

“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

The church, built on the rock of confession that Jesus is the Christ, will become a keeper of the keys to the Kingdom.  What are they?  We don’t know exactly and scholars have debated this endlessly.  But we can get some hints by just asking ourselves what keys do.  Keys unlock locks.  Keys open doors.  Keys allow access where before the way was barred.

So, the church holds the keys to the Kingdom of heaven.  For me that means that we have the great privilege and responsibility of opening doors that others cannot open.  We can open a way to God.  We can unlock the gift of eternal life.  We who are in the church hold the keys of life — keys that unlock shackles that bind; keys that unlock prison doors.

And, Jesus says, whatever we unlock on earth, God will consider unlocked in heaven.  In other words, we in the church are acting with the authority of Christ.  We are his representatives, his ambassadors, with full authority to act on behalf of our King.

That’s the church we believe in.  That’s the church universal, the church of all believers from all times and places.  That’s the church of Jesus Christ, with all its earthly imperfections, its faults and failures, that’s the church to which Jesus has entrusted the keys to the Kingdom.

What we do with those keys is up to us.

Sermon: I Believe in the Holy Spirit

Here’s the sermon I’m preaching tomorrow, Sunday, October 25, 2009.  This is the eighth in a 13-week series titled “Why We Need The Apostles’ Creed.” Today we look at the Holy Spirit.

I Believe in The Holy Spirit

²⁵“All this I have spoken while still with you. ²⁶But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. ²⁷Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.  — John 14:25-27

The Third Person in The Creed

I had the opportunity to speak to students at Duke Divinity School this past week, and to meet Dr. Curtis Freeman, who is the director of The Baptist House at Duke.  Dr. Freeman and I had a chance to chat later in the afternoon.  In the course of our conversation, my sermon series on The Apostles’ Creed came up, and Dr. Freeman was curious as to how that was going.  He had read about my intention to preach on the Creed this summer, and emailed me that he was going to be speaking at a conference in Alabama at Samford’s Beeson Divinity School — a Baptist university — on the Nicene Creed.  So, creeds seem to be more and more popular in Baptist life, not because we are in danger of adopting one officially, but because we believe the statements in the great creeds of Christianity.  He also told me that Duke Divinity was hosting Dr. Geoffrey Wainwright, distinguished professor in systematic theology.  Dr. Freeman told me that Wainwright uses The Apostles’ Creed as his outline for his sytematic theology lectures.  Of course, he’s a Methodist, which explains a lot, but nevertheless, I’m not so far out in doing this series after all.

So, let’s get down to business today.  The Apostles’ Creed could be easily divided into three main sections:

1. The section affirming belief in “God the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.”
2. The second second on our affirmation in “Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord,”
3. And, the third section, stating simply, “I believe in the Holy Spirit.”

Two powerful lines in the Creed are devoted to God, and ten lines are devoted to Jesus.  The two lines about God use high content titles to describe God — Father, Almighty, Creator.   Those three words describe our relationship to God; God’s own pre-eminence over everything; and, God’s creative act.

The ten lines about Jesus walk us through his life from his relationship to God, to his conception, birth, suffering, crucifixion, death, burial, descent into hell, resurrection, ascension back into heaven, his position at the right hand of God, and his sure return to judge the living and the dead.  Those ten lines cover a lot of territory, but they also tell a story familiar to us, and a story that forms the heart of the Christian faith.

At first glance, one might look at The Creed and think that there is only one line devoted to the Holy Spirit, and that line is not very descriptive — “I believe in the Holy Spirit.”  Period.  End of sentence.  But actually, a semicolon resides at the end of that phrase, connecting the Person of the Holy Spirit to that which follows.

In other words, our belief in the Holy Spirit acknowledges that it is the Holy Spirit who empowers the church, unites the saints, regenerates sinners, breathes resurrection life into transformed bodies, and sustains us in the life everlasting.

So, while we are going to talk about each of those things — the church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting — when we do, we will also be talking about the work of the Spirit.

So, the Holy Spirit is not getting short shrift in the Creed, or in our attention in this series.  But today, we’re going to stop at the very short, but powerful phrase — “I believe in the Holy Spirit.”

Who is The Holy Spirit, and How Did He (or She) Get Here?

Who, then is the Holy Spirit?  Well, if you read the popular work of inspirational fiction, The Shack, you remember that the author portrayed the Holy Spirit as a blithe female persona, flitting here and there in the blink of an eye.

We may not be ready to call the Holy Spirit “she” today, but by all means we should not call the Spirit “it.”  The classic understanding of the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, or any of the other names the Spirit is identified by is that the Holy Spirit is the Third Person of the Divine Trinity.

There is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit has always existed as co-eternal with God, of the same essence as Father and Son, and yet with unique ministry.

We encounter the Holy Spirit first in the first verses of Genesis, where the Spirit of God broods over the unformed earth.  The image there is one of a hen brooding over her chicks to bring them safely and carefully into full maturity.

“But,” you say, “I thought God the Father, Almighty was the creator of heaven and earth?”  God was, and here is where all this gets a little tricky.  It is very easy for us to talk about the Trinity, but very hard for us to explain the Trinity.

Perhaps this will help:  The Holy Spirit is the Person of the Trinity who encounters humankind here on earth.

• So, when God creates the earth, and everything else, The Holy Spirit is the one who shows up to do the work.
• When God sends his only Son to earth, The Holy Spirit is the Person of the Trinity who moves miraculously in Mary’s life so that she conceives Jesus.
• When at Jesus’ baptism, God the Father says, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased,” it is the Spirit who descends upon Jesus in the form of a dove.
• When God resurrects Jesus from the dead, it is the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit who breathes the breath of life into Jesus’ transformed body.

And, so the Holy Spirit is now God with us, and that is exactly what Jesus says to his disciples in the passage we read today.

Just as God sends Jesus to the earth, to humankind, so God the Father and God the Son send the Holy Spirit to earth to be God’s continuing presence with those early disciples and with us today.

Our Problem With The Holy Spirit

But, we are often like the believers in Ephesus.  When Paul arrived there for the first time, he asked them if they had received the Holy Spirit since they believed.  Their reply was, “We haven’t even heard if there is a Holy Spirit.”  And here’s why 21st century Christians in America sometimes act that way:  we’re not sure we want the Holy Spirit.

That’s right, we’re just not sure we want to go there.  We as Baptists are pretty sure we don’t want to do weird stuff, like speak in tongues, heal the sick, and jump pews.  We’ll leave all of that to our Pentecostal friends, thank you very much.  So, the first problem we have with the Holy Spirit is a problem of weirdness.

And, there is a lot of weirdness that takes place when the Holy Spirit is around.  On the Day of Pentecost, weird things happened — the sound of a rushing wind filled the place where the apostles were staying.  Flames of fire appeared over their heads, and they spoke in languages they had never learned.  So, what was that about?

Well, while it sounds weird, several things were going on at once.  For the Feast of Pentecost, Jews from all over the known-world had stayed in Jerusalem since the Passover.  They came from a variety of cities, nations, and tongues.  And, so the speaking in “unknown tongues” was a reversal of The Tower of Babel story.  Once, as recorded in the Book of Genesis, man had tried to make a name for himself and build a ziggurat that reached into the throne room of God.  But God frustrated that effort by confusing their language, mixing up their speech so that they could not understand one another and could not finish the project.

But at Pentecost, God unscrambles that confusion by giving Peter and the other apostles the ability to preach in languages they had not learned, so that everyone who was there, no matter where they were from, understood and heard the story of Jesus.  So, when God does weird stuff, it always has a purpose.

But, that doesn’t mean we want to be weird, and besides the Day of Pentecost has come and gone.

Which brings me to our real problem with the Holy Spirit:  we think that the Holy Spirit only does the weird, the miraculous, or the extraordinary.

But Jesus calls the Holy Spirit “the Comforter.”  That doesn’t sound too weird, or even miraculous.  Jesus said to the disciples that the Holy Spirit was “with you, and shall be in you.”  The Holy Spirit is the abiding presence of God in our lives.

I have often heard people remark during or after a particularly difficult time, “I don’t know how people who don’t believe in God are able to get through what I’ve just been through.”  That’s the work of the Holy Spirit, comforting, strengthening, caring, and guiding.  That’s not weird at all.

But whether we are comfortable talking about the Holy Spirit or not, the Holy Spirit is at work in our lives and the lives of all believers.

Get Used to The Holy Spirit Because He’s Our Down Payment on The Resurrection

Paul said that the Holy Spirit is the earnest money, the down payment on our own resurrection.  In 2 Corinthians 1:21-22, Paul says:

²¹Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, ²²set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

The Spirit is the guarantee, the down payment, of what is to come.  God gives us himself as personal guarantee of the fidelity of His promises, His saving grace, and our eternal place with Him.

So, it would seem like we need to know something of the Holy Spirit, because after all, the Holy Spirit is our guarantee of life everlasting.

The Holy Spirit Equips The Church

One of the primary purposes of the Holy Spirit is to give gifts to each follower of Christ.  Of course, the greatest gift is God’s gift of salvation, but there is more to being a follower of Jesus than just eternal life.  There’s life here in the body of Christ called the church.

Paul said that Christ is the head of the body, but that the Holy Spirit gives each of us gifts to fit into the body.  Some have supernatural gifts, some have more everyday type gifts, but none of us is overlooked in the gift-giving of the Holy Spirit.

If I were to suggest to you today that we could do what Jesus did, some of you would think that I was either speaking rhetorically, or I was exaggerating.  But that’s exactly what Paul, and Jesus himself, said.  The key to that, though, is we don’t do it alone.  By bringing our gifts, and using them in concert with the gifts of others, the body of Christ carries out the work and ministry of Christ in this world today.  Feeding people, healing people, announcing the good news, befriending the friendless, demonstrating kingdom values — all these things are only possible if we live in the Spirit, and express the gifts the Spirit of God has given to each of us.

The Spirit Also Wages Spiritual Battle

But, let’s not kid ourselves.  This world is a long way off from being what God intends for it to be.  The Lord’s Prayer asks for God’s will “to be done on earth, as it is in heaven.”  We are not close to having that prayer answered universally yet.

As a matter of fact, the Spirit is also fighting for us and the kingdom of God.  Now, we know how the story will end because Jesus has already defeated sin and death.  But have you ever watched those “nature-at-its-wildest” shows?  I saw a new one the other day called “Monsters of the River” or something like that.  The star was trying to catch some gigantic fish that lived in the Amazon, or a river pretty much like it.

The one thing they always say after they catch the gator, or croc, or in this case a fish that looked to me like the world’s largest catfish — the one thing they always say is, “Okay, be careful when we put him back in the water, because his tail can be deadly.”

And, that’s where we are today.  Satan is a defeated foe, the church knows its going to be victorious, but in his death throes, Satan’s tail can be deadly.

Paul said, “¹⁰Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. ¹¹Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. ¹²For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. ¹³Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. ¹⁴Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, ¹⁵and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. ¹⁶In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. ¹⁷Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. ¹⁸And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.” — Eph 6:10-18 NIV

We’re in a spiritual battle, we’re to take the sword of the Spirit, we’re to pray in the Spirit — sounds like the Holy Spirit is doing a lot for us in the realm of the unseen world, that we need to know about.

I am reading David Augsburger’s book, Pastoral Counseling Across Cultures.  Augsburger is primarily speaking to those who will offer pastoral care and counseling to persons from cultures other than their own.  He told this story to illustrate the power of a world known to other cultures, if unknown to us:

In Indonesia, a man converted to Christianity from Islam.  He was troubled by a talisman — a gold coin — visible just below the surface of his skin, on the underside of his forearm.  He said that this talisman has brought him good luck, success, prosperity, and power in the past.

But when you examine his arm closely, you notice there is not scar or visible sign of how the gold coin got under his skin.  He says that a Muslim priest, a shaman of sorts, placed the coin on his arm, and then the shaman covered the coin with his own hand.  When he removed his hand, the coin was imbedded under the man’s skin.

The young man came forward during a worship service at his new church, asking the pastor for prayer for this talisman.  The pastor showed the young man’s arm, with the gold coin imbedded in it, to the congregation and asked them to pray that the power of the coin would be broken.

As the congregation prayed, the pastor placed his hand over the embedded gold coin, just as the Muslim priest had done.  As they prayed, the pastor removed his hand from the man’s arm.

The coin was no longer under the young man’s skin.  His arm is clear, scarless, and with no sign of the coin.  The pastor held up the coin in his hand as visible evidence to the congregation that the power of God was greater than the power of the coin.

That is a true story, and if we do not understand it, it is because the Holy Spirit works in ways beyond our comprehension or culture.

We do believe in the Holy Spirit for every time we weather a storm, bear a burden, survive a difficulty, or need comfort, the Spirit is there.  He is at work in our world, continuing the ministry of Jesus, at work in our lives through each assembly of believers called the church, and at work in the unseen world where the struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, and powers, and rulers of darkness.

Sweet, Holy Spirit, sweet heavenly dove,
Stay right here with us,
filling us with your love.
And for these blessings
we lift our hearts in praise,
Without a doubt we’ll know that we have been revived,
When we shall leave this place.

Sermon: I Believe in the Ascension of Christ

Why We Need The Apostles’ Creed series continues with this sermon, I Believe in the Ascension of Christ, from Luke 24:36-53.

I Believe in the Ascension of Jesus
Luke 36-53

³⁶While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”

³⁷They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. ³⁸He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? ³⁹Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”

⁴⁰When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. ⁴¹And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” ⁴²They gave him a piece of broiled fish, ⁴³and he took it and ate it in their presence.

⁴⁴He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”

⁴⁵Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. ⁴⁶He told them, “This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, ⁴⁷and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. ⁴⁸You are witnesses of these things. ⁴⁹I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”
⁵⁰When he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. ⁵¹While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven. ⁵²Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. ⁵³And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God.

What Do You Do With The Body?

A favorite part of just about any murder mystery is what to do with the body?  You know how those stories go: first,  the murderer kills the victim.  The details of the murderer — is he or she an escaped convict, a deranged lunatic, a jealous lover, or a scheming con artist?; and, the victim — is the victim an unfaithful lover, a double-crossing partner, an innocent bystander, and so on — change with the particular plot line, but the basics of the story are the same — one person kills another.

This story is as old as Cain and Abel, and the problem of what to do with the body of the victim is as old as the murderous act itself.  Cain apparently buried his brother Abel in the same field where he killed him, and when God asked Cain “Where is your brother, Abel?”  Cain replies, “I don’t know, am I my brother’s keeper?”

Nice try, but it didn’t work.  God tells Cain that the blood of Abel cries out to God from the ground.  In other words, I know what you did with the body.

Same thing happened to Moses.  Moses is rescued by Pharaoh’s daughter from among the bulrushes of the river, and eventually is raised in Pharaoh’s household.  But somewhere along the way, even though he looks and dresses like an Egyptian, Moses finds his Hebrew identity.  He is outraged at the treatment the Hebrews are receiving under Pharaoh’s regime, but there’s not much he can do about it. Until one day, he sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew.

Moses anger swells, and before he knows it, Moses kills the Egyptian.  Which is sure to be a big problem for him with Pharaoh and his henchmen.  So, Moses buries the Egyptian’s body in the sand to conceal his crime.  It doesn’t work, however, because someone saw Moses do it, and so he has to flee to the backside of the desert, which is a long way off.

But with the story of Jesus, we have a different problem.  The Apostles’ Creed has us affirm —

I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth,
And in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord,
Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary,
Suffered under Pontius Pilate,
Was crucified, dead and buried,
He descended into hell.

On the third day He rose again from the dead.

Now, the problem is this — Jesus has risen from the dead.  That’s Easter, that’s the resurrection, that’s the moment in which God breaks the power of sin and death, and the life of Jesus becomes the prototype for all humanity, for all life to come.

But, what do you do with the body?  The empty tomb is mute evidence that Jesus is not dead.  Jesus appears to the disciples for a period of 40-days between Passover and the coming of the next big Jewish festival, Pentecost.

But, this is a big problem now.  Jesus appears about 11 times to various individuals and groups of followers.  And, he is very much alive, not a ghost like they imagine in the passage we have just read.  In his appearances, Jesus does several things:

1. Jesus encourages some of the disciples to touch him, Thomas being the first case in point.
2. Jesus walks with the disciples.  The most famous episode being the walk on the road to Emmaus with two followers of Jesus.
3. Jesus breaks bread with his followers.  Again, the road to Emmaus story.
4. Jesus cooks breakfast.  He makes fish and bread, which is not something you would expect the resurrected Messiah to do.  But, it probably reminds the disciples of the time Jesus fed 5,000 with fish and bread, and this is just as real.
5. Jesus eats with the disciples.  John has him eating fish, and so does Luke.
6. Jesus speaks to the disciples and others.  Apparently he speaks in his normal voice, not some kind of heavenly booming bass profundo.
7. Jesus commissions the disciples to carry on his work in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth.
8. Jesus blesses his followers.
9. Jesus gives them instructions, telling them to wait in Jerusalem for power from on high, the Holy Spirit.

So, Jesus does at least 9 things, and maybe more, that show he is a real, live person, not a ghost, a vision, or an apparition.  But, then what? What do you do with the body of Jesus, even if He is alive?

Getting Off The Stage

When I was in high school I got involved with the drama club, and we put on several plays of somewhat uneven quality, I must admit.  But, we learned a great deal about what actors call “stage craft” — the business of acting.  One of the big moments in any play is an actor’s entrance.  So, if you’re coming through a door, you make sure the door knob turns, or the door doesn’t get stuck, so your entrance is smooth and doesn’t become a sort of comedy of errors in itself.

But just as important as getting on the stage, is getting off.  Again, if you’re going through a door, you want to check ahead of time to be sure the door opens, or the knob turns, or whatever needs to happen, happens.  An actor wants his exit to be important, but not awkward.  If you aren’t in the right position on stage when you need to exit, things can get very awkward.

And, in one way, that’s where we find Jesus.  In a place on the stage of history that no one has ever occupied.  His entrance was to be born.  That, of course, was pretty dramatic in itself, for he was “conceived of the Holy Spirit, and born of the Virgin Mary.”

Pretty amazing stuff, and in terms of stage presence, Jesus had that too.  He went about healing people, feeding people, teaching, raising the dead, and training a band of followers who continually seemed not to get what Jesus was trying to teach them.

But, the story takes an distressing turn for Jesus’ followers.  He is opposed by religious leaders, eventually arrested, beaten, tried, and sentenced to death by crucifixion.  Then, he’s crucified.  When he dies, he’s taken down off the cross, and buried.  And here is where the story might end, because all the other stories like this, or even close to this, have ended this way.  The hero gets killed, the body buried, and that’s the end of the story as his followers slip away into the darkness.

But not this story.  In this story, the hero doesn’t stay dead.  In some inexplicable, supernatural event, Jesus rises from the grave.  And, in case there is any doubt about His resurrection, the massive stone gets mysteriously rolled away from the mouth of the grave, the grave clothes are lying neatly folded, and angels announce the news that “He is not here, He is risen from the dead.”

But, now what?  How does Jesus get off-stage, so to speak.  Most of us exit through the door of death, but for Jesus, death was just a revolving door — in and then out again.  How does this story resolve itself.

I suppose Jesus could have just hung around.  But that wasn’t the plan.  The plan from the beginning was that Jesus enters the human realm, does what only God-Incarnate can do, then goes back to his throne in the presence of God the Father, but in His place sends the Holy Spirit.  So, that’s the plan, but how does Jesus get off-stage, so to speak?

Who Comes Down Now Goes Up

We have the old saying, “What goes up, must come down.”  That’s called the Gravity Creed.  But, in Jesus case, what, or better, who came down to earth, must also go back up into heaven.

In the 19th century, theologians got really upset that Jesus ascended “up” to heaven.  Some even said that the idea of heaven being “up” was an outmoded, primitive idea which proves that the story about the ascension couldn’t be true.  Heaven wasn’t up, they said, and so Jesus would not have gone up to go back there.

Well, they’re batting .500 — they got it half right, in other words.  Heaven isn’t up.  Heaven is the presence of God.  Heaven is no more “place” as we know places than God is a man as we know men.  But we speak in the only words we know, and in the first century their idea was that the living were on the earth; the dead were in the pit, or the underworld, or the land of the dead which was under the earth; and, that heaven was above the earth.  Theologians call this a three-tiered cosmology, which is pretty much how we still think of life, heaven, and hell today — here, up from here, and down from here.

And remember, the Bible tells stories with a theological point.  Which doesn’t mean that Jesus didn’t go up, but it does mean that there is a deeper meaning to “up” than we might think.

The Significance of Up

The Bible uses this “up-and-down” language to represent a lot of theological ideas.  Here are some of them:

• Adam and Eve are told to go “down” from the Garden of Eden after they sin.
• The Tower of Babel is a failed attempt to “go up” to God and heaven.
• Noah and his family are preserved by the ark’s ascent on Mt. Ararat.
• Moses goes up to Mount Sinai to speak with God and receive the Law.
• Mount Zion, the mystical dwelling place of God, is reached by “ascending” the hill of the Lord.
• At the Transfiguration of Jesus, Jesus and three of the disciples go up on the mount where there Jesus is transformed, and speaks of his coming death with Moses and Elijah.
  • Moses has gone up to be with God on the mountain several times, including right before his own death.
  • Elijah is taken up by God into heaven by a fiery chariot.

So, the people of God revealed in Scripture understand that one goes up to God, and down to sin, death, and the grave.

One way or the other, Jesus is going up to God, to heaven, and to the right-hand of God for eternity.

Going Up Doesn’t Mean Going Away

But, just because Jesus goes up to God at the ascension, doesn’t mean Jesus goes away.  Jesus goes up, so the Holy Spirit can come down to Jesus’ followers.

Jesus has already told his followers that he’s going to send the Paraclete, the One-Called-Alongside, to help the disciples.  They’ve seen the power of God in Jesus’ healing and other miracles, and Jesus has promised them that they will do the same things, and greater than He has done.

Jesus has already breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”  That in itself was a theological act, and act reminiscent of God’s act at creation, breathing into Adam the breath of life.  Only this breath of life was the life of the Spirit.

Jesus had told the disciples that all authority was given to him, in heaven and earth, and that they were to wait for the Holy Spirit.

And, so they waited.  For days.  In fear.  In Jerusalem.  Uncertain what would happen, or if they would even know it when it did.

And then, all heaven broke lose.  The wind blows with a mighty rushing sound — the presence of the Spirit.  Tongues of fire — another manifestation of the Spirit appear on the disciples heads.  The disciples speak in languages they have never learned, a reversal of the confounding of languages at the Tower of Babel.  And Peter, inspired by the Spirit, says, “This is what the prophet Joel spoke of.”

The Spirit comes, the church is born, the followers of Jesus are empowered, Peter preaches and three thousand who had great doubts about the man called Jesus were converted in an instant and were baptized.

Going up doesn’t mean going away.

We Are Living The Story

We tend to think of all these things as past-tense:  Jesus lived, Jesus died, Jesus rose again, Jesus ascended back to heaven.  The Holy Spirit came.  End of story.

But it’s not the end.  It’s the beginning for us.  The beginning for the church.  The beginning of witness.  The beginning of the faith.  The beginning of the good news which would be carried to all the world.  Jesus is alive, and what’s more, He’s seated at the right hand of God the Father.

It has pleased God, the Bible says, to put all things under Jesus’ feet.  In other words, Jesus is in charge.  Jesus reigns.  Jesus is the Lord of All.  Jesus sends the Spirit to us.  Jesus is still active in this world that he came to live and die for.

We are living the story of God’s redemptive love.  We are the present actors in this great drama written and directed by God.  Jesus the Messiah has made his entrance as the most helpless of humanity — a tiny baby.  He has lived his life as the most unusual of men.  He has died a horrendous death.  He as risen victorious from the grave.  He has resumed the mantle of heaven and ascended to his rightful place.

But here’s where it really gets good — He’s left us to represent him here in this world that he loved so much he gave himself for it.  And, we’re not alone.  He sent the Holy Spirit to fill us, gift us, guide us, and empower us.  We are living the story of Jesus, in the power of His Spirit, for the life of His creation.

That’s what the ascension is all about.  Not just a clever theatrical trick to get Jesus off-stage, but a dramatic theological transition, a moment that transcends time and space, where heaven received in victory the risen Christ, and earth received in gratitude His ever-present Spirit.

As we gather at His table today, He is present with us.  Theologians have argued for almost 2,000 years about “how” Jesus is present in the broken bread and poured out wine.  The church was split, denominations formed, and wars fought over the “how” of Jesus presence at this table.  But that misses the point.

Our concern today is not “how” Jesus is here.  Our concern today as we gather at this table is that He is here, and we are present with Him.  Had he not come, he could not have gone.  Had he not gone, he could not have sent the Spirit.  Had the Spirit not come, we would not be gathered here today.

Sermon: I Believe in Jesus Christ and Him Crucified

Why We Need The Apostles’ Creed:
I Believe In Jesus Christ and Him Crucified
I Corinthians 2:1-2

¹When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. ²For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

The Cross in Today’s World

We have come today to the third statement out of six about Jesus in the Apostles’ Creed.  Here’s what we have affirmed so far:

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
the Maker of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:

Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,
born of the virgin Mary,

And today we sum up our belief in the passion of the Christ — his suffering, crucifxion, death, burial, and descent into hell during the three days his body was in the grave.  We believe in Jesus Christ, who…

suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, dead, and buried;

He descended into hell.

You may remember Mel Gibson’s film, The Passion of The Christ, which hit movie theaters in 2004.  Because of the controversial nature of the film, Gibson distributed it himself, turning a $30-million investment into the highest grossing English language film ever, and the most profitable R-rated film in the United States.  The movie was rated R for its horrific and graphic violence, done mostly to the character of Jesus himself.

But despite the film’s success in America, Christians in the United States have a very different view of the cross of Jesus Christ.  We wear delicate crosses made of precious gold and silver around our necks, and dangling from our ears.  Hip hop artists wear gigantic caricatures of the cross dangling from outlandish chains, and pop artists like Madonna use the cross as a background prop in their music videos.

The cross itself has become the international symbol of the Christian religion, and of the humanitarian organization, The Red Cross.  It is an iconic symbol, but for much of the Christian community, the cross is strangely absent in our worship, devotion, or Bible study.  Seeker-sensitive churches intentionally leave all the signs and symbols of Christianity, which might be confusing to non-Christians, out of their buildings, including the cross.

As those who came from the Radical Reformer stream of the Protestant Reformation, we Baptists were offended by the crucifixes of our Roman Catholic friends, which graphically depict the Christ in agony on the cross.  Our theological position is that Christ is no longer on the cross, but is risen; therefore, Jesus should not be depicted as the suffering Christ, but as the risen Christ.

So opposed were the radical reformers to the crucifix, and the statuary and iconography of Roman and Orthodox churches, that they banned all images and statues of religious figures, including Jesus, as a form of idol worship.  Church buildings were constructed simply, and called meeting houses, to avoid the confusion with the Catholic church buildings from which they were separating themselves.

Rather than a high altar with a crucifix above it, the pulpit took center stage in the meeting houses of these radical reformers. Catholic churches were constructed with a center aisle so that worshippers entering the sanctuary could have an unobstructed view of the altar and the crucified Christ hanging above or behind it.  Baptist meeting houses were intentionally constructed without a center aisle, in contrast to the Roman Catholic church buildings.  Even in our architecture, our theology finds physical expression in the ways we configure and appoint our spaces for worship.

What About The Cross in the New Testament Church?

Paul explains his time with the fledgling church at Corinth in this way —

¹When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. ²For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

Why did Paul make a statement like this — “…to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”

Why not Jesus Christ and his miracles?  Surely Paul would want to tell these non-Jewish believers about the miracles of Christ.

Why not Jesus Christ and his ethical teaching?  In the brutal world of the Roman empire, where power dominated, and military power held an iron grip on the civilized world, why not tell the Corinthians about turning the other cheek, going the second mile, and loving your neighbor as yourself?

Why not Jesus Christ and him risen?  The resurrection is the hinge-pin of the story of Jesus, for if we leave Jesus on the cross or in the tomb, his story becomes the sad story of another failed revolutionary, a Don Quixote figure tilting at the windmills of the Roman empire’s strength.

But Paul says, “I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”

Leon Morris, in his massive volume titled, The Cross in the New Testament, begins his introduction with these words:

“This is principally a book about the cross, since in the New Testament salvation centres [sic] on the cross.”  He goes on to say, “The atonement is the crucial doctrine of the faith.  Unless we are right here it matters little, or so it seems to me, what we are like elsewhere.”

The gospel writers are not in agreement on all the details of the life of Christ.  Matthew and Luke are the only gospels that describe the conception and birth of Jesus.  So, even the event in the Apostles’ Creed that we examined last week — “conceived of the Holy Spirit, and born of the Virgin Mary” — is not included in two out of four of the Gospel accounts.

The gospel writers include different miracles, different parables, and different events in the life of Jesus.  Even those dramatic times of healing, feeding the five thousand, raising the dead, and walking on water are not included in all four of the Gospel accounts.

But when it comes to the cross, each of the Gospels includes the story of the cross and the crucifxion of Jesus.

Why did the apostles consider the cross central to the story of Jesus, and why are we so ambivalent about the cross today?

The History of the Cross

Why is it then, that in our 21st century sophistication, we’re so uncomfortable with the cross?  I grew up singing hymns like The Old Rugged Cross, At the Cross, Lead Me To Calvary, Power in the Blood, Nothing But The Blood of Jesus, and Are You Washed in the Blood, and other old-time hymns which reminded the singers of the cross, and the shed blood of Christ. But, today’s praise songs seldom refer to the cross or its result, the bruised body and shed blood of Jesus.  We sing about he awesome God, the glory of God, the wonder of God, the friendship of Jesus, and the majesty of heaven — anything but the cross and the blood.  The history and setting of the punishment known as crucifixion will help us understand some of the difficulty we have with it.

Paul introduced the centrality of the cross in the first chapter of I Corinthians with these words —

²²Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, ²³but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, ²⁴but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.  — I Cor 22-25 NIV

Corinth was an outpost of the Roman empire.  It was an immoral, corrupt city even by the standards of the first century.  The reputation of Corinth was so bad, that to be called a “Corinthian” was to be insulted and slandered.  Corinth was home to the temple of Aphrodite, where over 1,000 temple prostitutes performed the rituals of the temple.  It was a wild and wooly town, but Paul visits there, Aquila and Priscilla, and plants a church.

Upon Paul’s departure, the Corinthians quickly stray both theologically and morally.  We know more about worship in the Corinthian church than any other church in the New Testament because the Corinthians were doing just about everything wrong in worship that they could do.  They were trying to out-do one another in the practice of their spiritual gifts — speaking in tongues, interrupting each other with prophecies, shouting out words of supernatural knowledge, and letting worship degenerate into a frenzy of one-upmanship.  Even when taking the Lord’s Supper, the Corinthians turned communion into a drunken, gluttonous affair.  The well-to-do brought their own food, which they refused to share with those who had none.  In short, they were a train wreck of a church.

Paul’s letter calls them back to the center, and he reminds them that when he came to Corinth, he preached the cross of Christ.  That was his central message.

If they were such an immoral people, why not the ethical teaching of Jesus?  The Corinthians knew the great philosophers.  They knew the arguments for a kind of detached morality, even in the midst of their immorality.  They lived in the shadow of one of the great temples of the civilized world, the temple to Aphrodite.  A simple appeal to “live better” would have been totally lost on them.

But, if they wouldn’t listen to the call to live life according to God’s instruction found in the Ten Commandments and in the teaching of Jesus, what about the miracles of Jesus?  Surely, they would be impressed with those?  But Roman culture had its own mystical experiences.  The oracles, mystical figures who seemed to speak the words of the gods themselves, were located throughout the Roman world.  The most famous was the oracle at Delphi, but others existed as well.  Demon-possession, magic, the dark arts, and other forms of the supernatural were as common in the first century as they are in our world today.  Just as Pharaoh’s sorcerers and wisemen counterfeited the miraculous staff of Aaron with their own, the magicians and pagan practicioners of the first century also practiced the equivalent of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  Ecstatic speech, foretelling the future, speaking as the voice of a god, healing, and other dark practices were well-known in the ancient world.

But the cross of Christ was the center for the Corinthian church, and for the Christian faith Paul knew.  Why?  And why did Paul refer to the cross as foolishness, and in another passage as a stumbling block or scandal to the Jews?

From the Roman perspective, crucifixion as capital punishment was borrowed from the Persians and others.  Crucifixion was reserved for criminals, rebels, slaves and the lower-class.  Seldom were Roman citizens or the upperclass foreigners executed by crucifxion.  Slaves and robbers particularly were crucified as a deterrent to those who might either try to escape their masters, or steal from others.

Crucifixion was gruesome business.  It was one of three methods of capital punishment used in the empire.  Crucifixion, being torn to death by wild beasts, and burning were the three methods of capital punishments.  Being torn by wild beasts required a public festival and an arena, so that was more difficult and involved.   But anyone could be crucified at anytime, and in a variety of methods.

Sometimes the stake was a single straight piece of wood.  At other times, cross pieces were used either in the form of a “T” with the crosspiece on top, or in the form most familiar to us — two pieces of wood that intersected with space above the victim’s head for some type of placard identifying his or her crime.  Limbs were either lashed to the cross, or fastened with nails.  Flogging and torture most often preceded the actual crucifxion, and the condemned was required to carry his cross, if able, to the public place of execution.

Public humiliation was as much as part of the punishment as was the victim’s actual death.  Stripped totally naked, the nude body was beaten, nailed to the cross, and lifted up for all to see as they passed by.  Jeers and taunts would greet those who had been robbers particularly, because the rural Judeans were often victimized by roving bands of robbers and criminals.

Bodies were often left on crosses to decompose, or be picked apart by wild animals and birds of prey.  The denial of burial was a further humiliation, particularly to the Jews.

As if all of that were not enough, the Jews had a special aversion to crucifxion and wooden crosses because of Deuteronomy 21 —

²² If a man guilty of a capital offense is put to death and his body is hung on a tree, ²³ you must not leave his body on the tree overnight. Be sure to bury him that same day, because anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse. You must not desecrate the land the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.

The Jews had a special aversion to crucifixion and crosses because they equated it with the Old Testament curse of being hung on a tree.  So, the offense of the cross, the scandal of the cross, the revulsion of the cross is that the Jews could not imagine that the Messiah of God, the Anointed One, would ever be hung on a tree. How could he, for anyone hung on a tree was cursed by God.  It becomes impossible for Jews to reconcile Jesus’ manner of death with his claim to Messiahship.

What of the Cross For Us Today?

But we are just as scandalized by the cross, just as offended by the gore, the brutality, the blood, and the stench.  Just as offended by the nakedness of Jesus, the taunts of the bystanders, the ridicule of the placard over Jesus head saying, “This is the King of the Jews.”  Like passing a bad car wreck on the highway, we don’t like the cross, and we turn our eyes from it as quickly as we can, and move on to other more pleasant aspects of our faith.

I have done that myself because the cross and Jesus’ death on it seems so barbaric, so crude, so primitive, and so messy.  My sensibilities are offended, and my sophistication and education rail against this as the central story of Jesus.  I like the Sermon on the Mount, or the feeding of the 5,000, or the raising of Lazarus, or even the resurrection of Christ himself as the central story of our faith.  But, none of those are, nor can they be.

We do not follow just an ethical teacher who gave us startling instructions on how we are to treat our neighbors.  We do not follow a mystic who could somehow gather the forces of the unseen world to make blind eyes sees, lame legs walk, and diseased bodies whole.  We do not follow a rebel, or an insurrectonist, as some would have us believe, who only sought to overthrow the unjust systems of society.

No, we follow the crucified Son of God.  And, Jesus himself was well-aware of the horror, the humiliation, and the inhumanity of the cross.  And yet, all the gospel writers tell us that at the end of his ministry, Jesus set his face toward Jerusalem, not for the praise of Palm Sunday, but for his death on the cross.

Mythology is full of stories of gods who were punished. Prometheus was nailed between two rocks in the ancient fable of the anger of Zeus. But Prometheus was freed and resumed his place in the pantheon of Roman gods.  Even in the popular literature of the day, the equivalent of our pulp novels, the hero of the story could be threatened with crucifixion, but just in the nick of time always escaped it.

But in Jesus, we have God who dies.  Jurgen Moltmann calls him “the crucifed God” — a story unlike any that has ever been told in literature or fable.  Gods don’t die, and certainly are not killed by mere mortals.  But in Jesus, God dies.  God provides a sacrifice for Himself of his only Son, who is himself God.  It is an event so radical, so impossible, so unlikely that those who think they know the One, True God best, cannot get past it.

In the cross, Jesus identifies with the slaves caught seeking freedom.  At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus takes the scroll of Isaiah in the synagogue of his own hometown, Nazareth.  He unrolls the scroll and reads from Isaiah 61 —

¹ The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners

Freedom for the captives, the slaves, can only be bought with a price.  Release from darkness for the prisoners can only come from the one who holds the keys.  By the way, and we don’t have time to dig deeply into this, the phrase in the Apostles’ Creed —

He descended into hell

is meant to reflect Jesus preaching to the “spirits in prison.”  Peter writes in 1 Peter 3:18 — “For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, ¹⁹through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison ²⁰who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built.”

Scholars disagree on exactly what that verse means, but I believe it means Jesus did what he said he would do, what he proclaimed his mission to be — to release from darkness those imprisoned, even if they’re imprisoned in world of the dead.  That is what Jesus meant when he said “the gates of hell” will not prevail, will not stand, against the onslaught of the Kingdom of God.

Paul, in my favorite passage about Jesus says —

⁵Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
⁶Who, being in very nature^[a] God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
⁷but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature^[b] of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
⁸And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
⁹Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
¹⁰that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
¹¹and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

It’s all there in these seven verses —

• Jesus willingly choosing to set aside all that is rightfully his;
• Jesus taking the nature of a servant, a slave;
• Jesus making himself nothing, becoming a human being;
• Jesus humbling himself in obedience to God:
• Jesus obedience even extends to his death on a cross — the worst, most heinous death one could die;
• But Jesus being exalted to the highest place;
• And Jesus being given a name above all names;
• That at the name of Jesus every knee bows — every angel knee in heaven, every human knee on earth, every demonic knee in hell — every knee bows regardless of location or previous allegiance;
• And every tongue belonging to the hosts of heaven, the citizens of earth, and the condemned to hell, confesses that Jesus The Messiah is Lord;
• And God the Father is glorified.

Mel Gibson, who was both producer and director of The Passion of the Christ, used his own hands in the camera close-up of the Roman centurion nailing Jesus to the cross.  Gibson did that he said, because, “It was me that put Him on the cross. It was my sins [that put Jesus there].” — Wikipedia

But that’s not right.  Our sins did not put Jesus on the cross.  He put himself there.  He walked straight to Jerusalem knowing the death that awaited him.  He put himself on the cross to die for us, for the world, and for God’s creation.  He put himself on the cross to say to the slaves both living and dead, “I know your suffering, I endured your pain, I took your place.”

He put himself on the cross to suffer for us, to share our sorrow, our despair, our misfortune.  He put himself on the cross as though he were the people of God, the Temple and the sacrifice — as though he were the last hope of a sacrificial system that no longer worked.

He put himself on the cross as the Lamb led to the slaughter, as the scapegoat, as the fulfillment and final chapter in the broken religious imagination of God’s people.

Jesus put himself on the cross so that we would not be hung there.  He put himself on the cross so that we would not be abandoned by God as he was.  He put himself on the cross as example and embodiment of God’s love.

No, we did not put Jesus on the cross, and neither did the Jews or the Romans.  Jesus put himself there, suffered unspeakable torture, endured the ridicule of Romans and Jews alike, humiliated between two thieves.  His last act of redemption was to save a condemned thief, and ask his Father to forgive those who did not know what they were doing.

We need the cross.  Without it we are doomed.  Without it the incarnation is meaningless.  Without the cross we do not see the love of God, the suffering of God, and the sacrifice of God.  All for us.  All because of our sin.  All because we couldn’t do it for ourselves.  For even our death would not have brought us into fellowship with God, nor paid the penalty for our sin.

We need the cross, the scandal of our intellect, the offense to our sensibilities, the foolishness of preaching.  We need the cross because it stands at the center of Jesus’ story.  If all we know of theology and the Bible is that Jesus died for us on an old rugged cross, then we know enough.

Paul said, “I resolved to know nothing…except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”

When a right-wing death squad broke into the living quarters of Jesuit priests in San Salvador in 1989, they killed six priests, their housekeeper, and her daughter.  Father Ignacio Ellacuria, rector of the university, was one of the priests killed.  The killers then drug the bodies of their murdered victims back into the house.  As they did so, they bumped into a bookcase, knocking a book to the floor.

When their bodies were found the next morning, lying in a pool of innocent blood was the fallen book — Jurgen Moltmann’s book titled The Crucified God.  Thousands around the world wept for those slain.  And I am sure God must have wept that day, too, for He knew the suffering and death of the cross.