R.P. Nettelhorst's Blog, page 88
February 12, 2014
Tears
He was on His way to a town called Nain. His disciples and a large crowd were traveling with Him. Just as He neared the gate of the town, a dead man was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow. A large crowd from the city was also with her. When the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her and said, “Don’t cry.” Then He came up and touched the open coffin, and the pallbearers stopped. And He said, “Young man, I tell you, get up!”
The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. Then fear came over everyone, and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has risen among us,” and “God has visited His people.” This report about Him went throughout Judea and all the vicinity. (Luke 7:11-17)
Jesus didn’t just feel the pain of others. He solved it. Jesus visited a small village called Nain, about six miles southeast of Nazareth. It is never mentioned anywhere else in the Bible. There was a widow, who was weeping over her only son who had just died. As a widow, her son would have been her only source of support and protection. In ancient Israel’s patriarchal society, without a male relative, she would be reduced to begging. Like Naomi and Ruth upon their return to Bethlehem, her only hope was to find fields to glean in. She was facing very hard times, on top of her grief.
In the middle of a funeral procession, Jesus’ words that she should “stop crying” would have been disconcertingly inappropriate. As if that weren’t bad enough, he touched the casket and forced the pallbearers to stop walking. One can only imagine the shock and disbelief of the crowd as they watched what Jesus was doing.
Then he told the dead man to get up.
The initial reaction of the crowd was terror. Once they realized fully what had happened, the funeral became a celebration. Their pain became joy. They decided that Jesus must be a great prophet. Why? Only Elijah and Elisha had ever raised people from the dead (1 Kings 17:17-24 and 2 Kings 4:18-37).
Jesus does not ask us to just keep a stiff upper lip, he does not want us to just suck it up. Jesus can wipe our tears away by taking the reason for our tears away.
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February 11, 2014
Getting Paid
One day as Jesus was preaching on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, great crowds pressed in on him to listen to the word of God. He noticed two empty boats at the water’s edge, for the fishermen had left them and were washing their nets. Stepping into one of the boats, Jesus asked Simon, its owner, to push it out into the water. So he sat in the boat and taught the crowds from there.
When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Now go out where it is deeper, and let down your nets to catch some fish.”
“Master,” Simon replied, “we worked hard all last night and didn’t catch a thing. But if you say so, I’ll let the nets down again.”
And this time their nets were so full of fish they began to tear! A shout for help brought their partners in the other boat, and soon both boats were filled with fish and on the verge of sinking.
When Simon Peter realized what had happened, he fell to his knees before Jesus and said, “Oh, Lord, please leave me—I’m too much of a sinner to be around you.” For he was awestruck by the number of fish they had caught, as were the others with him. His partners, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, were also amazed.
Jesus replied to Simon, “Don’t be afraid! From now on you’ll be fishing for people!” And as soon as they landed, they left everything and followed Jesus. (Luke 5:1-11)
Jesus paid his debts. When Jesus borrowed one of Peter’s boats as a platform for speaking to the crowd, he was not keeping Peter from doing his job. Fishermen did not fish during the daylight hours—they went out at night, when the fish were easier to catch. During the day, they sorted through the previous night’s catch and cleaned and repaired their nets. Sitting in Peter’s boat to teach the crowd, Jesus was not interfering with Peter’s livelihood.
Nevertheless, Jesus had “hired” Peter’s boat and so paid for it by telling Peter to go fishing. In response, Peter addressed him as “master.” The Greek word was merely an honorific. But after the fish had been caught, Peter used a different word. “Lord” was used exclusively of God by the Jewish people of that era. With an enormous catch of fish in his nets, Peter responded to Jesus with fear, bowing before the Almighty.
Jesus compensated Peter generously for the boat. But then he went beyond that and offered him a better job: a position in the Kingdom of God. When we give Jesus our lives, he gives us himself and all that he has.
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February 10, 2014
Sadducees
Jesus was approached by some Sadducees—religious leaders who say there is no resurrection from the dead. They posed this question: “Teacher, Moses gave us a law that if a man dies, leaving a wife without children, his brother should marry the widow and have a child who will carry on the brother’s name. Well, suppose there were seven brothers. The oldest one married and then died without children. So the second brother married the widow, but he also died without children. Then the third brother married her. This continued with all seven of them, and still there were no children. Last of all, the woman also died. So tell us, whose wife will she be in the resurrection? For all seven were married to her.”
Jesus replied, “Your mistake is that you don’t know the Scriptures, and you don’t know the power of God. For when the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage. In this respect they will be like the angels in heaven.
“But now, as to whether the dead will be raised—haven’t you ever read about this in the writings of Moses, in the story of the burning bush? Long after Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had died, God said to Moses, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ So he is the God of the living, not the dead. You have made a serious error.” (Mark 12:18-27)
Jesus told the Sadducees that their ignorance was showing. The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection, because they believed only the first five books of the Bible, Genesis through Deuteronomy and could find nothing in those books about an afterlife. They did not believe the rest of the books of the Old Testament were authoritative scripture. According to the Law of Moses, if a man died childless, his brother was required to marry the widow. The first child born from the union would then carry on the name, and take the inheritance, of the dead man. The purpose of this law was to keep property in the dead man’s family.
To prove the existence of the resurrection, Jesus quoted from what the Sadducees accepted as scripture. Besides not understanding scripture, Jesus told them that they were blinded by their own culture. They were wrong to assume that the social relationships they knew in the present day would endure in the kingdom of God. The post-resurrection future with God would be nothing like the world. We can see the future only dimly: it will surprise us.
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February 9, 2014
He returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of S...
He returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.” (Mark 7:31-37)
Jesus once healed a man by giving him a wet Willie. The Decapolis was a federation of ten cities in the area east of Samaria and Galilee, including the cities of Damascus and Philadelphia. It was an area that had a Greek culture more than a Hebrew culture and there were many non-Jewish people living in the area. After Jesus had healed the daughter of the gentile woman in Tyre, he traveled on to visit the region.
While there, some of the people there brought him a man who was deaf. Since he had an “impediment in his speech,” that likely meant that he was not born deaf, but had become deaf later in life. Since he could no longer hear himself talk, the clarity of his speech was affected.
Unlike so many of his healings, Jesus made a ritual of the process: he spat, touched the man’s tongue and stuck his fingers in his ears, besides uttering an Aramaic word which the man couldn’t have heard and probably wouldn’t have understood given that it was a Greek speaking region. Why so much rigmarole? Because the man’s friends had asked for it. They wanted Jesus to “lay his hand” on him. Jesus accommodated their expectations. Jesus works with us where we are, he comes to us in our situation and from there takes us to where we need to be. He does not insist on us changing before he changes us. This man and his friends needed the show. Jesus always gives us what we need.
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February 8, 2014
February 7, 2014
A New Teaching
Suddenly, while still in the meeting place, he was interrupted by a man who was deeply disturbed and yelling out, “What business do you have here with us, Jesus? Nazarene! I know what you’re up to! You’re the Holy One of God, and you’ve come to destroy us!”
Jesus shut him up: “Quiet! Get out of him!” The afflicting spirit threw the man into spasms, protesting loudly—and got out.
Everyone there was incredulous, buzzing with curiosity. “What’s going on here? A new teaching that does what it says? He shuts up defiling, demonic spirits and sends them packing!” News of this traveled fast and was soon all over Galilee.
Directly on leaving the meeting place, they came to Simon and Andrew’s house, accompanied by James and John. Simon’s mother-in-law was sick in bed, burning up with fever. They told Jesus. He went to her, took her hand, and raised her up. No sooner had the fever left than she was up fixing dinner for them.
That evening, after the sun was down, they brought sick and evil-afflicted people to him, the whole city lined up at his door! (Mark 1:23-33)
When Jesus began his public ministry, the first miracle that got widespread attention was when he told a demon to leave a possessed man and the demon left. The response of witnesses was incredulity.
They said that Jesus gave “a new teaching.” Had no one cast out demons before? The difference was that Jesus’ words were backed up by actions. Jesus was more than just speeches—he was about doing something new and startling. Before Jesus arrived, casting out demons was a complex process, fraught by difficulty and ritual. Jesus just told the demon to leave—no theatrics, no formulas, no ritual. There was a power to Jesus that was unlike any of the other teachers they’d known up until then.
Jesus told the demon to be “quiet!” The only other place in Mark’s gospel account where Jesus used that particular verb was when he shut down a storm on the Sea of Galilee. Demons obeyed Jesus the same way the inanimate forces of nature obeyed him, or as a well-trained animal might obey its owner. Demons, like storms, were dangerous and powerful. For Jesus, they were nothing at all. Nothing is difficult for Jesus. Jesus doesn’t just offer us mere words. He offers us genuine solutions. He will move in and disrupt our lives—not just give us advice.
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February 6, 2014
Not a Waste
Jesus was in the town of Bethany, eating at the home of Simon, who had leprosy. A woman came in with a bottle of expensive perfume and poured it on Jesus’ head. But when his disciples saw this, they became angry and complained, “Why such a waste? We could have sold this perfume for a lot of money and given it to the poor.”
Jesus knew what they were thinking, and he said:
Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing for me. You will always have the poor with you, but you won’t always have me. She has poured perfume on my body to prepare it for burial. You may be sure that wherever the good news is told all over the world, people will remember what she has done. And they will tell others. (Matthew 26:6-13)
We shouldn’t insist that God’s will for our lives is necessarily God’s will for everyone else. My dad was a career soldier in the Air Force. That was good for him. He didn’t believe it had to be good for me too. In the same town where his friends Lazarus, Mary and Martha lived, Jesus had a meal with Simon the leper. A woman poured expensive perfume on him.
Jesus’ disciples were upset that this woman had wasted money that could have been given to the poor. Jesus pointed out something that could seem very discouraging: “you will always have the poor with you.” Does that mean that all efforts to alleviate poverty will fail? Did Jesus suggest that the real waste of the perfume would have been to do with it what the disciples suggested?
Jesus point was not about the everlasting nature of poverty, but rather that his disciples wouldn’t always have him. Yes, the Holy Spirit would indwell them; yes, Jesus lives forever at the right hand of the Father. Yes, Jesus promised to “be” with them until the end of the world. But there was a vast difference between Jesus enjoying a meal with his disciples and being with them “in spirit.” Jesus knew he would soon be dying on the cross. It was a poignant time for him, but his disciples did not understand. Soon they would.
It is never a waste to do something special for those we love. Life is more than just giving to the poor or whatever other “good thing” our neighbor may believe we need to do.
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February 5, 2014
Are We Taking Care of Jesus?
He will also say to those on the left, ‘Depart from Me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the Devil and his angels!
For I was hungry
and you gave Me nothing to eat;
I was thirsty
and you gave Me nothing to drink;
I was a stranger
and you didn’t take Me in;
I was naked
and you didn’t clothe Me,
sick and in prison
and you didn’t take care of Me.’
“Then they too will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or without clothes, or sick, or in prison, and not help You?’
“Then He will answer them, ‘I assure you: Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for Me either.’
“And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matthew 25:41-46)
What if God were one of us? It’s a question that appears in Joan Osborne’s 1995 song, One of Us. Jesus was God and he did become one of us.
Those who do not take care of strangers, do not provide for the poor, sick and imprisoned, are not taking care of Jesus himself. Such people who ignore Jesus’ suffering are destined for the eternal fire that God prepared for Satan and his angels. The apostle John, in one of his letters, wrote that if we claim to love God but hate our neighbor, then we don’t actually love God. John was basing what he wrote on what Jesus himself said here.
Who does Jesus condemn in the harshest terms? The Pharisees and religious leaders who believed that the Messiah would come to destroy the wicked, such as the gentiles, the prostitutes, and the tax collectors. But who was it that mistreated the poor? Who took the homes of widows, put debtors in prison, and burdened men with rules they wouldn’t keep themselves? Mostly the rich and powerful Sadducees and Pharisees.
It tells us something about God’s priorities. Just as God’s prophets in the Old Testament condemned those ancient religious rulers for worshipping other gods and mistreating the poor and powerless, so Jesus condemned the leaders of his day for the same things. It reminds us, too, that those who belong to Jesus become part of Jesus. How we treat those others is how we treat Jesus.
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February 4, 2014
Prepaid
Most will find the book of Leviticus very dull. And this is not surprising given that the book is essentially an instruction manual. I don’t know about you, but I have yet to seek out “how to use your new rice cooker” as something to entertain me. Leviticus is somewhat similar, except that it told the priests how to use their new tabernacle to worship God and to get rid of everyone’s sins.
From a theological point of view, it clarifies something. Whenever people sinned, they were to bring animals to the temple and the priests were to sacrifice them in order to make atonement for their sin. Sin, sacrifice, repeat as necessary. Every sin required its own, separate sacrifice.
If anyone sins and does what is forbidden in any of the LORD’s commands… .They are to bring to the priest as a guilt offering a ram from the flock, one without defect and of the proper value. In this way the priest will make atonement for them for the wrong they have committed… (Leviticus 5:17–19)
As the author of Hebrews points out:
The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. Otherwise, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins. It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. (Hebrews 10:1–4)
But under the New Covenant, our sin has already been atoned for; the sacrifice has already been made. We sin—and it’s already taken care of. There’s nothing to do. In Jesus, it’s as if we have a prepaid gift card without a limit.
Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool. For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.
The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says:
“This is the covenant I will make with them
after that time, says the Lord.
I will put my laws in their hearts,
and I will write them on their minds.”
Then he adds:
“Their sins and lawless acts
I will remember no more.”
And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary (Hebrews 10:11–18)
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February 3, 2014
Having Faith is Like Being Brave
In Sunday School for the last several weeks I’ve been taking the class through Hebrews 11 and the “great people of faith.”
The point of the chapter is to answer the question, “what is faith” and it does so by listing a bunch of folks from the Old Testament.
What is faith according to Hebrews 11? If all you do is quote the first couple of verses of the chapter and think that is the definition, you’re missing the point. Why do you suppose the author went on to list all those people? If you look only at the first couple of verses and ignore the overall context, you might imagine faith is some sort of a feeling: that somehow one has to scrunch up your face and keep telling yourself, like a self-affirmation, that you do believe, I do have hope, I do see evidence of stuff I cannot see. However, if you look at the Old Testament characters, you come to understand what the author really meant in those first couple of verses.
Guess what? Not one of those “mighty warriors of faith” operated without doubt, without resistance, without questioning and wondering and wishing they didn’t have to do what God told them to do. A lot of them spent time complaining to God about what they were going through and how it wasn’t working out. A lot of them kept going back to God and asking him, “are you sure?” For example, Moses and Gideon, according to Hebrews 11 did what they did “by faith.” But check out what Gideon was really like in Judges 6-8. Or look at Moses’ life and his responses to things in Exodus 3-5.
You see, what the people in Hebrews 11 have in common is not a lack of doubt. We generally don’t find them eagerly jumping at the chance to serve God. Usually they actually try to get out of it.
What the great people of faith have in common is that they kept on doing what God asked them to do, anyhow, even though they had doubts, and even though they didn’t really want to do it.
What is faith based on Hebrews 11? It is simply hearing what God wants you to do and then doing it, despite the doubts and your inner thoughts telling you “I don’t know if this is such a good idea.” It is akin to what Jesus said once:
“What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’
“ ‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.
“Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go.
“Which of the two did what his father wanted?”
“The first,” they answered.
Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. 32 For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him. (Matthew 21:28-32)
Faith isn’t a feeling. It is just doing what God asks, because it’s what you’ve been told to do and you know you’ve got to do it.
You have faith when it makes you do what you otherwise wouldn’t do. Faith is when you obey even though you’d rather just stay in bed today, thank you very much.
Faith is kind of like bravery. Bravery doesn’t mean you’re not scared. Bravery is doing what needs to be done despite being scared.
Faith is not the opposite of doubt. In fact, faith doesn’t exist without it, any more than bravery can exist without fear. Faith is doing what God asks of you, despite your doubt, your fear, and your reluctance.
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