Do You Want To See Easter? It Requires Training

Posted on May 6, 2017 by Editor

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Matthew 28:1-10

How old is this woman?

Since you’ve most likely seen this image before, you know that the picture is an illusion: the woman is both very young and very old. However, the first time you saw this image, you were probably confounded. Perhaps you saw the young woman, but couldn’t see the old one. Perhaps you could only see the old woman, but couldn’t understand how there could possibly be a young one, too. Whatever the case, someone might have needed to guide you to see the other image.

Some people are fond of thinking that is the way God works—that one person might see one thing in how God works, while another person might see something else, and if we work together, we can build a complete picture. But scripture presents a different picture: one where only God can teach us how to see and what to ask. Human beings are simply the blind leading the blind, Jesus says, and our perspectives and ideas are all seriously flawed.

In other words, even asking the wrong questions or focusing on the wrong things in scripture can give us a distorted or inaccurate picture of God. As we saw from Nicodemus, it is impossible to understand God from the scriptures coupled with human knowledge, discernment, and experience. After all, Saul (prior to his baptism and reception of the Holy Spirit as Paul) was an expert on the scriptures, but he could not recognize God. How can we, as human beings, possibly know the correct questions to ask?

Only because God has given us his Holy Spirit.

This is a theme in Matthew: being trained to see the character of God; knowing where to look for God’s activity; knowing what questions to ask. Spiritual sight is vitally important in Matthew, so much so that the word “behold” appears frequently. Often, “behold” is used in Matthew to indicate the true nature of God—especially in today’s scripture, Matthew 28:1-10.

On the morning of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and another Mary go to see the tomb. This phrase itself is curious because it indicates that both Marys are focused on the wrong thing: the tomb. Rather than saying that these women were going to see Jesus, Matthew specifically indicates that they are going to see the tomb in which he was buried. After all, as human beings, it doesn’t occur to us that a man might be raised from the dead.

Like us, both Marys need someone to guide their thinking.

Behold, we receive some direction through Matthew’s use of behold:

  • “And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door and sat upon it.” (Matthew 28:2)
  • “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly and tell his disciples that He is risen from the dead, and indeed He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him. Behold, I have told you”(Matthew 28:5-7).
  • “And as they went to go tell His disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying ‘Rejoice!’” (Matthew 28:9)

Matthew 28:2 is particularly interesting, because this earthquake comes just days after a previous earthquake. It’s the earthquake that takes place when Christ gives up his spirit in Matthew 27:51. During this earthquake, “the rocks split and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who died were raised to life.” These saints needed someone to break open the tombs for them. Jesus, however, is not freed by the earthquake; he left long before it. This second earthquake occurs for the purpose of allowing both Marys to witness his empty tomb.

Jesus Christ is Lord of the resurrection; he can leave the tomb despite it being sealed. It is the witnesses who need the stone rolled away.

Once they have witnessed the earthquake, the angel gives the women specific instructions. “Come, see,” the angel tells them. “Go quickly and tell His disciples that He is risen from the dead.” Although these commands are directed toward the women, they apply to us as contemporary witnesses to the resurrection.

The women immediately go to fulfill this command. They meet Jesus, who greets them with a simple greeting.

“Rejoice,” he tells them. “Do not be afraid.”

The women grasp his feet in worship.

Jesus does not turn away their worship, and in this we can see his divine identity. In the Bible, when angels or saints are worshipped, they rebuke or correct the person who worships them. “Don’t worship me!” They always reprimand. “Only God is worthy of worship.” But here, Jesus accepts their worship. He is God. There is no more reason for him to keep his heavenly identity a secret.

After the women worship him, Jesus instructs them to go to “tell [his] brethren to go to Galilee.” This small sentence reveals three large things about his character.

First, Jesus refers to the disciples as his brethren. This is serious love, care, and forgiveness: During the crucifixion, they deserted him in an attempt to save their own lives. When Jesus says to take the message to his brethren, he is not only offering them forgiveness for their sin, but restoring relationship with them. Our God is a God who loves his enemies, forgives those who betray him, and, through his eternal sacrifice, washes away sin.

Second, Jesus tells the women that he will meet the disciples in Galilee. Why Galilee? Immediately after predicting the betrayal of his disciples, Jesus tells them, “After I have been raised, I will go before you to Galilee.” Jesus is fulfilling his promise to them. Our God is a God who fulfills his promises—even when we have forgotten them.

Finally and fundamentally, God is a God who is worthy to receive our worship. When we read that Mary and Mary knelt down and worshipped Jesus, we are seeing the very first picture of the church. Some credit Paul with the beginnings of the church, others credit Peter, but it was really here, at the feet of Christ, that the first church service began.

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Did God Forsake Jesus on the Cross?

Posted on April 27, 2017 by Editor

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Matthew 27:45-54

When Christianity was brought to the barbarian tribes of the North, they readily received most of the stories of the Bible.

There was one story, however, that the barbarians struggled with: the crucifixion.

How could the valiant and powerful God of the Old Testament leave his Son to die on the cross? Barbarians were so troubled by this that they often depicted Christ with a sword on the cross in their carvings. They reasoned that God would never allow his Son to be completely helpless!

The barbarians aren’t the only ones troubled by the cross. Even today, most Christians think of the cross as tragedy and the resurrection as victory.

But Jesus himself refers to the cross as the revelation of his glory. Paul says that he wants to know only Christ crucified. The crucifixion is understood by the New Testament writers and the early church fathers as the one full revelation of the character of God.

Jesus describes all of scripture as pointing to it.  In fact, after his resurrection, he “opens the scriptures” to his disciples, from the beginning to the end, in order to reveal that the Messiah must die in order to come into his glory.

In a way that confounds barbarians as well as modern day believers, God has chosen to make his image most fully seen in a dying Jewish man who was betrayed by all of his followers, condemned by the religious leaders of his people, and executed by the state in one of the most violent and shameful methods of death ever devised.

One of the most unusual (and confusing) aspects of this full revelation of God on the cross is Jesus’ cry in the midst of it, which Matthew records like this:

About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ (which means ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’)

Did God forsake Jesus on the cross? Did the Father actually turn his back on his Son?

Some Christians argue that God forsook Christ because God cannot bear to look upon sin, and Christ had become sin. They say that the Father poured out all his wrath and anger on the Son. Because of this, they say, God’s wrath is spent, and we are forgiven if we accept this by faith.

But the God described in this way is a very different God from the God that the early church, the Nicene Creed, and the scriptures profess. The Nicene Creed proclaims one God in three persons, not three gods. The Son is the visible image of the invisible Father. The idea that in the crucifixion, wrath is poured out within the Godhead from one person onto another, that one person in the Godhead forsakes another, that the persons in the Godhead do anything without complete collaboration, is a level of division and difference foreign to the witness of scripture and the church. It is also foreign to Jesus’ own witness of how he and his Father would collaborate in his crucifixion. In John 8:28-29, Jesus says:

When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me. The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him.

This is consistent with what Jesus says in John chapter 5: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can only do what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does, the Son also does.” Likewise, in John 12, Jesus tells us, “I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken.”

The crucifixion does not change this. Jesus does not say, “I only do what I see the Father doing, I only say what the Father gives me to say—well, until he abandons me, as he has to do in order to fulfill the scripture. At that point, I am basically on my own and will be freelancing on what I say.”

Jesus is not simply sin on a stick. He is a sin offering. This offering is met with his Father’s joy—not with pent-up wrath. Isaiah even says that this offering pleases the Lord.

But what is more important in this discussion is the character of the Father. The Father has never turned his back on any sinner:

  • When Adam sinned and plunged the whole human race for all time into sin, the Father (1) went looking for Adam, (2) spoke with him, and (3) clothed him with skin (signifying how God later covers our sin with the flesh of the Son).
  • When Cain performed the first murder in history, the Father (1) went looking for Cain, (2) spoke with him, and (3) placed a mark of protection upon him.
  • When humanity became so sinful that God regretted having ever creating them, the Father still (1) went looking for Noah, (2) spoke with him, and (3) saved he and his family from the oncoming flood.

If God has not turned his back on sinners, why would he turn his back on his Son?

Some might argue, “Actually, it is because God turned his back on Jesus that he does not have to turn his back to these sinners.”

But this would suggest that the problem Jesus is solving is a problem in God, not a problem in humanity.

If we read the full witness of scripture, however, we see a very different reason why Jesus shouts with a loud voice about forsakenness. First and foremost, consistent with the verses in the Gospel of John noted above, Jesus is shouting with a loud voice exactly what the Father has told him to say. Because that is what Jesus always says. Not almost always. Always.

And what the Father directs Jesus to say is a direct quote from Psalm 22. Actually, Jesus is doing more than quoting that psalm—he’s fulfilling it.

Psalm 22 begins with a question (“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”), not a statement (“My God, my God, you have forsaken me”). The Psalmist is not asserting that God has forsaken him. He is saying that it sure looks like it, if circumstances are any indication. As the Psalmist writes:

But I am a worm and not a man,

scorned by everyone, despised by the people.

All who see me mock me;

they hurl insults, shaking their heads.

“He trusts in the Lord,” they say,

“let the Lord rescue him.

Let him deliver him,

since he delights in him.”

Does this description remind you of anything? This is the sight before Jesus’ eyes as he hangs upon the cross: people mock him; tell him that he should be able to remove himself from the cross if he is the true Son of God.

In previous posts, we learned that Christ fulfills every scripture and that Christ comes not to change the law. David wrote Psalm 22, but did not fulfill it—his hands and feet were never pierced, for example. Through his crucifixion, Christ is the only one to have ever fulfilled this scripture.

Psalm 22 continues to paint the picture of Jesus’ crucifixion: “I am poured out like water and all my bones are out of joint”; “My mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth”; “they pierce my hands and my feet”; “they divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment.”

But what about the question of abandonment? Interestingly, Psalm 22 is not a psalm of abandonment. To the contrary, it is a psalm of God’s faithful presence to the sufferer:

For he has not despised or scorned

the suffering of the afflicted one;

he has not hidden his face from him

but has listened to his cry for help.

The Father did not pour out wrath on the Son during the crucifixion, nor did he hide his face from him. Instead, the Father listened to his cry for help. That is exactly what Jesus knew would happen to him when he was crucified, in John 8:29: “The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him.”

The God revealed on the cross is neither vengeful or wrath-filled. The problem he comes to fulfill is with us, and it cannot be solved by an inter-Trinitarian boxing match. Instead, the cross reveals fully what the rest of the scripture also shows: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit working in perfect union and harmony to accomplish the purpose of God.

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The Difference Between Eternal Life And Eternal Breath

Posted on April 22, 2017 by Editor

To watch other Voice of the Martyrs videos, visit the Voice of the Martyrs Video Page!

John 11:17-27

At first, John 11 seems to be a simple—but miraculous—passage that needs little explanation: Jesus visits an old friend whom he loves and raises him from the dead. What is there to be confused about?

Well, first, when Jesus receives word from Mary and Martha that “the one [he] loves is sick,” he waits for two days before travelling to them. Why? The scripture tells us he waits because “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus”. But if Jesus loved them, why would he wait two days? Wouldn’t he go right away?

Then, in John 11:33 we are told that Jesus’ spirit was deeply troubled when he saw Mary and her comforters crying. Why would Jesus become troubled? The crowds believe Jesus is troubled because of his love for Lazarus.  But Jesus had told the disciples that Lazarus’ “sickness [would] not end in death.” So he knew that Lazarus would be raised from the dead. Yet as soon as they reached the tomb, Jesus began to weep. Why?

Next, Jesus tells Martha that he is “the resurrection and the life.” Typically each word means something in the gospel of John—Jesus doesn’t repeat himself. But what’s the difference between resurrection and life?

Finally, when Jesus orders the stone of Lazarus’ tomb to be rolled away, Martha resists. She worries that opening the tomb will release a terrible smell. Yet in this same chapter, Martha confesses that Jesus is the Christ. Given this faith, why would she doubt him after such a great show of faith?

Suddenly, we see that this story has become more complex. We know that Jesus loved Lazarus—the scripture tells us that—and we know that Jesus raised him from the dead—the scripture tells us that as well—but we do not know why. To learn the answer to this one question, we must answer the four other questions noted above. And to answer these four questions, we must first understand the context behind the story.

Lazarus’ resurrection is actually more than a miracle—it is a sign. What is the difference? A miracle draws attention to itself; a sign redirects attention to something greater and deeper than itself.

In John, there are seven signs:

❶ [John 2:1-11] Jesus turns water into wine

❷ [John 4:43-54] Jesus heals the son of an official

❸ [John 5:1-14] Jesus helps the paralyzed man walk

❹ [John 6:1-14] Jesus feeds the 5,000

❺ [John 6:16-21] Jesus walks on water

❻ [John 9:1-12] Jesus restores the sight of a blind man

The seventh sign is Lazarus’ resurrection—a sign which foreshadows Christ’s own death and resurrection. Several of the phrases within this passage are shared with the scriptural account of Christ’s own death and resurrection. For example, Jesus asks Mary, “Where have you laid him?” This is echoed in Mary Magdalene’s question to Jesus on Easter morning: “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”

Furthermore, the story of Lazarus rests in the very middle of John. The center of John would be verse 27: “‘Yes, Lord,’ she replied, ‘I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.’” This is Martha’s response when Jesus says, in John 11:25-26, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing me will never die. Do you believe this?”

Do you believe this? Are you able to affirm with Martha that Jesus is “the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world?” This is the ideal Christian response; a response that many of the characters in the gospel of John do not make due to their blindness.

Blindness is a common theme in the gospel of John. In John, everyone says what they think is true, but they are almost always wrong. Nicodemus, for example, tells Jesus that he and several other teachers of Israel have concluded that he must have come from God. Jesus rebukes him, saying essentially:

“You can’t know that! Only the one who has been reborn can know the kingdom of God!”

The disciples show that they are blind when they speak with Jesus about Lazarus.

“Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up,” Jesus said.

Like something out of a comedy sketch, the disciples completely misunderstand.

“Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better,” the disciples say.

Jesus has to explain that Lazarus is dead. Even then, the disciples are confused. They mention that Jesus was recently almost stoned to death in Judea. Why would he wish to return? Does he wish to risk being stoned again? Thomas resolves, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” Not only are the disciples deaf to Jesus’ words, but they are deaf to their own hearts: they do not know that they will abandon Christ when the time comes to die with him.

We are also blind; witness how Jesus’ decision to wait before visiting Mary and Martha puzzles us. We do not yet fully understand that love is not the decision to do what people ask of us as soon as they ask it! Love is to do the will of God in every situation rather than the will of human beings. God has created (and continuously supports) every human being; he knows what ails them and how to cure this ailment.

Jesus waits because he “only does what he sees his father doing.” If God tells him to wait, then Jesus waits. He knows that this will not end in death; it will end in glory.

Glory is another word that we don’t understand.

When we think about glory, we often think about people in a contemporary worship service with their eyes closed and their hands waving in the air as their bodies sway back and forth. But this isn’t glory. Glory is the character of God being revealed in Christ’s victory over death through death. Scripture does not say that Christ overcomes death by being resurrected; he overcomes it by dying.

Glory is not a worship session; it is Christ on the cross.

When we mirror Christ into the world by dying to ourselves in Christ; when we care in his name for those who can offer us nothing; when we share our bread with those who have none, with him as our host; when we visit those who are in prison because we long to see him; we are revealing the glory of God. We are performing the one duty God has created us to do.

God directs Jesus to visit Mary and Martha four days after Lazarus was buried—so he did.

He arrives on the fourth day. Any Jewish person in Jesus’ day could tell you that the soul leaves the body after three days. The fourth day would be the day of no hope. If Jesus returned even on the third day, Lazarus’ soul would still be in his body; a resuscitation, while miraculous, might be conceivable. Yet Jesus arrives on the day when any recovery is impossible.

“If you had been here,” Martha insists, “my brother would not have died!”

Jesus does not reply to her immediate question. Rather, he answers a deeper question that Martha had not even considered.

“I am the resurrection and the life,” Jesus says.

“Resurrection” and “life.” Aren’t these words the same? Well, it depends on the speaker.

When we say “life”, we think of Genesis 2:7 (where “God forms man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life”) or Ezekiel 37:9-10 (where God instructs Ezekiel to prophesy the restoration of breath to dry bones). Life, for us, is the ability to breathe: if we cannot breathe, then we are not alive. In other words, when we say “life,” then, we actually mean “breath”.

Most of us who come to Jesus are seeking eternal breath. The Roman Centurion asks Jesus to restore his slave’s breath. Mary and Martha beg Jesus to restore Lazarus’ breath. Even today, most of us turn to Jesus when we are faced with the possibility of no longer breathing.

But when Jesus says “life”, he means more than just “breath”.

Just as the restoration of the blind man’s sight pointed to something greater than seeing (spiritual sight) and the feeding of the 5,000 pointed to something greater than bread (Christ as the bread of life), the resurrection of Lazarus is intended to point to something greater than “breath”—but what?

Jesus says to Martha: “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.”

For Jesus, “life” always means his life—the life of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Divine life.

This is why Jesus refers to breathing people as already being dead. Although they have breath, they do not have life, and without life, they are already dead. The proof of this comes when we cease breathing: we die. If our life was in Christ, this wouldn’t be the case. After all, “whoever believes in [Jesus], though he die, yet shall he live.”

When Jesus cries, the crowd mistakenly believes he is crying over Lazarus’ loss of breath.

“See how he loved him!” The crowds exclaim. But, as we have already learned, the crowds in John are always mistaken. Jesus is not crying over the loss of Lazarus’ breath, but the spiritual blindness he sees in Mary and the wailing crowd.

Although Martha and Mary address Jesus exactly the same way (“Lord, if you had been here…”), Martha goes on to confesses that Christ is the resurrection and the life. But Mary gives herself over to sorrow immediately after her interaction with Christ. Despite being in the presence of the author of all life, Mary decides to worship death with her tears. Jesus is “deeply moved in spirit and troubled” by this. So he weeps.

So far, we have answered the first three questions—but what about the fourth? Why does Martha doubt Jesus, despite admitting that he is the life and the resurrection a few passages before this? We also see this pattern in Peter who confesses that Jesus is “the Messiah, the Son of the living God” but then tries to separate Christ from his cross—all in the same chapter of scripture. But why?

Until the Holy Spirit comes to live within us, we will always be blind. We might obtain occasional flashes of spiritual sight, but these often fade away quickly. Even after our baptism, the development of spiritual sight takes time. We must listen for his voice in order to learn to see the world around us as it actually is, as we learned in the lesson from last week [link to Fourth Sunday in Lent blogpost].

When we ascend from the waters of baptism, we are filled with new life—not new breath.

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