A Yoke Too Heavy to Bear (Acts 15:10)

 A Yoke Too Heavy to Bear (Acts 15:10)

Someone has said that the job of the preacher is to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. There may be an element of truth, but I would say that the job of the Gospel preacher is to lighten the load. We are not to heap up guilt and obligation, but to point to Christ who has borne our penalty and our pain for us.

On this Sunday before Reformation Day, celebrated each year on October 31 (often forgotten due to something else going on that day), we think again of the truth and blessing of something called “justification by faith.” We all want to be justified, but there are different paths by which people try and get there. There is self-justification, as opposed to God-justification. There is justification by works, or accomplishment, or effort, as opposed to justification by faith. There is justification in the eyes of people, doing whatever is necessary to gain their favor, as opposed to justification in God’s eyes, not gaining it, but receiving it as a gift through faith in Christ.

Justification is a legal issue, and God is the Judge. We, His creatures, have offended His holiness in more ways than we know, and for us to seek to stand before the Judge and claim that we have gone ahead and justified ourselves, well, that’s just not going to fly. 

But the most common approach to God, or to “the gods,” is to try to justify ourselves before the deity so that they would be no longer mad at us. It is yoke too heavy to bear. And in Jesus’ day, it is how the Jewish religion had devolved into a “try harder” religion by which one could (hopefully) secure God’s favor by sufficiently(?) keeping the Law (which no one could do perfectly).

And so Paul confronts Peter, recorded in Acts 15 and asks this critical question about testing God and putting a yoke on the backs of disciples who had been saved by grace through faith, but now were to revert back to having to earn God’s favor by practicing old laws that no longer applied. Paul, a good Gospel preacher, was saying, “Let’s not break the back of the disciples.” Yes, let’s not.

I like to say that Jesus has done the heavy lifting for us. He carried the cross that we deserved. He bore the penalty of our sin that would have required eternal punishment for us. He bore the yoke that was too heavy for us to bear. So we are to substitute nothing in our Gospel understanding that replaces Christ. And it can happen easily. But now, we walk with Christ who leads us in lives of freedom, a freedom that loves to love and to serve.

What is Truth? (John 18:38)

 What is Truth? (John 18:38)

We were talking on the sidewalk in front of Starbucks, as we usually do most days of the week, about one thing or another. Israel and the Palestinians and Hamas came up, and I recounted what I remembered from a study that I had done in the past - that the word “Hamas” is actually the Hebrew word for hate. Afterward, I decided to check that, and guess what, I was wrong. I don’t know how that thought got into my head, but I shared wrong information as fact. Did I lie? Well, it was a  mistake. But did I lie? Yes.

We lie when we tell an un-truth. When we quote a liar, we are in fact lying. We should watch the sources from which we quote. In my case, it was my own memory. Evidently, not to be trusted. We are liars when we quote even people we trust, who are quoting someone who has lied or, perhaps, has mis-remembered. But when we speak an un-truth, no matter how respected a source, we are lying. 

When Pilate asked this question at  Jesus’ trial, “What is truth?”, it almost seems rhetorical. The Jewish leaders were speaking facts that he knew not to be true. He was a politician in the Roman Empire, having a Play-Doh view of truth that can be shaped into most anything imaginable. But there was something different about Jesus’ view of truth. He spoke the truth. And, He lived the truth.

You have reason not to trust me when it comes to the Hebrew background of words that we use today, but “truth” in the Old Testament not only speaks of factual accuracy, as in “true” or “false.” It goes beyond that and speaks of fidelity between the statement and the person. Truth might be defined as an accurate description of the reality of things, but then it goes on to describe a person’s right living in the midst of that right reality. So when Jesus stated that God alone was worthy to be worshipped,  He was not caught worshipping a boat or some earthly experience or money. He stated the truth, and He lived the truth. And if He had failed to live the truth, He would have been a liar.

And that reaches to us as well. When we state that Christians are to love their neighbors, and we don’t, then the truth that we state is confounded by our conduct, and, we are found to be liars, not so  much by our words, but by our conduct.

Truth is difficult for us. It was not difficult for Jesus, because not only did He he speak truth, but He also lived truth, and, as the verse says Him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

Do you wish to get well? (John 5:6)

Do you wish to get well? (John 5:6)

On the face of it, this seems like a rude question. A man has been sick for thirty-eight years, laying by a pool and begging. “Of course I want to get well! What kind of question is that?” But I believe Jesus intends for us to think about this a bit more carefully.

First of all, the man does not respond to a “yes” or “no” question with either a “yes” or a “no.” He comes up with, “there is no man to help me.” Now, this is a man who certainly needs help. But help will not heal him. He’s been sick/lame/weak/paralyzed for all these years, and helpfulness is not the same thing as healing. Care-giving is a wonderful thing, but it does not solve the problem. It seems as though Jesus is asking the question, “Do you want this problem solved?” And the man does not answer directly.

More philosophically, we might ponder, does he really want to get well? This is his life, for thirty-eight years. He has somehow learned to manage and survive in this system. His social circle is here. Life is far from perfect, but it is the life that he knows. Does he really want his life to change dramatically?

Of course, we must ask this of ourselves. Many of us have lived for more than thirty-eight years. We have our patterns and circles and support systems. We live with our liabilities, and have learned to live in spite of them, even coming to co-opt them in some ways. Do we want the kind of encounter with Jesus that changes our lives dramatically, freeing us from the current bondages to which we have become accustomed and are perhaps in love with, so that we might begin a new life in which Jesus is Lord?

Jesus steps in and gives the command: “Get up, pick up your pallet, and walk.” The man does exactly that. Jesus does not wait to be asked. He initiates a profound change in this man’s life. How does the man respond? He does not know Jesus’ identity, but later, Jesus having revealed Himself to him, the man goes back to the religious authorities and identifies Jesus as the man who broke the Sabbath, and perhaps, the man who broke the debilitating cycle of life in which the man was mired, but in which he was at home. Perhaps in the eyes of this man, Jesus had healed, but he did not see it as help.

The man seems not to have wanted the healing that he received. Jesus’ words to him are this: “Behold, you have become well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you.” The man had been released from his captivity, and was now challenged to enter into a new life that would be free from a sin that Jesus knew about, and that the man knew about, but that has not been identified for us, the readers. It seems that the ungrateful man was unwilling to embrace Jesus; unwilling to embrace his wholeness; and resentful that he had to figure out a new life, alone in this world, all by himself. It seems that this story teaches us of the great peril in being “saved” and yet to not be willing to embrace the Savior and the salvation that He offers.

Lord, are there just a few who are being saved? (Luke 13:23)

 Lord, are there just a few who are being saved? (Luke 13:23)

Biblical context is an interesting thing. A word should be understood in its paragraph, and a concept needs to be understood against the backdrop of the book of the Bible. A theme can find its context in the Bible as a whole. There can be geographical context; chronological context; or context of theme.

And so our verse, where the disciples ask, “Lord, are there just a few who are being saved?” should be answered carefully. Certainly the opposition against Jesus seemed formidable, such that conversions would be difficult. Misunderstandings of Jesus did abound. And, when God had saved from judgment in the Old Testament, Peter would later write that only “a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water” (I,3:20). 

Earlier in the same chapter, Jesus speaks of the small mustard seed which later abounds, or the hidden leaven, which eventually leavens all the dough. In light of those references, “few-ness” should not be surprising, nor distressing.

Later in the same chapter, Jesus mentions “the narrow way,” also mentioned in Matthew 7’s later part of the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew says, “few there be who find it.” That seems a bit more discouraging.

But God has always started out with just a few. Think of Abraham, son-less for years. Moses later says, “It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples (Dt 7:7). Or God winnows down His people to a remnant: “When they were few in number, of little account, and sojourners in it,” Ps 105:12 (ESV) 

God says to Paul in unfriendly Corinth: “Do not be afraid any longer, but go on speaking and do not be silent; ¹⁰ for I am with you, and no man will attack you in order to harm you, for I have many people in this city.” Acts 18:9-10. He says to His disciples, “I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd. Jn 10:16

We seem to be at a point in the West where the growth of the church is stunted. Oh, there are churches that grow, though I am not one to put much stock in market-driven growth, but am glad when the Gospel finds hungry hearts and draws crowds. My point is that we should not be discouraged. What we must be is diligent in sharing the Gospel, in sharing Christ.