Knowing Jesus
As we approach Easter, which will be on March 31 this year, our readings turn from the teachings of Jesus to a clearer description of who Jesus is and what Jesus did for us.
There are many events coming up in the next couple of weeks. In addition to our regular Sunday morning and Sunday evening services and our Wednesday evening 7 pm Bible Discussion Group, we will be having several special events. All of these events are open to the public – if you’ve been worshipping with us on the radio or Facebook or with the podcast, you might want to attend one or more of these events. For example, we have the Vaught Chapel egg hunt on Saturday, March 23 at 1 pm at Bob Burwell’s home at 2391 Buckner Bend off Rt 47 near Leachtown.
On Sunday, March 24, at Cedar Grove we will have Palm Sunday and our Confirmation class will graduate. Wednesday, the 27th, we will have a Bible Discussion focusing upon the events of Jesus’ life, the final week before He was nailed to the cross.
On Thursday, the 28th, we will have the most family friendly event of the week, our Christian/Jewish Passover Seder meal at 6 pm. Partly a meal, partly theater, partly a lesson of how the traditional Jewish Passover meal became the Last Supper and was turned into what we celebrate as Holy Communion, this is traditionally a family event, with infants and children welcome – as well as those who are much more mature. It will be at the Cedar Grove Fellowship hall on the lower level, from 6 pm to about 8 pm.
On Friday evening, the 29th we will have our Good Friday service at Vaught Chapel. We will start with many candles, and as we tell the story of the last hours before Jesus’ death, we will extinguish the candles as darkness spreads over the earth.
Sunday morning, the 31st at 7 am, we will have our Easter Sunrise service at Cedar Grove, followed by our breakfast prepared by the men. Our normal services will be held at 9 am at Vaught Chapel, Sunday school at 9:30 at Cedar Grove, and then the Cedar Grove regular service will be held at 10:30 am. I hope you’ll invite friends to several of these events, and choose to join us in person if you’ve been worshipping with us on the radio, on Facebook, or on the newsletter or podcast.
In our first reading this week, the prophet Jeremiah brought us a message from God. Jeremiah lived at a time in the 6th Century BC when invading armies were attacking Israel and Judah. But God chose that time when Jerusalem had been defeated and the Israelites sent into exile in Babylon to tell the people that the Jewish people would return to Jerusalem one day, to a new city build with God’s help and support. But God would make a new covenant, a new agreement with the people. It would not be like the covenant God made with the people when he took them out of Egypt where God gave the Law to Moses and Moses passed on the Law to the people. God pointed out that the people had broken the earlier covenant.
God said, that in this new covenant, “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.” God promised to be their God and they would be God’s people.
But, God said, “No longer will they teach their neighbor or say to one another, “Know the Lord” because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.
This prophesy described what would happen when Jesus taught, was crucified, died, and was resurrected. The prophesy was referring to the arrival of the Holy Spirit – and the doing away of the need for the sacrifice of animals and the harvest of food for the forgiving of sins.
Let me work though this. Under the earlier covenant, the covenant that God and the people had made under Moses, God promised to be Israel’s God and protect them. The people promised to obey the Laws given to them through Moses by God. A priesthood composed of the men of the tribe of Levi, the Levites, handled the sacrifice that resulted in the temporary forgiveness of sins, usually for a year at a time. Other men taught the young people what the laws were. But the people repeatedly broke the Laws, and thus broke the covenant. And so God removed the protection God had give to Israel.
But Jesus’ crucifixion meant that the ultimate sacrifice had been made. For Jesus was born of a human mother, Mary, and was therefore 100% human, and could substitute for all other humans on that cross. But Jesus was also conceived by the Holy Spirit and was therefore 100% God, and of infinite value, and thus the price had been paid, valuable enough to cover all the sins of people for all time. And with the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, the old covenant was bought off, and a new covenant was made. The arrival of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost made this new covenant possible.
Now, when people chose to believe that Jesus was indeed God walking upon the earth, the Son of God the Father, then that also meant that we accepted that Jesus had the authority to make the promises, the power to keep the promises, and the love to keep the promises of eternal life and the forgiveness of all sins. And the prophesy given to Jeremiah began to come true to all people who believed, and were baptized with water and received the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands.
It was no longer strictly necessary to teach each other the Law or to tell these new Christian to “know the Lord”, for the Holy Spirit guided them, as the Spirit guides us. We simply must learn to listen to the Holy Spirit – reading the Bible, the Word of God helps tremendously. We all know God through that quiet whisper in the back of our minds. And God has promised to forgive our wickedness and remember our sins no more, because Jesus paid the price – and we were washed clean in baptism, and through our direct prayers asking to be forgiven, we are forgiven. And so, we are the people of God.
A bit of history. Hundreds of years before Jeremiah, in the Book of Genesis (Chapter 14), even before the people of Israel lived in Jerusalem, the father of the Jewish people lived: Abraham (who was the grandfather of the man God named “Israel”). Abraham was the head of a sheep and cattle herding family and the attached workers and slaves. He had a strong group of men who followed him.
One day, a group of petty kings over several small towns decided to raid another town and took slaves and livestock and loot. Abraham led an expedition to recover the people and the loot.
After successfully defeating the kings and returning with the loot to the area around Mount Zion, the king of Salem – which was the name of Jerusalem before the Jews later conquered the city – came out to greet Abraham back. Notice that the city was known as Salem, the city of peace, for Salem means peace in the ancient languages. Jerusalem means the city of the peace of the Jews.
The king of Salem was also a priest of God. Abraham gave this man a tenth of all the loot and livestock captured. The king gave Abraham bread and wine. The king of Salem, the king of Peace’s name was Melchizedek.
In the book of Hebrews, Chapter 5, written about twenty or thirty years after Jesus’ resurrection, the writer brings back this mysterious king of Salem, the man to whom Abraham gave a tenth of all his income and who gave Abraham bread and wine, and says about Jesus: You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek. According to the writer of the book of Hebrews, the order of Melchizedek was an ancient order of priests, much older and superior to the Levitical priesthood that was established by the Law given to Moses. And Jesus was designated to be the high priest, God’s son, and the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.
Many theologians believe that Melchizedek was the Christ on the earth, the Son of God who walked on the earth before the birth of Jesus – just as there are multiple places in the Old Testament which speaks of either the Angel of the Lord walking upon the earth, or the LORD walking upon the earth. Some Jewish rabbi’s taught that Melchizedek was one of Noah’s sons, still alive – the timeline allows this. But the New Testament is clear – Melchizedek was a priest of God from well before Moses brought down the Law, and Jesus is our high priest of God, Son of God, in some tight relationship.
When Jesus walked upon the earth and was involved in his earthly ministry, He repeatedly visited Jerusalem for the various festivals. He had entered town on Sunday to a great celebration. People loved Him. Just a couple weeks earlier, he had raised Lazarus from the grave in the sight of dozens of people. And then he had come into Jerusalem where tens of thousands of people were in town for the spring Passover Celebration. They would sacrifice their lambs and enjoy the traditional Passover Seder meals in various homes and inns around the city.
But this day, in the early spring, he was now in Jerusalem when a group of Greeks arrived in town. Apparently, they had heard of Jesus and the miracles he was performing. So they found Philip, who may have spoken Greek because he was named after Alexander the Great’s father Philip of Macedon, and asked to see Jesus.
Philp told Andrew, and the two of them went and told Jesus.
At that moment, Jesus saw something and a switch clicked. Was it because the Greeks weren’t Jewish, but were from outside of Israel? Was it because they were from far off and Jesus understood that his fame had spread into the Empire beyond Galilee and Jerusalem? Or was it something else?
What ever it was, Jesus’ entire attitude changes. He tells Andrew and Philip, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” Jesus knows that the end is near. This is the final visit to Jerusalem. This is the final festival. In particular, the event for which He will be remembers is growing close. His next words tell us that Jesus knew He was going to die but it would be a glorious death, an event which would be spoken of for ages to come.
24 Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.
Jesus’ death would lead to much goodness in the world, producing many seeds.
25 Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.
This was a teaching to all who follow Jesus – you will need to give up the things of your own life if you want to have eternal life. Instead, you will need to do what Jesus asks, serving others, and doing Jesus’ will. But if you do this, you will live forever, for God the Father will honor your sacrifice.
Then Jesus turned inward.
27 “Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name!”
Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.” 29 The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him. It must have been a terrifying event.
30 Jesus said, “This voice was for your benefit, not mine.
And then, Jesus announced that the grand finale was ready, that the big finish was coming, that the high point of His story – history – was about to happen:
31 Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out.”
He was speaking of the defeat of both Satan and Death itself.
32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” 33 He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.
He was pointing back once again to the bronze snake from Exodus, Jesus would be lifted up on the cross, and that sight would draw all people to Him, requiring every person to look at Jesus and make a decision – was Jesus the Son of God, worthy to become Lord of your life – or not?
The end was swiftly approaching.
As we go into the Easter season, there are many threads that need to be tied together to understand who Jesus was – and what that means for each of us. There is the thread of Passover, the event that led to the Exodus, the night and day when the Israelites were set free from slavery to the Egyptians, with a lamb playing a central role, just as we are set free by Jesus from slavery to sin.
There is the thread of the betrayal of Judas Iscariot, who sold his knowledge of Jesus to his enemies for thirty pieces of silver.
There is the thread of bread and wine, the Last Supper, the meal which would become Holy Communion.
The is the thread of the disciples, the denial of Peter of knowing Jesus, the fear of the disciples, and the steadfastness of John the Apostle.
And there is the thread of the women, particularly Mary, Martha, and the other Marys, and their devotion to Jesus.
And there is the thread of how Jesus’ sacrifice upon the cross solves our problem of sin and our inability to follow the Law – and any moral and ethical laws which we make for ourselves.
If you are a person who comes to church only on Christmas and Easter, if you’ve been worshiping with us on Facebook or on the radio or with the newsletter, you’ve only caught a small portion of these threads. If you only attend on Sunday mornings and do not get involved in the more detailed discussions of the Bible and the fuller stories presented at the Passover Seder and on Good Friday, you’ll still miss much and the threads will break in your hands.
But if you can join us at these extra services during this time when the days are growing longer, the weather is better, and there will be people ready to help you understand things much deeper than before – your faith will grow like the tulips and trees of spring, and your understanding of what God has done will be richer.
Let this be the year when it all makes sense to you. Let this be the year when you decided to return once more to worship Jesus.
Amen!