2007-11-25 - "David and Jesus: Part 2"

"David and Jesus: Part 2"
God's gift: A different kind of King.
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Text: Matthew 1:1 and 2:1-11

Big Ed went to a church revival service one day and felt overwhelmed by its emotion. When the pastor invited anyone with a prayer request to come forward at the end of the service, he decided it was his turn to have a chance with the minister. So Big Ed came forward and the pastor asked him, “Big Ed, what would you like me to pray for?”

He said, “Pastor, I would like you to pray for my hearing.”

“By all means!” the pastor replied. He put a hand on Ed's head and a finger in his ear, and screamed at him so loudly that Big Ed put his hands over his ears. Then he asked, “Well, Big Ed, how's your hearing?”

Big Ed replied, “I don't know. It is not until Wednesday at the Ducayne County Courthouse.”

Even the most religious people and those who think they have great insight can get things very wrong. Even with all the best intentions in the world, it is amazing how we can misread signs and misinterpret words. The biggest confusion I can think of in all of religion is people's misunderstanding of the nature of Jesus' reign during his ministry.

Let me be clear about this. Last week, we looked at David who, as you know, was the anointed King of the Jews. It was his job, his appointment by God, to unite the northern and southern kingdoms and bring Jerusalem to a place of prominence. God made a promise to David: He not only anointed him, but also said his kingdom would have no end.

David's kingdom did come to an end, or so it appeared. With one battle after another and the exile and the subjugation of God's people for hundreds of years afterwards, it seemed God's covenant with David was not being fulfilled.

However, looking at the life of Jesus of Nazareth, the earliest Christian community was convinced that the reign of David would be re-established. The best way to examine this is through the eyes of the Gospel of Matthew. Today's passage has two parts: The first part is just one line explaining that this gospel tells of the coming Son of God, whose genealogy can be traced to David and Abraham.

This first verse of the gospel is known as incipit, and the first phrase of every gospel will often tell you what the rest of the gospel is going to say. That opening line is clue about how to interpret what is to come. Matthew sets the tone very clearly, and it is a Jewish tone. He tells about Jesus in light of David and Abraham.

The earliest Jewish Christians considered the Gospel of Matthew very authoritative from as early as the end of first century. Written between 80 and 90 A.D., this gospel, along with the Didache and the Book of James, was considered the authoritative account of the life of Jesus and the Christian message for the earliest Jewish community.

From the very beginning of this gospel, everything points to the relationship between David and Jesus. For example, look at the story of the wise men's visit. I am talking about this before Christmas to help us understand Christmas through the eyes of the earliest Christian writers.

It is no accident that Matthew included his account of the Magi worshipping Jesus at the beginning of his gospel. This is a sign that he saw in Jesus someone worthy to be revered as a king. It is no coincidence that in Matthew's Gospel we receive this genealogy that links Jesus to David and Bethlehem, the city of David, in Judea.

It is no coincidence that King Herod was the monarch of Israel and Palestine. Herod wanted to chase Jesus away and kill this newborn king. This shows that monarchs were concerned about the coming of Jesus. It is also no coincidence that throughout Matthew's Gospel Jesus is described as the Son of Man. That phrase, “Son of Man,” is the Jewish designation for the coming of the Messiah.

On more than one occasion, the Gospel of Matthew refers to Jesus not only as the “Anointed One” but also as the “King of the Jews.” Matthew depicts Jesus representing God's presence of among His people: incarnate, present, among the world. In other words, Matthew is trying to show the Jewish-ness of Jesus. Matthew showed the relationship between David and Jesus, but more than that, he showed him as a king from David's lineage.

I know many people have a problem with this. Talk of monarchs, rulers or sovereigns in our post-modern, democratic age seems outdated. I would like to suggest that, while that might be the case politically, it certainly isn't spiritually. By that I mean that when the earliest Christians stood toe-to-toe against the powers of this world, they did so on the basis of their belief in Jesus, who had their complete loyalty and praise. It doesn't matter in what world you live or what systems you have, who you worship - how you hitch your star - will determine how you live.

There were, of course, many problems with the whole idea of monarchy even in Jesus' time. When the people saw Jesus, they simply couldn't believe he was the monarch. After all, they had an idea of a monarch that was very different from Jesus. There was no question that Jesus believed he was going to bring the exiles home, restore Israel and bring all the nations - all the world - to God, his heavenly Father. That is so evident in almost everything Jesus said and did. But the people were fixated on monarchy. They had a particular perspective, and they didn't hear Jesus' words the way he meant them. Why was that?

First, their understanding of monarchy was based on their experiences of it. So often, we understand things based what we've been told or seen. They had only seen the rule of the Hasmonians and Herodians, and based their concept of monarchy on what they had observed.

Their second problem was that Jesus didn't conform to any of those preconceptions. If they had a wish or hope, it was for a sort of Maccabean revolt or uprising. They wanted a new king to bring everyone together in a great, coalesced group, take on the Romans, throw them out of the country and restore the rule of God to Jerusalem. They expected a revolutionary.

They also expected the temple - originally built by Solomon, then re-built and reformed by Josiah and Hezekiah - would be the centre from which the new messiah, the new king, would establish a new rule. Jerusalem would be the centre of that rule and the temple would be the centre of Jerusalem - just like in the time of David. But Jesus did not conform to any of these images.

Rather than re-establishing the temple, Matthew tells us Jesus threw out the money-changers and said, “You have made the house of God into a den of thieves.” Rather than talking about rebuilding the temple and making it great, he talked about its destruction if people weren't obedient to God.

Also, Jesus' whole notion of sovereignty didn't fit the people's theories of what constitutes a monarch. He didn't go around making sure that he used absolute power. He certainly wasn't a revolutionary in the way they expected. Finally, when he was crucified, he revealed an entirely different side of what it means to be a monarch. It's incredibly ironic that when they crucified Jesus, they put the crown of thorns on his head and said, “There you go, he is the King of the Jews!”

Despite knowing people would laugh at them for their view of Jesus, the early Christians still called him Christos, which in Greek means “the Anointed One,” just like David. They called him Kurios, which is “Lord over and above all other Lords.” Isn't it amazing that they stood against the power of Herod and the tyranny of Caesar in the name of Jesus and were willing to risk their lives because of him? Isn't it amazing that they were willing to proclaim him Messiah, King and Lord despite all the signs that suggested otherwise? Why was this?

Some have suggested it was because Jesus was raised from the dead, and after the Resurrection they saw everything in a new light. That is overly simplistic. They saw him as the King already. They listened to his words; they watched his actions; they saw him throw people out from the temple; they listened to him talk about the Kingdom of God. In fact, the whole Sermon on the Mount - that magnificent statement about the reign of God - is found in Matthew's Gospel.

They did not believe in him simply because of the Resurrection; the Resurrection confirmed everything they already believed. However, it set it in such a new light that they were willing to withstand the ridicule of others and uphold his Messiah-ship. More than that, they grasped - and this is the key for us - Jesus' concept of monarchy and sovereignty.

They understood that his notion of sovereignty was not one of lording it over others to receive their praise; it meant serving others to receive their devotion. It wasn't to be elevated above everybody else, but to be brought low in order to raise others. It wasn't to conquer by the use of force, but to conquer by the force of love. It wasn't to turn the tyrants on their heads and throw them out; it was to forgive them, even when they mocked him as their king. It wasn't that he wanted the gifts the Magi brought him, but that he was the gift. Let me repeat that: It wasn't that he wanted the gifts the Magi brought him as a child; he was the gift. He was God's gift; he was God's monarch.

What does this say to us today? It tells us about the importance of Jesus' sovereignty. In Ephesians 1:20, Paul makes an incredible claim. Years after the death of Jesus, he says that all dominions, powers and authorities will be under him. What a claim!

I love an essay I read by Jean Bethge Elshtain, a teacher at the University of Chicago. It's titled, Caesar, Sovereignty and Christ, and it is in the book, Bonhoeffer for a New Day. Bethge Elshtain wrote that one of the dangers the church buys into today is the belief that we can determine Christ's place in the world. In other words, if we try to determine who he is in the world rather than acknowledging the sovereignty of his place within the world, we constrain his sovereignty. I see, in a sense, our vision of Jesus getting smaller and smaller, until it becomes so acceptable that it means nothing.

Christ is depicted in the New Testament as being so gracious, loving and all-embracing that we find our place within him. There are always those who upset the apple cart because they want to take away Christ's free gift of grace and impose a kind of legalism on it. I think this is what turns people off.

It is like a pop-up window I saw on the Internet recently. I don't know about you, but it seems I am being inundated by American companies trying to sell me products via online catalogues. They see the rising Canadian dollar and think: “They are going to buy our products.” While looking at an L. L. Bean catalogue (Lord knows how they got my name) a window popped up that said, “Double your coupons! Click here for your free gift inside.” What can it hurt? You click on it, don't you? Of course you do!

Anything free is great. I've got Scottish blood, so I clicked on it. Lo and behold it said, “You can double your coupons and earn your free gift by doing the following…” Now hold on a minute. First it says I have something free, but when I open it, it says I have to earn it. I think that is called “bait and switch” in marketing. I call it “bait and tackle” because it really sucks you in. I started to give them my credit card number, and finally the Lord spoke to me. He said, “Don't be an idiot, Stirling! Don't do this!” And I stopped.

Jean Bethge Elshtain is right. There are those who will use Christ, his sovereign power and his name to enslave us to their way of thinking. They can make us to think we have to earn his grace by doing something they determine. There are powers that offer us freedom, tremendous grace and wonderful things. Be under no illusion: There are sovereign powers out there that seek our will, attention and devotion. But Jesus was a free gift - the free gift of God. All he says is: “Receive it. Accept it. Follow it.”

I love the Scriptures. As The Rev. David McMaster said so beautifully in his sermon a couple of weeks ago, the relationship between the Old and New Testaments is a wonderful thing. You can understand who Jesus is and have a fuller appreciation of the importance of this gift if you understand what the people wanted from King David. They expected a kingdom with no end and a reign that would last forever. What they expected of David was the rule of Yahweh, the reign of God. What they desired was the unity of the nation and in Christ; what they got was the unity of the world. What they dreamed of was God's fulfilment of his covenant promise. Our earliest brothers and sisters in Jesus of Nazareth saw all of that embodied in this Jew from Bethlehem. They saw in him the sovereign grace of God in all its wonder, majesty and humility. This is our sovereign! Amen.

At this time of the year, on the island of Bermuda, there is usually a great scent in the air. The Easter lilies that are distributed throughout Easter are being prepared; the oleander has a particularly sharp, pink hue; the hibiscus bushes are starting to bloom; and there is a faint smell of cedar in the air after the moisture of winter. I used to love Bermuda at the end of February and, when I woke up this morning here in Toronto, I loved it all the more! It seemed that the winter was dying and everything was bursting into life. Bermuda, at the end of February is well nigh a paradise. I remembered going to school at this time of the year. The school that I went to was similarly a little patch of paradise. I attended Warwick Academy on Middle Road, an ivy-covered school with large porticos and a magnificent quadrangle with a fountain in the middle. Along the side of the building going down to the ocean there was a field on which we played sports. Lining it were oleander bushes and poinsettias. At the very end, the soccer field dropped off to a road and a beach where, after school, we could go swimming in the harbour. It was paradise.

But I remember one particular day, early in the morning. As was normal my colleagues and I, in uniform had gone up the front steps and entered our classroom. We opened the windows in order that the particularly warm February breezes could blow into our room. The shutters were open, the windows were open and our text-books were open to the study of Latin. All of a sudden there was the most terrible sound. It is not a sound, thank God, that I have heard before or since, but, upon hearing it, it was unforgettable. All the students and our teacher ran out of our Latin class and down the steps to the front of the school. There we realized what had caused the thud: A beautiful pink bus had struck one of our class-mates and killed him instantly. A few days later there was a memorial service. I certainly don't remember any of the hymns that were sung. I do remember that we sang our school hymn, Gaudeamus igitur, iuvenes dum sumus. I know that our principal said some kind words and a local clergyman gave a message. The only thing that I remember on that day was the sound of his brother's voice. His brother had flown in from Tufts University in Boston where he was studying. I don't even remember half of what he said about Brian, but this I do, he said: "I will never lead my life in the same way again." In the midst of paradise, the inexpressible had occurred. In the midst of paradise, the inexplicable had occurred. The only response that Brian's brother had was that his life was now forever changed. He would never again live it in the same way. This sums up for me the expressions that we find in the Book of Job.

Job has gone through the full gamut of life: He has gone from a man who had success, who had it all, who had a wife, a family, children, farms, wealth and health, to a man who was to lose it all; a man who in the midst of it had questioned God's sovereignty and divine purpose and will. Now finally, Job comes to the reality of what he should have learned all along. Through this suffering he would never live his life in the same way again; for indeed Job had reached the point where, after he had been instructed by his friends, after he had wrestled and debated with God, he realized that in fact God, in the midst of all of this, is still sovereign; that there is an immediacy to God's presence, even in the midst of that suffering; that as a result of it he must repent in dust and in ashes.

In many ways the story of Job is the story that all of us need to go through in order to mature so that we do not live our lives in the same way; so that when we face our own suffering, or the suffering of others, or whether we are simply asking about the nature of suffering in the world, if we go through it as Job went through it at the end we never live life in the same way. So I want to look then at how Job's suffering changed Job's life, irrevocably and forever.

It changed three things in Job The first is that it changed his view of faith. There is a wonderful moment at the very beginning of the Book in Chapter I, Verse 9, where Satan comes to God and baits Him. He says: "I wonder if Job will still worship you if he has nothing to gain." Now, in this, Satan had put his finger on one of the Achilles' heels of the faith of many people; namely, that we enter into a relationship with God with a quid pro quo. We enter a relationship with God on the assumption that, if we do so, everything in our lives from that moment on will run smoothly. I hear this every day in some of the TV evangelists. They are selling a bill of goods to people. Once you strip away all the hype, once you strip away all the verbiage and the quotes from scripture, there is one thing that is often underlying it all. They believe that faith is a guarantee to, for example, financial security, or it's a guarantee that a marriage, that was formerly on the rocks, will now be full of sunshine and light and peace; that the children that you formerly had that were rambunctious, rude and irreverent, will now be submissive, kind and holy; that your body will never experience pain again; and that you will live in paradise with a beautiful waft of oleander leaves coming over your head. If you buy into this faith, and if you subscribe to this faith, just think of the great panoply of blessings that lie before your very eyes. My friends, is it any wonder that, with that degree of false teaching, when people who have committed themselves to Christ find in fact that their marriages require work; that their children are not always holy and blessed; that their body is not always strong; that their bank account is not always overflowing; that paradise is not always before their eyes; they actually then begin to question the sovereignty of God?

Indeed, there are many people all around us who are the victims of that false teaching. It pervades every day when people say to me time and time again: "Why is it that although I believe in God these things are happening to me and I must suffer."

I once ran into a young man who was telling the story of a minister who was trying to grab the attention of his congregation. He did so by issuing the following challenge in a sermon. He said: "Do you know that every single member of this congregation is eventually going to die?" And for extra impact, he repeated the question: "Do you realize that every single member of this congregation sooner or later is going to die?" Well, there was an old man sitting in the front pew. He began to giggle and laugh. So the preacher looked down at him and said: "Excuse me, why do find this funny?" The man looked up and said: "Hey, I'm not a member of this congregation."

Slightly selfish, don't you think? But that's exactly how the view of God often is. It's selfish, it's self-centred, it's What can I get out of this God? not the commitment that I have to this God who will forever be with me. And that kind of false view of faith is so often prevalent; that feeling, that self-centred core that many of us have that treats God as if God is somehow a commodity on the shelf to make our life sweet. Job had to learn as he traveled with God through his sufferings that that is actually an erroneous view of faith. Faith is much deeper than that. That was born out of his understanding, I believe, of the second thing: He developed a new view of God.

Job, you see, had been listening to his friends. We visited them the first week: Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, the great philosophers and theological thinkers. They had only one formula, remember: the formula that if you are a good person, good things will happen to you and if you are a bad person, bad things will happen to you. And so, when Job has bad things happening to him, he has a crisis, not of faith in God, but he wonders about himself. He wonders, therefore, if God is just. He wonders whether or not he is righteous. He enters into this great period of introspection and guilt and eventually anger. Because ultimately, what Job wanted to do in response to those friends was to fully understand God and to have a package deal that would allow him to understand everything that would ever happen to him.

I am reminded of a man who was in a former congregation of mine and who was a voracious reader and a spiritual seeker. He spent most of his time reading books about God and he was always charging around trying to get people to tell him what he should believe and do. Nearly every week he was in my office wanting some new book from the shelves in order that he might be able to finally understand God. In fact, for hour after hour, week after week, he spent most of his time behind the desk, reading, absorbing. And one admired him on one level: He was really trying to understand God; to grasp Him at the very depths of intellect, and at the very depths of theology. The only problem was that the more he continued on his search, the more depressed he became, until finally one day I intervened. I said: "You know, isn't it about time that you just put your books away; maybe even stopped going to church and listening to me for a while? (Not, by the way, that I am recommending that here, let it be understood.) I challenged him: "You know, in our church, there is a Food Bank, maybe you should go and work there. Our church supports a homeless shelter, maybe you should volunteer there. Our church has a pastoral care committee: Why don't you go and hold someone's hand and sit beside him on a bed?" Unfortunately, the young man did not want to do that and I suspect somewhere in that town, even to this day, he is sitting behind the desk, trying to figure God out from the books.

That is not the way that God is known. God is known in the concrete nature of human existence. God is known by an act of trust. God is known by an act of faith, like Abraham who steps out into the unknown. God is known and revealed in our encounters with one another. God is known and seen through the power of the Holy Spirit who goes forward in our daily lives. But too many people want to try and figure God out first and then live a life of faith, rather than live a life of faith and then find out Who God is. The problem with Job's friends was that they had a philosophy and a theosophy, but they did not have a theology which is predicated on the revelation of God. Job finally learns that.

The great Old Testament scholar, Gerhard von Rad, in his great work on the Old Testament, once said that the greatest and most dangerous words that are in the whole Book of Job are when Job says God must do this. And Job realized, and Job woke up, not when he had determined God's place in the world, but when Job was determined to understand that his place in the world was determined by God. He changed from being egocentric, full of himself, wrapped up in his own definitions of God, to becoming theocentric, understanding the central place that God's sovereignty has in his life. That is why, at the end of it all, he wrote the following: "In the past, I knew only what others had told me, but now I have seen You with my own eyes." When Job broke out of his obsession with himself, he finally could see Who God truly was.

But that was the result of a third thing: that Job had a new view of suffering. Job suffered greatly: He had lost everything; he was shattered. But in the midst of all that, he changed. He changed from someone who, at the very beginning, was quite certain about things; who had a faith wrapped up; who knew what he was going to do: a man who had everything, including a sense of his own righteousness. But when he faced suffering, he changed. There was a mystery to it all and, in that mystery, he became full of faith. He had been certain, all right, in the beginning. He had a package deal. It all seemed very nice and neat, but suffering caused him to turn to faith, because suffering ultimately leads to fiducia, trust. What Job didn't have in the beginning, Job had at the end. What Job had at the beginning was a self-sufficiency. What Job had at the end was trust, trust in God.

There are many places throughout the Bible where a similar view is expressed over and over again. It is there in the Book of Isaiah; it is there in Psalm XXXVII: When people face the fact that the formula that Job's friends had is changed; when it seems that those who are the oppressors are succeeding and those who are the innocent are suffering; then, in the midst of that, something else is learned about God. It is summed up beautifully in Psalm XXXVII: "Don't be worried on account of the wicked; don't be jealous of those who do wrong." "Be patient and wait for the Lord to act; don't be worried about those who prosper or those who succeed in their evil plans. Don't give in to worry or anger; it only leads to trouble. Those who trust in the Lord will possess the land." You see, my friends, Job was not known for his patience so much as he was for his sense of endurance. Job was not a godly man in a true manifestation of the word. He became a faithful man who understood that, even in the midst of his sufferings, God went with him.

Just recently I picked up again the book on Mother Theresa entitled No Greater Love. This is one of the books that maybe my friend should have read right from the word go and maybe stopped reading any more. It's a wonderful expression of suffering. Listen to these words of Mother Theresa: "In twenty-five years in Calcutta, we have picked up more that thirty-six thousand people from the streets and more than eighteen thousand have died a most beautiful death. When we pick them up from the street, we give them a plate of rice. In no time, we revive them. A few nights ago we picked up four people. One was in a most horrible, terrible condition, covered with wounds full of maggots. I told the sisters that I would take care of her while they attended to the other three. I really did all that my love could do for her. I put her in bed, then she took hold of my hand. She had such a beautiful smile on her face and she said only: Thank you. Then she died. There was a greatness of love. She was hungry for love and she received that love before she died. She spoke only two words, but her understanding love was expressed in those two words. In a New York home we have have a home for AIDS patients who are dying from what I call the leprosy of the west. On Christmas Eve I opened this house as a gift to Jesus for his birthday. We started with fifteen beds for some poor AIDS patients and four young men I brought out of jail because they did not want to die there. They were our first guests I made a little chapel for them. There these young people who had not been near Jesus could come back to him if they wanted to. Thanks to God's blessing and His love their hearts completely changed. Once, when I went there, one of them had to go to the hospital and he said to me:" (and I want you to listen to these words) "Mother Theresa, you are my friend and I want to speak to you alone. So the sisters went out and he spoke. And what did this man say? This was someone who hadn't been to confession or received communion and in all those years he had nothing to do with Jesus, but he told me this: You know, Mother Theresa, when I get a terrible headache I compare it with the pain that Jesus had when they crowned him with thorns; when I get that terrible pain in my back, I compare it with Jesus when he was scourged; when I get the terrible pain in my hands and feet, I compare it with the pain Jesus had when they crucified him. I ask you to take me back home, for I want to die with you. I got permission from the doctor to take him back home. I took him to the chapel. I have never seen anybody talk to God the way that that young man talked to Him. There was such an understanding love between Jesus and him. After three days, he died."