We have been developing our Christian testimony as we have explored the testimony of the Apostle John recorded for us in the New Testament letter, 1 John.  This week we will be exploring John’s revelations about God through his writings in chapter 4 of that letter.

Now chapter 4 of John’s letter has probably one of the most often quoted phrases from the Bible.  John wrote, “Theos esti agape,” (theh'-os / es-tee' / ag-ah'-pay) which in English is simply, “God is love.”  The phrase, “God is love,” is a profound statement because it seems as though John is attempting to summarize God into a single word, love.  Think about yourself for a moment.  If someone were to ask you to summarize yourself into a single word, how would you do that?  What one word could be used to summarize the entirety of who you are?  Might we say of ourselves, I’m “nice.”  That’s it?  Perhaps nice does not do it and so we say “friendly,” or “kind,” or “loving.”  You see it is hard for us to describe ourselves in a single word, how then does John presume to define God in a single word? 

But this reduction of God to a single word or attribute is what many people do today.  They see John’s phrase, “God is love,” as the singular defining phrase for the entirety of God.  They want to write John’s expression that “God is love,” mathematically and so they take the phrase to be “God = Love,” and therefore, “Love = God.”  Meaning that anything that can be claimed to be formed by love is from God and that it must be blessed by God, ordained by God, and approved by God. 

Using this sort of reduction of God people come to all sorts of erroneous conclusions about God.  For example, people wrongly conclude that there is no hell because God is love and a loving God would not send someone to hell.  They wrongly conclude that any impulse natural to humanity relatable to love must be from God and therefore is permissible.  We know that “Love = God” is not true because John reminded us in his Gospel that, “19 Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19).  People love the cover of darkness to obscure their corrupt behaviors. 

John did not intend for God to be reduced God to a single word.  How do we know that to be the case?  Look at 1 John 1:5.  John wrote, “God is light.”  There is another single word descriptor for God.  Is John summarizing all of God to be a single word, light, or is John using these “God is” expressions to focus our minds on essential attributes about God one at a time?  I believe it is the latter because if we were to look at the “God is,” “Jesus is,” or “Spirit is” phrases we would see just from 1 John that:

• God is love (4:8, 4:16)
• God is light (1:5)
• God is forever (2:17)
• Jesus is faithful (1:9)
• Jesus is the atoning sacrifice (2:2)
• Jesus is righteous (2:29, 3:7)
• Jesus is pure (3:3)
• Jesus is sinless (3:5)
• Jesus is the Christ (1:3, 2:1, 2:22, 3:16, 3:23, 4:2, 5:1, 5:6, 5:20)
• The Spirit is Truth (5:6)

Looking at the “is” statements in all its various forms, it seems to me very clear that John, above all things, intended for this letter to remind his readers that “Jesus is Christ.”

          What does all this mean?  How then should we properly understand John’s statement that “God Is Love” and the impact that understanding has on our own testimony?  Fortunately, John has given us some much-needed help in his own letter.

          “God is love.”  To that phrase John added, “9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him” (1 John 4:9). John was sharing with us here that God, who is love, showed humanity what God’s love looks like when placed on full display.  “God is love” was shown to us in God’s sending his one and only Son into the world not to condemn the world but to give life to the world through his own Son.  John’s words here are profound for three reasons.

          First, that God is love and that love is expressed by God sending his one and only Son means that God’s love, God sending his own Son, is unique to God.  There is no human parallel to God’s love shown by God sending his Son into the world. Our ability and our capacity to express love, no matter how we might express love, are not on the same scale or plane as God’s expressed love.  John went further on this point when he said, “10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:10).  This is how we can begin to measure God’s love, that God’s sent his only Son to die for us.  God’s love is unrepeatably and unparallel by anything we could do to express love.

          Now, having no ability to express God’s love the way God did might leave us with a sense of inadequacy.  But here is the key point, God is love, but God does not expect us to match his love.  Instead, God expects us to complete his love, if you will, to complement his love.  How are we to do that?

• Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another (4:11).
• No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us (4:12).
• God is love.  Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.  This is how love is made complete among us (4:16b-17a).

God is love is uniquely expressed by God but the completion of that love, the complementing behavior for that love, occurs when we love one another.  As we talked last week, that love of one another means that we treat others, starting with those in the church, as brothers and sisters and we treat them without any form of hatred or indifference to their life’s struggles. Jesus made this point to his disciples when he said, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13:34). 

This is the first of the three reasons why the expression “God is love” is profound to our life.  “God is love” is a call for us to be responsive to God’s love by loving one another as Jesus loved his disciples.

          The second reason “God is love” is profound to us flows naturally from the first reason.  Namely, that God is love was and is uniquely by God’s Son, Jesus.  John wrote, “God loved us by sending his Son” (1 John 4:9 and 4:10).  God expressed his love by sending his own Son.  John quoted Jesus as saying, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13:34). God’s Son, God’s expression of love, gave a command that our response to that love must be to love one another. What makes these two sentences profound is that they do allow us to visualize and then present God’s love in a simple form, a mathematical form if you will. 

“God is Love.”

“God = Love”

 Love = His Son, Jesus, therefore,

“God = His Son, Jesus.”

Jesus is God among us. It is understanding that God is Jesus and Jesus is God helps us to understand that we can and are in fellowship with God as we live out our lives imitating Jesus.  When we follow Jesus, we are doing exactly what God desires. There is no missing the mark by following Jesus and honoring Jesus as God because He is God.  What a relief!

          The third reason “God is love” is profound is that God is love, Jesus, serves a specific purpose; that is to give us life.  But God’s love is costly.  John made the point that Jesus’ through his death gives us life.

          You see, the inauguration of human life itself and the giving of life into eternity are acts of God’s love.  The inauguration of human life we read earlier was God’s decision.  Genesis 1:27 says, “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27).  God gave life to us and not just any life, but one that is in the image of God.

          To be made in the image of God means that we are without parallel in this world.  Yes, we can see the wonderful creativity of God in the natural world.  Yes, we are to be stewards of God’s creation but nothing, absolutely nothing in all of creation compares even remotely to human life. This is because only human life bears the image of God himself.  This is why the command from Jesus we spoke about earlier was not love the earth and all of God’s creatures.  The command from Jesus was to love one another because each of us bears the image of God.

          What does that mean to bear the image of God?  That is a whole sermon series on its own.  But what is important for the moment is to know that to be made in the image of God is to know that because of God’s love we, like God, are alive and eternal.  Each of us has a birth into natural life as a living breathing human being bearing the image of God.  And because God is love and that love was expressed by God sending his Son that we might live through him, our eternal life, the life of our soul can be forever with God.

          But here is the important point.  Each of us has had a birth into natural life.  To be born into an eternal life with God, we must be born a second time, born of the Spirit of God.  John recorded for us Jesus’ teaching on this matter.  Jesus said, “5 Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again’” (John 3:5-7). To be born again is to accept Jesus and have your sins removed.  In our tradition, we express this acceptance of Christ and this second birth by being immersed in baptism.

          That God is love is a profound statement for our testimony because through that phrase we know and are reminded that God’s love is made complete when we love one another.  God is love is made understandable in seeing that God is Jesus makes our life and destiny understandable and assured by following Jesus.  God is love mean life to us now in abundance and life eternally with God himself.  God is love is a blessing to our sense of wellbeing and adds power to our personal testimony.

          How then might we express our testimony.  Bringing our testimony statement forward from last week, our testimony now might sound something like:

“I am a Christian, meaning I know and have received God’s love through Jesus, God’s Son.  I know God’s love and that God is love because God sent Jesus to die on the cross to take away all my sins.  In accepting Jesus, I became God’s own child, and I am in fellowship with God.  This is love.  That love, God’s love, becomes complete when I live my life loving my brothers and sister like Jesus lived, offering comfort and compassion.  Sometimes I miss the mark and do not love like Jesus. Fortunately, Jesus forgives me, restores me to fellowship with God, and shows me how to reconcile with others.  I know without Jesus, I am lost.”

This could be our testimony, our way of expressing who Jesus is to us.  This week, we should be thinking about the phrase “God is love,” and be joyous that we can complete God’s love by loving others, that we can know the freedom that following Jesus is following God because Jesus is God, and that we have life now and eternally because God is love.

We can know and experience the phrase “God is love,” by participating in the Lord’s Supper.  The Lord’s Supper reminds of the extent of God’s love through Jesus as he gave comfort, compassion, and life to his disciples when Jesus gave of his body and blood.  Let’s prepare ourselves to be surround in the love of God.  Amen and Amen.

This is our third week discussing the Apostle John’s letter to the early Christian Church.  We call that letter 1 John.  We have been using John’s letter of personal testimony to the church to help us understand our own personal testimony of who Jesus is and what Jesus means to us. Last week, I had summarized our testimony from the first two chapters of 1 John and said it might sound something along these lines: “I am a Christian and by that, I mean I know Jesus is the Son of God and that Jesus died on the cross to take my sins.  This is grace and this is love.  I now seek to obey Christ and be in fellowship with God.  I know Jesus by living my life as Jesus would do by showing his love to others.  But I am not perfect.  So when I stumble in walking with Jesus in this life, Jesus is there to call me back to Him, and restore me to fellowship with God.  I know without Jesus, I am lost.”

And so, we come to the third chapter of 1 John, and we want to explore John’s personal testimony and see how what John reveals to us might cause us to add to our testimony or alter what we have previously written.

Now John’s third chapter begins with testimony about our relationship with God through Jesus that grows with greater intimacy than he did in the two previous chapters.  Up to this point, John had said that we had fellowship with God and Jesus Christ but now John refines that definition of fellowship making it much for personal. John said, “1 See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1a). John was reminding the early Christians that their relationship with God through Jesus was that of child to a father. But not just any father. Christians, John wrote, have a father who lavishes love on his children.  There is a sense here of a father who just cannot help but love his children.

How might we get some sense of how John sees God toward those who have accepted the completed work of Jesus?  I think a good picture of that sort of father who lavishes love comes from a story Jesus himself told that we have for us in the Gospel of Luke.  That story is often entitled “The Prodigal Son,” which I believe is an incorrect title.  I think a better title to that story, if a title was needed at all, would be “The Forgiving Father,” or for today, “The Father Who Lavishes Love.”

We know in this story that a man had two sons.  The younger son demanded his inheritance from his father, even though the father was still alive.  The father gave the boy his inheritance and the son left the father and began living life large, spending as though there was no tomorrow.  Then, the money ran out and the boy became homeless, living and working among pigs.  The boy decided to return to the father in the hopes his father would take him in as another one of the field workers the father employed and fed.  Jesus said, “20 So he (the boy) got up and went to his father. But while he (the boy) was still a long way off, his father saw him (the boy) and was filled with compassion for him; he (the man) ran to his son, threw his arms around him (his son) and kissed him. 21 The son said to him (his father), ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’  22 But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. 24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate” (Luke 15:20-24).

          The father in this story was looking, longing for the redemption of the child who had left his side.  And when the father was in the distance that this child coming to home to him and the father could not wait for the child’s arrival.  Instead, the father ran to his child and began to lavish love upon his child. He kissed his child and then dressed his son in the best robe available.  The father put a ring on the child’s finger and sandals on his feet to show the father’s delight in having his child with him.  Then the father began preparing a celebration party.  The father was lavishing love.  In Jesus’ story by whatever title, the father is to be seen as God, and we are to be seen as the returning child.  The story gives us a sense of the joy God has when we come to Him through Christ.  God is overjoyed at our redemption and membership into God’s family and therefore God wants to lavish his love upon us.  John wanted his fellow churchgoers to remember this is the way God has treated them and will treat them for eternity.

          John’s message would have resonated with the early churchgoers because family, particularly a child’s relationship with his or her father, was a key factor to their wellbeing.  The father was responsible for the wellbeing of his family.  The children were known by their father’s name.  The social status of the children would not be higher than that of the child’s father.  The father provided security, safety, nourishment, and identity. John’s message was that God will now provide the ultimate expression of security, safety, nourishment, and identity. John’s readers would have understood John’s words.

Sadly, John’s words may not resonate as well today since the number of mothers only family households has climb to about 8 million in 2022, that is about 15 million kids, or about 20% of all the children in the United States.  Twenty percent of all children might have difficulty relating to having a father at all, and still others have difficulty relating to having a father who is loving.

          But the good news is that God has not changed, and God will lavish love on all his children in the manner Jesus described in that homecoming scene.  And because we become God’s children, we gain brothers and sisters.  In my case, I was the youngest of four children and so I have a brother and two sisters, one of whom died in September of last year.  I get along well with my siblings, but I see and talk with my biological brother and sister on occasion, not anywhere nearly as often as I have fellowship with my brothers and sisters who are found in the church, born of Christ. My greater relationship with my brothers and sisters in Christ, has been that way for the last 35 years or so and I expect it to remain that way until I die and for eternity.  This is the nature of the Christian relationship.  We have an immense family.

          Now sometimes, to accept the relationship with Jesus, to become a child of God with many brothers and sisters, can cause issues and problems with our biological family.  Sometimes people seek to accept Jesus but are discouraged and even threatened by their family members who have rejected Christ.  Jesus once said of the that, “26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. 27 And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26-27).  This is one of those disturbing statements of Jesus.  We follow the first part of what Jesus said in that we must come to him and be prepared to be his disciples.  But we struggle with the second part of what Jesus said in that it seems like Jesus is saying we must hate our entire family in the process. What Jesus was saying here was that we cannot let family loyalties of our family prevent us from following him. If our families would rather we not follow Jesus, then we must be willing to break with our families and their traditions and become children of God.  In some ways, this would seem or feel like as though we had in fact decided to hate our biological families.

          Jesus expressed this idea of breaking from the family, including one’s father in a rather cryptic response to the cost of discipleship.  One of Jesus’ followers came to him and said, “‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’  22 But Jesus told him (the disciple), ‘Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead’” (Luke 9:21b-22).  Jesus’ response to this man at first sounds cold and uncaring.  The man seemed to only want a few minutes to bury his father. But that is not likely what is going on here.  What appears more likely to be the case is the man wanted to follow Jesus, but he knew that following Jesus is going to create problems with his father who is still alive because the father wanted none of his family to have anything to do with Jesus.  So when the man says to Jesus, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father,” what he meant was that the man would be freed from family obligations to follow Jesus once his father has died and is buried.  So, Jesus let me wait until my father is dead and buried before I follow after you. Jesus’ response then was, “Follow me (now), and let the dead (those who have rejected God’s Messiah) bury your father (who has rejected me) when he dies.”  The exchange between this man and Jesus helps understand the significance of accepting God’s offer to become his child now even if our family of birth has rejected God’s offer.

          John said that in the new family setting with God at the head and many brothers and sisters, there comes some new understandings.  John wrote, “11 For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. 12 Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his (Cain’s) own actions were evil and his brother’s (Abel’s) were righteous. 13 Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. 14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death. 15 Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him” (1 John 3:11-15). John is equating hatred of another child of God as murder making the hater to be no different than Cain, humanity’s first murder who himself murdered his own brother, Abel. 

          John’s words are strong words indeed, but John’s words do not express an original concept.  Jesus was said, “21 You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ 22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell” (Matthew 5:21-22). John’s words reconvey Jesus’ teaching that hatred toward a brother or sister in Christ will not be tolerated by God. It must be corrected.  Jesus said, “ 23 Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24 leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift” (Matthew 5:23-24).  The message is simple.  Jesus said before we presume to come and worship God our Father, we must first make things right with God’s other children.  If there is a hatred toward another brother or sister in your life, do not wait to resolve it.  Do it now.

          John, for his part, also showed us that hatred comes not just in anger toward another brother or sister but also hatred comes in the form of indifference. Indifference is a lack of concern, interest, or sympathy.  In fact, many believe that the opposite of love is not hatred.  The opposite of love is indifference.  John equates indifference to hatred.  John began to explain that point first by describing love. John wrote, “16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us” (1 John 3:16).  Jesus loved by giving his life.  Jesus was not indifferent to you and me.  Jesus saw that we could not help ourselves.  Jesus saw we could not on our own conquer sin.  We could not conquer death.  We could not become children of God unless the matter of sin was dealt with once and for all.  Jesus, who could gain nothing from us, was not indifferent to us, and so he gave his life to us in love.

          John said, in recognition of and in imitation of Jesus’ love, “We ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. 17 If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? 18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth” (1 John 3:17-18).  Hatred of a brother or sister in Christ can be expressed by indifference toward their circumstances.  We cannot be indifferent toward one another, but we must act for the good of one another even if there is nothing for us to gain from acting good.

          What then do we do with John’s words inspired by the Holy Spirit of God?  How does what John talked about change our testimony about how Jesus has changed our lives?  What is different about us because of Jesus?  For me, the focus this week has been on family.  We have become a child of God and part of a family with many brothers and sisters each of whom is to be committed to loving each other.  We have become part of a family that seeks reconciliation not division.  This is whole we are to be and if we are that way, then we have a powerful, bold, compelling story to tell that will resonate with all generations.  Our testimony might sound something like this:

“I am a Christian, meaning I know Jesus is the Son of God, that Jesus died on the cross to take my sins, and that through Him I became God’s own child and part of a family devoted to loving one another.  This is grace and this is love.  I now seek to obey Christ, to be in fellowship with God, and to love my Christian brothers and sisters.  I try to live like Jesus by striving to love to others who are in need as Jesus did offering comfort and compassion.  But I am not perfect.  Sometimes I miss the mark and do not act as Jesus asks.  Fortunately, Jesus forgives me, restores me to fellowship with God, and shows me how to reconcile with others.  I know without Jesus, I am lost.”

This week let’s focus on loving like Jesus.  Let’s live out our testimony confident that doing so pleases our Father, God Almighty. Amen and Amen.

This is the second week we are looking at the Apostle John’s first letter to the early Christian Church that we call 1 John.  We are looking at 1 John as a way to help us better understand our Christian testimony, that is what Jesus Christ means to us.  Last week, we looked at how our testimony should be bold and bright even if we sound a little strange to others.  We should sound strange because our testimony is that we believe we have had a spiritual encounter with Jesus the Christ and that we are in fellowship with God who stands outside of creation.  Last week, I summed up our what our testimony might sound like after reading Chapter 1 of 1 John, and it might sound something like this: “I am a Christian and by that, I mean I seek to imitate Christ and be in fellowship with God.  I can imitate Christ Jesus because he has removed all my sins from me when he died on the cross.  This is grace.  Because of this grace, my mind has been transformed, it has been changed.  I now try to see my life through Jesus’ eyes and do the things He would have me do.  This is living in the light.  But I am not perfect.  So when I do veer again into sinful behavior, Jesus is there to call me back to Him, to clean me up, and restore me to fellowship with God.  Without Jesus, I am lost.” 

Today, we are going to continue with Chapter 2 of John’s letter to see what else we may want to add to or alter about our testimony.  And if I could sum up in a single word what John main charge in his testimony in Chapter 2 it would be the word “known” or “know.” Fourteen times John used one of two Greek words for the English word know or known.  John was putting an emphasis on knowing Jesus and knowing that obedience to Jesus and love are inseparably joined together.

We saw the emphasis on certainty and knowing from our Old Testament reading in Psalm 100.  The psalmist said, “3 Know that the Lord is God.  It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture…5 For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations” (Psalm 100:3, 5).  There is emphatic confidence coming from the psalmist declaring what he knows to the core of his being.  There is nothing wishy-washy in what the psalmist is saying in his testimony.  And what the psalmist was certain of was that God’s love was unchanging.

Our testimony is compelling when we express it with certainty.  Studies of court testimony by eyewitness has shown that persuasion occurs when there is certainty expressed by the witness.  This persuasion occurs because the jury wants to bring its beliefs into line with reality and believes that a witness having confidence is communicating valid information about reality.  This is true because in general, when we are unsure of ourselves, when the situation is unclear or ambiguous, when uncertainty reigns, we are most likely to look to and accept the confident actions of others as correct. 

There was an infamous case of uncertainty that contributed to the death of a young woman named Kitty Genovese.  One summer evening in New York City, Kitty was returning home to her apartment when she was attacked and stabbed by a former boyfriend.  Many people heard her cries for help and went to their windows to see what was going on.  Each person observed the attack and Kitty’s the screams for help.  When the witnesses could see other witnesses not reacting to the situation, none of the witnesses reacted.  No one called the police or rendered assistance to Kitty. Uncertainty proved fatal.

John’s testimony in Chapter 2 began with what John knew for sure.  “We have an advocate with the Father – Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.  He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:1b-2).  At the time John wrote these words, there were people from the Christian Church who were suggesting a different path of salvation, one that did not depend upon the work of Jesus upon the cross.  These folks were called Gnostics.  The Gnostics believed knowledge itself brought human enlightenment, a sense of salvation.  The Gnostics believed that Jesus was merely a human who attained the pinnacle of enlightenment through gnosis, knowledge of spiritual mysteries, and taught his disciples to do the same.  John was confident and adamant the Gnostics were wrong.  John said, Jesus is the atoning sacrifice for sin (1 John 2:2a) and that Jesus came from God and had returned to God to be our advocate (1 John 2:1b).  There was no other pathway to salvation.

Now we might think that 2,000 years later, the Christian Church has settled itself on who Jesus is, why he came, and why he died.  Unfortunately, within those who say they are Christians, there are some interesting beliefs.  For example, it is a core belief of Christianity that Jesus never sinned. However, 25% of Christians recently surveyed believe that Jesus committed sin like all of us.  It is a core belief of Christianity that Jesus is the only way to God.  However, about half of the Christians surveyed all religious beliefs are of equal value.  It is a core belief of Christianity that Jesus died for your sins and my sins and because of the completed work of Christ we can have eternal life with God. However, more than half the Christians surveyed believe that just living a good life is enough to get into heaven.

There are more statistics, but I think you get the point.  Basic Christian beliefs within the church suggest significant uncertainty about core Christian beliefs.  Uncertain witnesses give poor and unconvincing testimony.  Think of it this way.  Suppose you were on trial for a serious crime of which you were innocent. How would you feel if during your trial your character witnesses were asked whether they thought you committed the crime and their response was, “I place the odds at about 50/50.”  That kind of uncertain response would be a serious situation for your defense.  John, in his letter, was indicating the early church was facing a serious situation about core beliefs and that there were people from the church actively preaching and teaching untrue doctrine that was leading to uncertainty among Christian. The Church today is facing a serious situation about core beliefs with people teaching untrue doctrine leading to uncertainty among Christians and weakening the gospel message to non-believers.

John expressed the crisis this way, “18 Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come” (1 John 2:18).  John is the first in all of Scripture to use the word antichrist.  What is the antichrist?  John wrote simply, “Whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ, such a person is the antichrist” (1 John 2:22).  There were antichrists in John’s day and there are antichrists aplenty in our day, because they deny Jesus as the Christ.  John said though, “21 I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth” (1 John 2:21).  John was saying here that his reader knew the difference between the truth and a lie, and that truth will not fail you.  The truth was Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, and the only pathway to salvation.

What then was the significance of confidently knowing Jesus for who he was?  John said it was this, “3 We know that we have come to know him (Jesus) if we keep his (Jesus’) commands. 4 Whoever says, “I know him,” (Jesus) but does not do what he (Jesus) commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. 5 But if anyone obeys his (Jesus’) word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him (Jesus): 6 Whoever claims to live in him (Jesus) must live as Jesus did” (1 John 2:3-6).  To confidently say we know Jesus, John said was not based upon head knowledge of some secret mysteries of life and the universe.  To confidently say we know Jesus, is however, based upon obedience, it is based upon behaviors, that show that we believe Jesus is the Christ, that we have listened to what Jesus said, and we are doing what Jesus said.

That was quite a lot that John put forth there about knowing Christ.  John was saying here that we can be confident in our testimony and in our destiny by knowing Jesus, abiding in Him, and being like Him.  And the simplicity of John’s charge to his church of knowing, abiding, and being in Jesus has huge and eternal implications.

Think of those implications this way.  Jesus once said, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 7:21).  Those words from Jesus immediately sounds quite disturbing because Jesus was saying that there will be people who recognize Jesus on earth and say Jesus is their “Lord” who will not later be found in heaven.  That means people who are in the church itself will not be in heaven. 

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.  Many will say to me on that day, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’  Then I will say, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!” (Matthew 7:21-23).  These “churchgoers,” if you will, said and did some marvelous things but they did not know Jesus because they were not obedient to the words of Jesus which express the will of God.  And because they were not obedient to Jesus, Jesus did not know them.  These “churchgoers” did not abide in Jesus, and Jesus did not abide in them.  These “churchgoers” were not being like Jesus, and Jesus being evident in them.

What was the problem with these “churchgoers?” The problem with their testimony was that these “churchgoers” did not genuinely obey Jesus because they would not love like Jesus.  Obedience and love.  As a society we dislike the word obedience, and we like the word love.  John was saying for us to confidently know Jesus and thus be assured of our destiny we must embrace equally embrace obedience and love.  We will recall, John wrote, “Whoever claims to live in him (know, abide, and be) must live as Jesus did” (1 John 2:6).  Claiming Jesus must be seen in living like him.

John helps us understand his point this way, “Anyone who claims to be in the light (claims to live in Jesus) but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness” (1 John 2:9).  We heard this point from John last week as well, “If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth” (1 John 1:6).  We “churchgoers” cannot genuinely claim Christ and hate people.  Let’s not get confused here.  We do not have to like and approve of things people do and we may even hate some of the things they did because of the pain that those behaviors brought about, but we cannot hate the person.  And John started off by making it emphatic that you cannot hate a brother or sister, meaning you cannot legitimately claim Christ and hate another Christian, that is the context of brother or sister.

John then restated his point that, “Anyone, any churchgoer, who loves their brother and sister lives in the light, and there is nothing in them to make them stumble” (1 John 2:10).  Our confident testimony about Christ should be evident because of our obedience to Christ is shown by our loving of all in the church.  Obedience and love are coupled, and we must equally embrace both.  John then concluded with, “If you know that he (Jesus) is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right (obeys Jesus) has been born of him (Jesus)” (1 John 2:29).

What then do we do with all that John has shared with us today?  First, we must get our minds straight and confident on basic Christian beliefs. Jesus is not just a good teacher or wonderful mentor.  Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God who died to take your sins and to take my sins. Second, Jesus is not a pathway to God. He is emphatically the only way to God and eternal life.  Third, we must not only accept Jesus as the Christ and the pathway to eternal life but we take the power that comes in knowing Jesus and then confidently obey Jesus and demonstrate that obedience daily by loving one another.

How then might we state our testimony after reading the second Chapter of John’s letter.  We might say, ““I am a Christian and by that, I mean I know Jesus is the Son of God and that Jesus died on the cross to take my sins.  This is grace and this is love.  I now seek to obey Christ and be in fellowship with God.  I know Jesus by living my life as Jesus would do by showing his love to others.  But I am not perfect.  So when I stumble in walking with Jesus in this life, Jesus is there to call me back to Him, and restore me to fellowship with God.  I know without Jesus, I am lost.”

Let’s be confident in our testimony and demonstrate that this week through our obedience to Jesus and our love for one another.  Amen and Amen.

As we know, it is the Sunday after Easter Sunday and a few things have changed.  The pageantry and the flowers of Easter Sunday are gone as well as some of the people who were here last Sunday.  These are predictable changes.  But certain things remain unchanged.  Most important among these things that remain unchanged is God. Theologians say God is immutable meaning God is consistent and unchanging in his use of wisdom, mercy, justice, and love.  God’s acts are never arbitrary.  God does not spin a wheel of misfortune and fortune to decide what pleases him on any given day.  God is the same, even though everything else in our physical world, in our human experience, is always changing.  I cannot imagine what life would be like if we had to keep guessing what God was going to be like today and how he might be different next Sunday.  God is always consistent in his regard for our wellbeing.

We see this sense of consistency, the immutability of God, expressed in our Old Testament reading from the prophet Micah.  Micah, whose name means “Who Is Like the Lord?” observed that: “18 Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance?  You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. 19 You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.  20 You will be faithful to Jacob, and show love to Abraham, as you pledged on oath to our ancestors in days long ago” (Micah 7:18-20).

Micah was happy to tell others about the God that loved him.  Micah said that God:

•  Pardons sin,
• Forgives transgressions,
• Does not stay angry,
• Delights to show mercy,
• Has compassion, and 
• Is faithful.

These are the attributes of God to which Micah gave his testimony.

          The word “testimony” for me in the context of church was at first a very strange word.  I came from a Roman Catholic background into the Baptist church in 1985. People at the Baptist church were excited and hoped for a time to share “their testimony.”  I had no real idea what they were talking about.  The phrase “sharing your testimony” was not a phrase I found in the Roman Catholic Church any more than making the sign of the cross was found in the Baptist church.

          It took me a while to come to understand that to give your testimony meant that you wanted to share with someone else how Jesus and his saving power came into your life and how your life is different as a result.  The act of giving testimony is the act of being a witness for Jesus.  In church terms, those who witness, those who give testimony, bear the name in Greek, martyrs.  Micah, from our Old Testament reading, was a prophet but also a martyr because he was giving his testimony as a witness to the unchangeable nature of God as one who pardons sin, forgives transgressions, does not stay angry, delights in showing mercy, has compassion, and is faithful.  There are hundreds of other passages in the Old Testament in which men and women from all walks of life gave testimony, acted as witnesses, to the unchanging nature of God.  The psalms, for example, contain numerous statements of testimony about the nature of God.  And the testimony about God has great consistency among the many people who gave testimony separated by hundreds of years.  For example, David’s testimony concerning his relationship with God was very similar to that offered by Micah’s testimony.  David’s testimony said in part: “8 The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.  9 He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; 10 he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.  11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; 12 as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:8-12).  David’s testimony, given from his experience with God, was very similar to the testimony of Micah and his experience with God.  So to give your testimony is to share from your experience with God. 

I thought it would be profitable for us to focus a few weeks on shared testimony so that we can be better prepared to share our own testimony, our own story of life with God.  I would like us to look at testimony through the lens of John’s first letter to his church, 1 John.

1 John is a short letter, on par with the length of a letter one friend might write to another.  And I recommend that you take some time this week and read 1 John like a letter.  By that, I mean read it from beginning to end in one sitting so that you get the full impact of what John has to say.  Over the next weeks we will dive deeper into the words John uses but our time together should supplement the time we each spend on our own with John’s letter.

Let’s look at John’s letter of testimony as a letter between dear friends.  John opened his letter without the customary greetings of ancient or modern letters.  There is no “Dear Friend” or even a “To Whom It May Concern.”  Instead, John got right into the heart and substance of what he wanted to say to us about his experience with God.  John wrote, “1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 2 The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. 3 We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. 4 We write this to make our joy complete” (1 John 1:1-4).  John was setting out that he intended to give testimony from a firsthand perspective of having personally met someone who existed before creation and yet John met this someone in not in a vision but in a form that was visible, touchable, and hearable with the physical senses.  Moreover, this someone of John’s testimony is the Word, the Source, of life itself. John said that because of this encounter John and others like John who had such an encounter have fellowship, have a personal relationship with God and that John wanted his friend reading this letter to have the same relationship he has with God.  That is why John is writing this letter.

The opening to John’s letter, the foundation of his testimony, is frankly shocking.  John is saying here that God, who is outside of the creation, that God decided to come into creation, into the world, as a human being, one that could be seen, heard, and touched, and that John met this person, fellowshipped with him, and because of that time and experience with this God in person, John now fellowships with God himself who is outside the created world. 

When we let John’s words sink in for a moment, we easily find John’s words fascinating but we can be just as easily conflicted because we must immediately conclude that either John has had an awe-inspiring supernatural experience or John has lost his mind.  There really is no middle ground here.  And the concern about being thought to be out of your mind is the first obstacle most people have in sharing their personal testimony of their experience with God.  We do not want to be thought of as lunatics so we either withhold our testimony or try to present our testimony in a less fascinating way than did John or in a way that leaves open the possibility that we have not lost our minds.  John’s opening here tells us that we should be in our own testimony brave and bold with our faith and begin with an unmistakable stance about our experience with God.

Let me illustrate this notion from my personal life. When I worked for the federal government, I frequently traveled throughout the country.  Most weeks, I flew somewhere for a meeting or to conduct an inspection or address a problem.  On those airplane rides, inevitably the person seated next to me would ask me questions like, “What is your name?  Where do you live?  Where do you work?  What do you do for a living?” etc.  And these questions are all intended in a roundabout way to elicit testimony from me about myself.  There is nothing fascinating about these questions or the answers these questions would elicit.

I now wonder what my experiences on those airplanes would have been like if someone said to me, “So what is your name?” and I answered, “My name is George.  I am a Christian and by that, I mean I seek to imitate Christ and so that I can remain in fellowship with God.”  Now that is a fascinating response and the person next to me might well conclude that I have something important to say or that I have lost my mind.  And if my fellow passenger did not immediately seek to change seats, then I could add, “And I nothing would make me happier than for you to have the same fellowship I have with Jesus and the Father.  Can we talk?”  This is essentially what John did in the opening of his letter to his friends. The start of John’s testimony is either fascinating or disturbing.  But either way, John believed what he had to say was important enough to risk being thought a fool or insane.

With the starkness of his opening testimony, John began to explain what he learned from his experience in equally stark and contrasting terms.  John wrote, “5 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin” (1 John 1:5-7).  John’s testimony is that God is light, meaning God is pure, holy, righteous, and good.  There is nothing corrupt about God.  John emphasized this latter point by saying, “In him [God] there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5b).  God is pure and not corrupt.  For John, in his experience with God, God stands in contrast to the worldliness. God is light; the world is darkness. 

Now for John’s friends to experience the joy John is having; John’s friends must have fellowship with God.  By this John means his friends must walk, live out their everyday life, in the light.  They must not live their life immersed in the darkness of the world.  John’s friends might then have asked as they were reading this letter, “How can someone born into the world and its darkness move into the light of God so that they can live in the light?  How is it possible to leave behind the corruption of the world, the darkness, and enter the light?”  Anticipating just such a question, John said the way to move from the darkness into the light is to accept Jesus, this person who existed before creation and lived for a brief time on earth as a human being.  John’s testimony then is that John was changed by Jesus because Jesus purified John from all sin allowing John to be full in the light (1 John 1:7b).  And John said the same purification can happen for John’s friends.

How do we relate to John’s testimony?  How might we explain our experience with God to the person seated next to us in the airplane.  We might say, “I am a Christian and by that, I mean I seek to imitate Christ and be in fellowship with God.  I can imitate Christ Jesus because he has removed all my sins from me when he died on the cross.  This is grace.  Because of this grace, my mind has been transformed, it has been changed.  I now try to see my life through Jesus’ eyes and do the things He would have me do.  This is living in the light.”  This might be how we might give our testimony to the passenger seated next to us.

But whether you were a friend of John, or the passenger seated on that plane, one of the things you would quickly pick up on is that in all this testimony of fellowship, light, darkness, and sin, we are saying not so subtly that we have called the person receiving this testimony a sinner.  “You are a sinner.”  That is not a compliment and is not a label anyone exactly wants to be called.

Again, I think John anticipated hs readers would react negatively to being called a sinner.  So John wrote, “8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us” (1 John 1:8-10).  John was saying two things here, one much more important than the other.  First, let’s consider the thing of lesser importance.  “If we say we do not sin, then we deceive ourselves.”  I think most people, if they think about it, can get through the idea that they are not perfect and can agree they have sinned. We don’t like saying or having someone say we are a sinner, but we can eventually agree with that statement. Now, let’s consider the thing of greater importance from John’s testimony.  While God is immutable, unchangeable, us being a sinner is not an immutable, unchangeable, part of who we are.  We do not have to continue to be a sinner.  John said, “If we confess our sins, he (Jesus) is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”  Jesus changed John and Jesus can change you. Our nature as a sinner is changeable.

How might we explain our testimony to the passenger next to us on the plane?  We might say, “I am a Christian and by that, I mean I seek to imitate Christ and be in fellowship with God.  I can imitate Christ Jesus because he has removed all my sins from me when he died on the cross.  This is grace.  Because of this grace, my mind has been transformed, it has been changed.  I now try to see my life through Jesus’ eyes and do the things He would have me do.  This is living in the light.  But I am not perfect.  So when I do veer again into sinful behavior, Jesus is there to call me back to Him, to clean me up, and restore me to fellowship with God.  Without Jesus, I am lost.”  This is the beginning of our testimony.

The Bible is very much a book of testimonies from men and women across the ages seeking to share with others their experience with God. We have seen a sampling of this from the Old Testament and have looked in some detail at the testimony of John in the New Testament.  Those who gave testimony were called witnesses or martyrs.  The reason we want to give our testimony is first that is what Jesus asked his disciples to do.  And second, being witness, telling your story of your experience with God in your own words, is always fascinating and compelling.  You have a story to tell about walking with God, about being in the light, about being a sinner who was changed when Jesus came into your life.  This week I want to encourage you to read 1 John and begin thinking about your personal testimony.  Start writing down how you might explain your life with Christ and how it differs from your life without Christ.  Let’s all begin to see how we too can be a martyr, a witness, by sharing our testimony. Amen and Amen.

          This is our fourth and final week in our journey through the story of Jesus as foretold in the Old Testament Book of Isaiah, Chapter 53.

          We like a good story.  And for most people, we like a story with a happy ending.  We inherited this desire for a happy ending to a story from our ancient ancestors.

          Our exploration today of Jesus’ story through the prophesies of Isaiah give us a pause as to whether the story will end happily.  We have seen over the past four weeks through Isaiah that God’s anointed Messiah was at first, “3 Despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.  Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem” (Isaiah 53:3).  Then later people came to realize that they were wrong about Jesus.  The people came to see that Jesus bore their sorrows and sufferings.  They saw that Jesus was subjected to injustice and yet did not cry out against the injustice.  Jesus spoke only to affirm the truth.  None of this sounds much like a good story, particularly for Jesus.

          But mixed within the sadness of Jesus’ story, is the good news story for us.  For Isaiah said the people would come to see that “the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5b). There was the good news.  He brought us peace and he brought us healing. Somehow in the plan and power of God, the Messiah, Jesus, being subjected to injustice brought us mercy. In Jesus’ sufferings, we are brought peace.  In Jesus’ wounding prior to and upon the cross, we are healed.  As we talked about a couple of weeks ago, what Isaiah saw coming and what Jesus lived out was the paradox of God’s grace.  Human injustice, suffering for another, and wounds inflicted upon Jesus translated through God’s grace is transformed into mercy, peace, and healing from God to humanity.

As wonderful and surprising as the paradox of God’s grace is, Isaiah saw more coming. Isaiah saw that for humanity to have the ultimate assurance in life, the Messiah would have to also confront death. Death is a hard topic for us to talk about because grief from death can strike within us many strong negative emotions. Noted Christian writer, C. S. Lewis, said, ““No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing.  At other times it feels like being mildly drunk or concussed. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me.”

Isaiah foresaw the death of the Messiah and grieving. Isaiah wrote, “8a By oppression and judgment he was taken away…9a He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death” (Isaiah 53:8a, 9a). 

The idea of the Messiah dying was not acceptable to the Jews awaiting the Messiah.  In their minds, the Messiah was to be an invincible human being ushering in the glorious rule of God and the restoration of Israel.  To have the Messiah suffer on the cross, pierced by iron nails and spear, and die without putting up a fight was and is unacceptable.  But Isaiah had foreseen that the Messiah, the true Messiah, must die, the Messiah must go to the grave.  This was all necessary for the Messiah to fight humanity’s truly one unbeatable foe, death itself.

The thinking in the days of Isaiah was that death ended all relationships, human and divine. The people then did not have a conception of heaven and hell as has been revealed to us.  The people of Isaiah’s time, and even in Jesus’ time, and even some today, believed and still believe that God was and is only to be found among the living.  That upon death, the body was put in the ground and the spirit of the person went to Sheol, a place of nothingness.  They believed from the depth of Sheol one cannot praise God and one cannot hope for the truth of God.  (Isaiah 38).  Death into a shadowy underworld of nothingness was the destiny for all.  No one escaped death.  It was the unbeatable foe, the frightening idea of all people

Isaiah foresaw the Messiah would die and be assigned a grave among the wicked and the rich.  How did Isaiah’s vision play out in the life of Jesus?  Our Gospel writer Mark told the story this way.  “37 With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.  38 The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. 39 And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, saw how he died, he said, ‘Surely this man was the Son of God!’  40 Some women were watching from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joseph, and Salome. 41 In Galilee these women had followed him and cared for his needs. Many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem were also there” (Mark 15:37-41).  Jesus, the Messiah, was dead and grief came in place of his life and his spirit.  Upon Jesus’ death, the Apostles began to grieve. The woman standing nearby the cross began to grieve.  Mary, the mother of Jesus, began to grieve.  They believed from now on they would be forever separated from Jesus, their Lord, Teacher, and friend.  All was hopeless and dark.  They could not reach Jesus and he could not reach them.  Isaiah said, “8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away…For he was cut off from the land of the living” (Isaiah 53:8a).

          Mark continued, “42 It was Preparation Day (that is, the day before the Sabbath). So as evening approached, 43 Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body. 44 Pilate was surprised to hear that he [Jesus] was already dead. Summoning the centurion, he [Pilate] asked him [the Centurion] if Jesus had already died. 45 When he [Pilate] learned from the centurion that it was so, he [Pilate] gave the body [of Jesus] to Joseph. 46 So Joseph bought some linen cloth, took down the body [of Jesus], wrapped it in the linen, and placed it in a tomb cut out of rock. Then he [Joseph] rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. 47 Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph saw where he [Jesus] was laid” (Mark 15:42-47).

          Jesus was dead.  Joseph of Arimathea a member of the Council asked for the body of Jesus. Joseph, we are told was a member of the Council, the same Council that had met in secret, put Jesus on trial, and sentenced Jesus to death.  Isaiah had foreseen that, 8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away.  Yet who of his generation protested?” (Isaiah 53:8).  Apparently, Joseph did not protest.  Other Gospel accounts have another member of the Council, Nicodemus, helping Joseph collect Jesus’ body.  There is no indication Nicodemus protested at Jesus’ trial.  But something happened to Joseph and Nicodemus along the way. Somewhere between convicting Jesus and witnessing Jesus’ death just hours later, something changed within these men.  Something changed that drew them out of the shadows of belief in Jesus and into an open desire to care for his body.  Grief can do that to us.  Suddenly, in grief, we do not much care what people thinking about us.  There is a purity of thought, there is an unashamed truthfulness that comes over a grieving person.  Grieving people want the world to know who they loved and still love.  Mark said that Joseph who apparently had been silent at Jesus’ trial now went boldly to Pilate to seek Jesus body to bury it in Joseph’s own unused tomb.  Joseph would have many questions to answer later from the Council for showing compassion toward Jesus.  But that did not matter.  What mattered now for Joseph was to express his love for Jesus in the only way that he thought he could do. And so, Joseph placed Jesus’ body in the tomb and rolled a stone to seal the opening.

          There is much mystery to what happened after Jesus’ died and placed in that tomb.  We know only bits and pieces about the disciples’ actions and next to nothing about Jesus’ actions.  Even our dear friend Isaiah could not pierce the denseness of the death and describe for us the specific activities of the Messiah after death.  But Isaiah was able to share with us the purpose and the result of the Messiah’s death.  Isaiah said, “10 Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand” (Isaiah 53:10).  Isaiah had revealed something shocking here.  The Messiah was a sin offering for all the people.  Lambs used in sin offerings were put to death.  But Isaiah saw that through he was a sin offering, through death, the Messiah would give life to many, and the Messiah would become prosperous.  How could one give life to others and become prosperous after death?  There was only one way.  To give life and be prosperous on any terms was possible if and only if the Messiah had life himself.  Isaiah said, “11 After he has suffered, he will see the light of life” (Isaiah 53:11a).

          Isaiah may not have been given insight to the spiritual battle the Messiah would undertake while dead, nevertheless, God gave Isaiah insight in knowing that the impossible had been accomplished in and through the Messiah.  The Messiah would overcome death and see life again.

          As I was thinking about Isaiah’s vision of the Messiah’s battle against death, doing so for the benefit of others, and returning to life, I was struck by the words of a modern era song that speaks of such a quest.  The words come from the musical, Man of La Mancha, in the epic song, The Impossible Dream. The song writer there described the quest this way and I find the emotions of this song express much about the work of Jesus:

To dream the impossible dream,
To fight the unbeatable foe,
To bear with unbearable sorrow,
To run where the brave dare not go.

To right the unrightable wrong,
To love pure and chaste from afar,
To try when your arms are too weary,
To reach the unreachable star.

This is my quest,
To follow that star
No matter how hopeless,
No matter how far.

To fight for the right
Without question or pause,
To be willing to march
Into hell for a heavenly cause.

And I know if I'll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will be peaceful and calm
When I'm laid to my rest.

And the world will be better for this,
That one man scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage.
To fight the unbeatable foe.
To reach the unreachable star.

Isaiah’s vision, h dream-like revelation of the Messiah being scared, scorned, entering the grave, fighting against death, and returning was not just a happy ending to a story, it was quite frankly an impossible ending.  People do not overcome death.  Yet Jesus took on that fight with that unbeatable foe of death.  Jesus bore the unbearable sorrows of sin and ran in the direction of death, a place where even the brave do not even go.  Jesus did so to right the unrightable wrongs without question or pause.  He was willing to march into hell, into Sheol itself, to this heavenly cause.  And the world isl be better for this, that one man, scorned and covered with scars, still strove with his last ounce of courage, to reach the unreachable, to die and overcome death.

 We do not know what happened on the Sabbath following Jesus’ death.  But we are certain what happened when the Sabbath had ended.  Jesus rose from the dead and was restored to life.  The resurrection of Jesus altered our understanding of God and life itself.  The resurrection of Jesus ended all questions about what happens when we die in the body. Jesus’ resurrection means we have life in him, and therefore, those who die in Christ, should have no fear of death. To have life in Jesus means they, and we, have continuous life in God.  We are not separated from others, we are not separated from God, and we are not confined to some place of nothingness or to a place of fiery torment.

The resurrection of Jesus transformed the lives of his disciples.  The disciples had been in grief, devastated by the loss of their friend Jesus.  Seeing and knowing Jesus lived changed the disciples by giving them unquenchable joy. While we will still grieve when our loved one’s die, it is our loved ones who celebrate the inexpressible joy of knowing that they have full and abundant life. 

This will be the same for us.  We will in this life experience devastating grief when those we love die.  There is no shame or loss of faith in grieving the death of a loved one.  We will feel aloneness and despair.  We cannot help but experience grief.  But that grief, as awful as it is, is also a terrible and wonderful preparation for unquenchable joy.  On the day we come to be joined with Jesus through our own death we will also be reunited with those who we love who died before us.  The joy we will experience in that moment that breaks the backs of our words and our lived experiences.  This joy we will experience will overwhelm us and I believe will never leave us.  This joy comes because one man, scorned and covered with scars who strove with his last ounce of courage to reach the unreachable, fought the unbeatable foe and won.  Jesus’ resurrection is the winning victory over death.  Jesus was undefeated by death.  Our loved ones in Christ who have died are undefeated by death.  And we who are in Christ will be undefeated in death.  This is the happy ending to the story.  This is the triumphal victory parade for which the people shouted, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.  Hosanna in the highest!” Amen and Amen.

          We know that the word “trial” most often refers to the formal examination of evidence presented before a judge and jury to determine the guilt or innocence on an accused person. When I was growing up, everyone loved to watch the television show, Perry Mason, a criminal defense attorney. Perry Mason starred Raymond Burr, with supporting characters Della Street, and Paul Drake squaring off against the district attorney Hamilton Burger.  It seems as though in every episode Perry Mason would come through with some surprise evidence right at the end of the hour that would not show his client’s innocence by leading to a confession by the real culprit.  Recently, the news was flooded with a trial in South Carolina of a prominent attorney who was accused of killing his wife and son.  That trial lasted six weeks with testimony from the accused occurring for many hours over four long days.  In the end, the accused was judged guilty after about one hour of deliberations began.  There was no surprise Perry Mason ending to in that case.

          Today, in our Old Testament reading from the Book of Isaiah and from our New Testament reading from the Gospel of John, we heard about trials and verdicts.  What was remarkable about these trials and verdict was not so much what was said as much as how little was said.  There can be a great deal to be learned in what is not being said.

          In the gospels there are two examples of people place on trial.  In both cases, the trials were a matter of life and death.  In one case, a woman under trial was set free.  In the other case, the man under trial was executed. Let’s look quickly at the trial of the woman.  We can find that trial in the Gospel of John, Chapter 8.

          “2 At dawn he [Jesus] appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he [Jesus] sat down to teach them. 3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?’” (John 8:2-5).

Suddenly, a place and a time for prayer, worship, quiet reflection, and study of God’s Word had been overtaken and changed into a rancorous criminal courtroom for a death penalty case.  A woman was on trial for her life, accused of adultery, meaning either this woman was married and found to be in a sexual relation with another man or she was single and found to be involved in a sexual relationship with a married man.

The woman stood accused in front of this gathering in the temple.  Though accused she said nothing nor was she invited to speak.  Instead, she was silent before her accusers.  The group bringing charges against her were not interested in what she had to say.  John said, her accusers “6a Were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him [Jesus] (John 8:6a).”

In the silence, “6bJesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. [Jesus said nothing.] 7 When they kept on questioning him, straightened up and said to them, ‘Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.’ 8 Again he [Jesus] stooped down and wrote on the ground.  9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there” (John 8:6b-9).

The accusers were rancorous and peppered Jesus with questions.  Jesus said nothing.  Instead, with his hands free, Jesus wrote on the ground.  Then when Jesus was ready, he spoke only a few words.  The silence, the writing on the ground, and Jesus’ few words convicted not the accused but convicted the accusers.  Innocent silence in the face of injustice can be very convicting.  One writer put it this way, “Innocence accuses its accuser.”  We understand there is much power in innocence.

We heard about the power of innocence and silence earlier today when we read Isaiah’s prophetic words from Chapter 53 of the book bearing his name.  Isaiah was speaking about the coming anointed one of God who would set right the things of an unrighteous world.  Isaiah foresaw that God’s anointed, “7 Was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7).  Isaiah was revealing that under God there is a relationship between silence and innocence and that God’s anointed would show that relationship while under oppression and affliction, while being subjected to injustice.  The relationship of silence and innocence would help people to understand who the Messiah was and would help people understand the significance of that Messiah.

Isaiah foresaw the Messiah would be placed under trial or should we say trials.  We see these trials unfold in the life of Jesus.  First, the religious leaders who arrested Jesus secretly in the Garden of Gethsemane put Jesus on trial.  In the darkness of night, the religious leaders called witnesses to accuse Jesus of all manner of things, but the witnesses could not keep their stories straight.  As the judge, jury, and witnesses argued among themselves, Jesus remained silent amid the lies hurled at him.  Then the Chief Priest intervened and asked questioned Jesus, “70b ‘Are you the Messiah?’ Jesus replied most briefly, ‘You say that I am.’ 71 Then they said, ‘Why do we need any more testimony? We have heard it from his own lips’” (Luke 22:70b-71). At this trial, Jesus never spoke in defense of false charges against him, but only spoke to acknowledge truth said about him, namely, that Jesus is the Messiah. 

The first trial was brief with the prisoner being found guilty and subject to death.  This sentence of death was a foregone outcome before the trial began because the religious leaders focused on only one thing, trying to make guilty he who was innocent. Why did they want to do such a thing? They did so because, innocence shines. Innocence illuminates everything near it.  It is the illumination of innocence that has power, real power.  Jesus showed innocence beaming at sin like light into the darkness.  At the first trial, those assembled wanted to put out the light of Jesus Christ.  The light of Christ had been shining brightly upon the religious leaders, too brightly, just as innocence shines upon the guilty.  They dearly wanted to put out the light.

          But the religious leaders were crafty and cunning.  They wanted others to do the work to dispense with Jesus.  And so, a second trial of Jesus second trial was needed.  Luke wrote, “Then the whole assembly rose and led him off to Pilate. 2 And they began to accuse him, saying, ‘We have found this man subverting our nation. He opposes payment of taxes to Caesar and claims to be Messiah, a king.’  3 So Pilate asked Jesus, ‘Are you the king of the Jews?’  ‘You have said so,’ Jesus replied.”  Jesus was silent against all the false accusations made against him and spoke only to affirm the truth.  “4 Then Pilate announced to the chief priests and the crowd, ‘I find no basis for a charge against this man’” (Luke 23:1-4).  Much to the surprise of the religious leaders, Jesus second trial had ended with an acquittal; Jesus was innocent according to Pilate.  That should have ended the matter and resulted in Jesus’ release.

          “5 But they [the religious leaders] insisted, ‘He stirs up the people all over Judea by his teaching. He started in Galilee and has come all the way here.’  6 On hearing this, Pilate asked if the man was a Galilean. 7 When he learned that Jesus was under Herod’s jurisdiction, he [Pilate] sent him [Jesus] to Herod, who was also in Jerusalem at that time” (Luke 23:5b-7).  Pilate, perhaps wanting to get out of the middle of a Jewish matter, sent Jesus on to Herod.  And so, Jesus underwent a third trial.

          “8 When Herod saw Jesus, he was greatly pleased, because for a long time he [Herod] had been wanting to see him [Jesus]. From what he [Herod] had heard about him [Jesus], he [Herod] hoped to see him [Jesus] perform a sign of some sort. 9 He [Herod] plied him with many questions, but Jesus gave him no answer.”  In this trial there were only false accusations.  There was no true to affirm.  “10 The chief priests and the teachers of the law were standing there, vehemently accusing him. 11 Then Herod and his soldiers ridiculed and mocked him [Jesus]” (Luke 23:8-11).  The third trial of Jesus had been completed.  The verdict – Jesus was innocent.  That should have ended the matter and resulted in Jesus’ release.

          Instead of being released, Herod “Dressing him [Jesus] in an elegant robe, they sent him back to Pilate. (Luke 23:11b).

          Jesus was experiencing the trials of life and the injustice of the world.  He was falsely accused and he said nothing in his defense.  Jesus only spoke to affirm the truth.  Despite being found not guilty twice by the authorities of law and order, Jesus was no closer to being free than when he first began.  The world is like that.  Even when the right people make the right decisions, injustices still exist, and circumstances may not change.

          Luke tells us that after the third trial, “13 Pilate called together the chief priests, the rulers, and the people, 14 and said to them, ‘You brought me this man as one who was inciting the people to rebellion. I have examined him in your presence and have found no basis for your charges against him. 15 Neither has Herod, for he sent him back to us; as you can see, he has done nothing to deserve death. 16 Therefore, I will punish him and then release him” (Luke 23:13-16). 

Pilate reminded the religious leaders that Jesus was not guilty and that Pilate intended to release Jesus.  This is the story Luke’s readers would expect.  When we are judged innocent, we expect to be released.  “18 But the whole crowd shouted, ‘Away with this man! Release Barabbas to us! ‘19 (Barabbas had been thrown into prison for an insurrection in the city, and for murder.) 20 Wanting to release Jesus, Pilate appealed to them again. 21 But they kept shouting, ‘Crucify him! Crucify him!’ 22 For the third time he [Pilate] spoke to them [the religious leaders]: ‘Why? What crime has this man committed? I have found in him no grounds for the death penalty. Therefore, I will have him punished and then release him’ (Luke 23:18-22). Again, the verdict had been issued in Pilate’s second trial of Jesus.  Jesus was not guilty and would be released.  The conflict in the story seemed resolved with innocence.

          “23 But with loud shouts they [the religious leaders] insistently demanded that he [Jesus] be crucified, and their shouts prevailed. 24 So Pilate decided to grant their demand. 25 He released the man who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder, the one they asked for, and surrendered Jesus to their will” (Luke 23:23-25).  The surprising end of Jesus’ fourth trial had been revealed.  Pilate decided that a man named Barabbas, guilty of murder, would be set free as though he were innocent.  And an innocent man, Jesus, would be executed as though he were guilty.  And through it all Jesus remained silent except to affirm the truth about himself.

          The scene Isaiah foresaw had been played out.  Innocence had been silent, silent as light that shines into the darkness.  Light makes no sound and yet speaks powerfully. The Apostle John saw this scene this way, ““19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.  21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God” (John 3:19-21).

          The religious leaders hated the innocence of Jesus.  They hated that Jesus’ innocence shined like a light.  They screamed down the sweeter truth; they condemn Jesus to death in order to put out the light.  They wanted dearly to put out the light.  The guilty person was set free, and, in his place, the innocent man was condemned to death.

          Even though the Scriptures and Jesus foretold what would happen, the conviction and sentencing Jesus to death was a disturbing ending to the story.  Why would a man guilty of death be set free as though he was innocent, and a man innocent of all crimes be put to death as though he was guilty? The story does not make sense, unless we realize that God is the author of the story.

          The arrest, trials, and conviction of Jesus explains God’s plan of salvation.  “16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (John 3:16-17).  God did not send Jesus to condemn the world but to save it.  Jesus who is sinless would take on the penalty of those guilty of sin.  And those same sinners would be cleansed of their sins and set free as though they had never sinned.  This is God’s way of telling the story of what he wants for us. 

God wants us to accept Jesus and that our record of sin be exchanged for his record of being sinless.  The wages of our sin would be upon Jesus even though he is innocent. This exchange may not seem fair, and it is not, toward Jesus.  But God’s desire was not to be fair but to be willing to love us and offer us grace despite our weakness and despite our failings. 

“6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6-8).  This is the surprise ending of the story and the true triumph of Christ. 

Jesus taught us that as his followers we should not care and try to defend ourselves against all manner of malice and false accusations made about us.  If we follow Jesus, then we have his innocence.  If we follow Jesus, then we reflect his light.  If we follow Jesus, then we need to only be concerned with telling the truth.  Instead, we are to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15).

Everyone here will have trials in life.  A few may face or have faced formal prison over those trials.  Some trials involve the trials of life circumstances with pain and suffering. Those trials can lead us to informal prisons that hold our spirit, our sense of purpose, and our sense wellbeing. We must resist the temptation to speak against false accusations that we receive during these trials.  False accusations may come from others or even from us.  False accusations that suggest God does not care about us, or that these trials are happening because somehow our faith is defective are just that, false.  Instead, we should responding to these false accusations we should affirm the truth.

• “This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. 
• And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. 
• God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. 
• Jesus came to help, to put the world right again.
• Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted.

In our trials, we need to affirm the truth and be able to say to ourselves and others, “Because I have given my life to Jesus, I am innocent.  Because I have given my life to Jesus, I am loved.  Because I have given my life to Jesus, the light of Christ shines in me. We are and will be undefeated in the trials of life.  Amen and Amen.

          A Danish theologian and philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, once observed, “Life is lived forward but can only be understood backward.”  By this he meant, we live in the present taking each day as it comes to us, doing the work, enjoying the pleasantries of the moment, and bearing the pain that comes with living, sometimes getting through that minute by minute.  But if we want to make want to make sense of our present situation, we can only do that by looking backward to see where we had been, to see who had influenced our lives, to see events that changed the direction of our forward progress, and ultimately to see who we are on track to becoming.

          In many ways, our Bible, organized as it is into the New Testament and the Old Testament serves us in a similar manner.  We live our life in the present as New Testament people, living as it were under the grace of God, experiencing transformation of our life as we are shaped more and more into the image of Jesus Christ.  The shaping of that image is occurring as we cooperate with the Holy Spirit living within us.  Sometimes that shaping occurs through the work we are doing in and through the church. Sometimes that reshaping comes through the pleasantries of life with fellow believers.  And sometimes by the suffering our sense of becoming more like Christ takes form.

          But we cannot truly make sense of spiritual standing in life today unless from time to time we look backward over the arc of our life.  We look backward not because we intend to return to something we once knew so much as we look backward to understand.  As New Testament people we look backward into the Old Testament to understand life lived not under grace but under the law and life lived in anticipation of what God was about to do.  In many ways, the Old Testament is about what God was doing and was about to do to bring about new life for all people.  The Old Testament describes the coming of one from God who would set things right but the vision of that coming presented through the Old Testament can seem as are though the images of what was to come is being seen through a sheer curtain.  In contrast, the New Testament is about what God has done, the completed work, to bring about new life for all people.  In the New Testament the sheer curtain is drawn back, and the images can be plainly seen. We see clearly the one sent by God to complete the work is Jesus, God’s own son.  In going back to the Old Testament, we can make better sense of where we are today as New Testament people.

          Last Sunday and again today, we began our look back into the Old Testament with the prophet Isaiah to bring understanding to our life today.  Isaiah was not a mythical person but a real person who lived in Jerusalem about 2,700 years ago.  Isaiah was a prophet of God which meant that God spoke to the people of Israel through Isaiah.  As a prophet, Isaiah spoke powerfully, with convicting words, about sin, rebellion against God, trusting in our own understanding and not in God, worshipping things instead of God, and ignoring the need for justice.  Isaiah, like all prophets, warned the people in the present so that the people could have a future.  That is what prophets did and as a result, prophets were generally not well received people. Last week, we read the opening words of Chapter 53 of Isaiah in which Isaiah was beginning to tell the story of a man, a suffering servant, who was coming to the people.  We read then, “1 Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground.  He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.  3 He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.  Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem” (Isaiah 53:1-3).

          God had revealed to Isaiah, and Isaiah to the people, that the person God would send to make things right would be humble and unassuming, resembling a servant, not a majestic king. This servant would not be found among the elites or the “beautiful people.”  Instead, God’s servant would be found among the commoners.  Moreover, once found, once discovered, once experienced, most people, especially those who should have known better, would reject God’s servant. In fact, they would despise the existence of God’s servant and would seek to hide themselves from him.  The people, particularly the elites and “beautiful people”, wanted Jesus to be seen no longer and to be soon forgotten.

          Verse 3 of Isaiah ended with these words, “We held him in low esteem” (Isaiah 53:3b).  “We looked down upon him as a fool and as a nobody. He was someone who we thought worthy to be mocked and set up for ridicule.”  And so, this servant of God, was played for a fool, he was mocked, and ridiculed.  If we fast forward for a moment to the New Testament, we would see God’s servant Jesus made fun of.  I want to share some of those scenes Jesus experienced.  As you listen to the words, I want to encourage you to try to feel the scene.  I invite you to close your eyes, open your hands, place them with your palms up, and feel the experience of Jesus as he was mocked.  As we feel, we will learn.

• Jesus was summoned to heal a young girl who was deathly ill.  As Jesus neared the home of the little girl, word came to her father and Jesus, “Do not trouble yourself, the girl is dead.”  Jesus pressed on and entered the little girl’s home.  As he did, “Jesus said [to those gathered with the girl in her room], ‘Leave; for the girl has not died, but is asleep.’ And they [those who gathered in the little girl’s room] began laughing at Him” (Matthew 9:24).
• Many months later, now under a trial by the Sanhedrin, the best and brightest of Israel, convicted Jesus of blaspheme.  Upon his conviction, “67 They spit in his [Jesus’} face and struck him with their fists. Others slapped him [Jesus] 68 and said, “Prophesy to us [Tell us], Messiah. Who hit you?” (Matthew 26:67-68).
• Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor's headquarters, and they gathered the whole battalion before him [Jesus]. And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put [pushed] it on his head and put a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” And they spit on him and took the reed and struck him on the head. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him and led him away to crucify him” (Matthew 27:27-31).

You can open your eyes again.  They all had their fun at Jesus’ expense, just as Isaiah foresaw.  They esteemed him not and we felt it.

          And then Isaiah saw something else coming. Something that seems unexpected. Isaiah foresaw a dramatic change of events, an awakening had occurred.  Many of those who mocked Jesus, who held Jesus in such low esteem, felt the experience they had put God’s servant through.  They felt and thus they learned.  They felt the unrighteousness of their own behavior and the righteousness of Jesus.  They saw the passion of Jesus and his unyielding desire to pray from them, his tormentors.  They saw something and felt something and they learned.  There was something Jesus said and did as he was being mocked, treated cruelly, and being crucified that the people felt.  What was it?  It was these words, “Father, forgive them they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).  These tormentors and bystanders must have wondered how could Jesus say such a thing. In this moment of being mocked and ridiculed literally to death, Jesus forgave all those who mocked, ridiculed, kill, and held him a nobody, a nothing.

          Jesus’ words were convicting words causing people to come to realize that they had rejected the very source of the healing they so desperately desired.  This is where people found themselves.  And looking backward to Isaiah to understand this moment, they and we come to realize that Isaiah foresaw this moment of transformation.  Those who formerly despised God’s servant now began to confess that Jesus’ sufferings rather than being done to put an end to him and warn others to get in line, were sufferings of a different character than they had supposed.  The sufferings of Jesus were for the benefit of his tormentors.

          Isaiah wrote of this transformation moment this way, “4 Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:4-5). Those who committed the abuse or witnessed the abuse of God’s servant thought at first that the suffering heaped upon him was God’s doing to punish him most cruelly.  But then they, the abusers and bystanders, felt the experience of Christ and the felt the forgiveness of Christ amid his torture, they learned that the punishment upon Jesus was necessary, was done, to heal them and bring them peace.  The pain Jesus experienced in being pierced by the hardness of iron nails and spear was caused by their own transgressions against God.

          What Isaiah foresaw and what these people were experiencing was the paradox of God’s grace.  God’s righteous servant, Jesus, was condemned by the unrighteous to suffering and die upon the cross so that through God’s grace the unrighteous could be made cleansed and righteous before God.  Jesus chose to go to the cross.  Jesus chose to take the abuse and the suffering.  Jesus chose to die so that are sins of his tormentors, including you and me, could be taken away and we could be right with God by God’s grace. This is a paradox of God’s grace. The sinless man died to save the sinners.

          Those who had not known the true Jesus, Isaiah described as sheep who came to believe they did not need a shepherd.  Isaiah said these people would come to say of themselves, “6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6).  We’re all like sheep who’ve wandered off and gotten lost.  We’ve all done our own thing, gone our own way.  We were on the way to perish without hope.  But then God piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong, and placed it upon his suffering servant, God’s own son, on him, on him, and in doing so saved the lost sheep one by one.

          The transformation of sinners is part of the Jesus story.  It is a story that Isaiah was coming.  Isaiah did not know when or the name of God’s servant, but Isaiah felt the passion and pain of that servant.  Hundreds of years later, God’s servant, his own Son, Jesus, came to complete God’s plan of salvation and to complete God’s plan of bringing his sheep home.  Jesus came to complete God’s plan of giving everyone a path and place in His kingdom.  Jesus did as God asked.  People had at first seen Jesus looking through the lens of the world.  They despised him and they threw the worst of the world at Jesus.  They mocked him and Jesus continued on.  They spit in Jesus’ face, and he refused to retaliate.  They punched and slapped him, and still Jesus would not change places with anyone.  They stripped him, flogged him, and jammed a crown of thorns on his head, and still Jesus would not be deterred from being God’s servant.  Then they drove nails into his hands and feet to pin him to a cross. A righteous man who never did anything wrong.  Surely having nailed him to the cross, he would cry out against such abuse. Instead, of crying out against his tormentors, Jesus said in a soft breathy voice, “Father, forgive them.” And in that pray, the paradox of grace was initiated.  Those who sinned were forgiven.  Those who deserved death were given life.  He who had not sinned and deserved no punishment, died for the sinner.

           The Apostle Paul, a former tormentor, would write, “16 So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:16-21).  We longer need to be astray from God, no longer his tormentors. All is forgiven.  All is healed. 

          In a moment, we will come to the Lord’s Table to partake of the bread and the cup.  The bread serves as a symbol of Jesus’ body that was, indeed, pierced for our transgressions.  The cup serves as a symbol of Jesus’ blood, a sign of Jesus’ suffering on our behalf, and a sign that grace has been poured into our lives.  Come.  Let us take the bread and the cup and experience the prophesy of Isaiah and the reality of Jesus.  Come. Let us take the bread and cup and feel the forgiveness of God and learn of his grace and love.  Amen.