Grace to you and peace from God our
Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen
The text for this meditation is written in the 10th Chapter of the Gospel according to St Matthew: Verses: 10: 5 – 33
5 These twelve Jesus sent out with the
following instructions: “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of
the Samaritans, 6 but go rather to the lost sheep of the
house of Israel. 7 As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The
kingdom of heaven has come near.’[a] 8 Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers,[b] cast out demons. You received
without payment; give without payment. 9 Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, 10 no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or
sandals, or a staff; for labourers deserve their food. 11 Whatever town or village you enter, find
out who in it is worthy, and stay there until you leave. 12 As you enter the house, greet it. 13 If the house is worthy, let your peace
come upon it; but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. 14 If anyone will not welcome you or listen
to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or
town. 15 Truly I tell you, it will be more
tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for
that town.
16 “See, I am sending you out like sheep into
the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. 17 Beware of them, for they will hand you
over to councils and flog you in their synagogues; 18 and you will be dragged before governors
and kings because of me, as a testimony to them and the Gentiles. 19 When they hand you over, do not worry
about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will
be given to you at that time; 20 for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking
through you. 21 Brother will betray brother to death, and
a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to
death; 22 and you will be hated by all because of my
name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. 23 When they persecute you in one town, flee
to the next; for truly I tell you, you will not have gone through all the towns
of Israel before the Son of Man comes.
24 “A disciple is not above the teacher, nor
a slave above the master; 25 it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like
the master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much
more will they malign those of his household!
26 “So have no fear of them; for nothing is
covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become
known. 27 What I say to you in the dark, tell in the
light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. 28 Do not fear those who kill the body but
cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in
hell.[c] 29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to
the ground apart from your Father. 30 And even the hairs of your head are all counted. 31 So do not be afraid; you are of more value
than many sparrows.
32 “Everyone therefore who acknowledges me
before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; 33 but whoever denies me before others, I
also will deny before my Father in heaven.
Jesus has
divided the twelve into teams of two each and sent them out, [Matthew 10:5–6] instructing
them, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, but
go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”. Jesus wants the disciples to get some
experience proclaiming the Gospel. He
has given them signs so that people will know that they are from God. He has given them a specific message to
proclaim. They are almost ready. Jesus has just one more thing to teach them
before they leave. He wants them to know
about the response they will receive after they proclaim the message.
The response
Jesus tells the disciples to expect SEEMS
totally wrong. It doesn’t seem to make
sense. Jesus warned the disciples with
words like, “Brother will deliver brother
over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents
and have them put to death, and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. This doesn’t seem right.
To understand
why this seems so wrong, let’s take a few moments to imagine other scenarios of
extreme need. Imagine a cyclone with a
path of destruction that is miles wide.
A team shows up with trucks carrying food, shelter, water, clothing, and
other necessities. The victims of the
storm would have nothing but thanks for these kind people. News media would broadcast from the site of
the destruction and praise the work of these rescuers. That is what we would expect.
Here is a real
historical example. Up until the middle
of the twentieth century many of the diseases that we now take in stride meant
death or loss of limb. Ear infections
would leave people deaf. Pneumonia was
fatal. Surgeons would often operate
successfully only to have patients die of infection. Then Alexander
Fleming discovered penicillin.
Two other men, Ernst Boris Chain and Howard Walter Florey read about
Fleming’s work and developed ways to mass produce penicillin and make it
available to the world at a relatively low price. In 1945, these three men shared the Nobel
Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Once
again, we see that the world honoured them for their achievement.
I am sure that
most of you know other examples of serious problems that were solved by
dedicated teams of people. You can also
relate how people responded in gratitude to these solutions. You expect people to be grateful when they
have a problem and someone solves it.
Now consider the human problem: Rom
5: 12 “Therefore,
just as sin came into the world through one man, and
death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all
have sinned” and the consequences Rom 6: 23 “the wages of sin is
death” – As clearly written in
the Holy scriptures, we humans are all born in sin and left to our own devices,
we are destined to die.
Did you hear the problem in those
words? Lost forever means an eternity of
suffering in hell. This is the most
serious problem of humanity. That is
a depressing thought in itself that would be almost impossible for us to bear
if it were not for the second half of Rom 6:23 “but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our
Lord.”
Jesus is the
solution to the problem of eternal punishment.
He is the saviour of all mankind.
He is the Son of God who took humanity into Himself so that He could
take our place and earn salvation for us.
He lived a perfect life and then suffered the eternal punishment we
deserved as He hung on a cross for us.
In this way, He paid the dreadful price of sin so that we could have
salvation for free … not just cheap, but free.
Then He rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. Now He offers His salvation to all people by
the pouring out of the Holy Spirit.
When we hear
this, we realise that Jesus makes us aware of our greatest problem and He
provides the greatest solution for free.
You would think that the entire world would honour Him above all
others. That is what one would think,
but the reality is just the opposite.
This hatred
does not make sense to us Christians.
After all, we are telling people that Christ has already purchased their
salvation with His death on the cross.
We are telling them that He gives this salvation to them for free …
that’s F – R – E – E … free! We are telling them that the Christ has
purchased a gift that is worth more than the wealth of all nations and He is
giving it away for free. Never the
less, the proclamation of this gift makes people angry. This just doesn’t make sense.
If Jesus had
not given us the words of today’s Gospel, sharing the Good News of salvation
would be a very confusing activity. It
would be easy to think that we were doing something wrong when people did not
eagerly desire to receive this gift when we told them about it. It would be easy to think that we were doing
something wrong when people actually fought against us and tried to destroy us
when all we want to do is tell them about a gift that is more valuable than all
the riches contained in the world. You
would think that people would fill Church buildings and line up around the
block and down the street in order to get this gift, but they don’t. They persecute it instead. Why is that!
Well, there is
something fundamentally different about the proclamation of salvation in Jesus
Christ. There is a spiritual war going
on all around us. While we are
proclaiming the free gift of salvation through Jesus Christ, sin, death, and the devil are fighting a
war of lies against that proclamation.
They are doing everything within their power to make truth look like a
lie and to make lies look like the truth.
Although sin, death, and the devil want to enslave us, they present
themselves as a way to freedom. Although
true freedom is in Christ Jesus, the forces of evil proclaim Christ as
restrictive and domineering. The forces
of sin, death, and the devil are the ultimate con artists. They pose as friends, but are really deadly
enemies.
Today’s Gospel
is a great comfort for persecuted Christians around the world. It tells us that the opposition of the world
is no surprise to God. God is not
up in heaven going, “O My! The world is
persecuting My people. Whatever will I
do?” No! God knows all about our
situation. He understands that the world
makes it hard to be a Christian. He
understands that His faithful confessors will undergo hard times. As Paul wrote to the Corinthians: [1
Corinthians 1:23] “We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews
and folly to Gentiles.” Today’s
Gospel is one of many places that tell us to expect opposition from the
world. Today’s Gospel tells us that we
are not doing something wrong when the world or even our own family hates
us for making a faithful confession of Jesus Christ.
Even with the
knowledge that God understands, though, it is still hard to stand firm in the
face of criticism. The temptation is
always there for us to compromise God’s teachings in order to get along with
the world. If the world gets offended
because the Bible says that all are sinners, we might be tempted to water down
the message of sin – perhaps even skip it altogether. If the world is offended by the gruesome
nature of the cross, we may want to push the cruel torture and the pain of the
cross into the background. It is easy to
talk about God’s love and forget about His justice. It is easy to talk about Jesus as our friend
and forget about the day when He will come as the judge. We often want to water down the message of
God’s Word just a little bit so that the world around us would not give us such
a hard time.
Jesus warns
that this attitude is very dangerous. He
said, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather
fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” The worst thing that this world can do to us
is end our physical life; but this world
is not all that there is. There is a
judge who has the authority and power to send both soul and body to the eternal
punishment of hell. It is His teachings
that we are watering down when we compromise our confession in order to fare
better in this world. It is His name we
are blaspheming when we give way, even a little bit, to the doctrines of this
world.
So, can we
stand firm in the faith even in the face of the world’s persecution? We all find this challenging. I must confess that in spite of my desire to
remain faithful to the teachings of God’s Word, my human nature leads me to
compromise my profession of faith. Once
again God’s Law (e.g. The Ten Commandments etc.) convicts with a standard of
perfection that is so high that no mere human could ever keep it. Once again, the Law shows our sin to us and
shows us our need for a saviour.
That is the
reason that the Gospel is so sweet to those who believe. The Gospel proclaims that Jesus is the only
one who never compromised God’s Word. He
is the only one who remained faithful to His calling. He remained faithful to His calling even when
His calling led to the cross. He is the
one who paid for our sins – even our sins of watered down doctrine – with his
death on the cross. He faced not only
the persecution of this world, but He also faced the combined guilt of all the
sin of this world. Even then He remained
faithful. With the victory He won with
His death on the cross, and His resurrection from the grave, He has purchased
the forgiveness of sins for all people.
Jesus warned
the disciples to remain faithful. Even
so, the disciples all abandoned Jesus.
At one point Peter even denied that He knew Jesus. In spite of their weak confession, Jesus took
them all back.
The history of
the early church tells us of the faithful Apostles. Of the eleven apostles who remained faithful
to Jesus, only John the Evangelist died of natural causes. The other ten Apostles died as martyrs to
their faith in Jesus Christ. Through the
power of the Holy Spirit, they persevered to the end.
In spite of our
many shortcomings – in spite of our fear – in spite of our desire to get along
with the world at the expense of Christ’s teachings, the Holy Spirit will
continue to keep us in the faith. Just
as the Apostles endured to the end by the power of the Holy Spirit, the Holy
Spirit will one day bring us to a blessed end here on this earth – only to take
us to a blessed eternity there in heaven.
There we shall wait with all the other believers in Christ until the
Last Day when Jesus will return and raise all the dead, and all who believe in
Him will live forever with Jesus on a new earth where there is no sin, no
sorrow, and no persecution. For we shall
live in that place forever with God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen
The love and
peace of our Great Triune God that is beyond all human understanding, keep your
hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen
No comments:
Post a Comment