Preached · February 5, 2017
Well, hi everybody. Anthony Parrott here, Community Formation Director at Good News. As it happens, this past Sunday the sermon wasn't recorded, and I thought, why not just sit down and record this podcast-style. I don't have a live congregation to laugh at all my jokes and stories, but I thought, you know what, I can do this. People might appreciate hearing it if they missed out this past Sunday. Shouldn't be so bad.
The Story So Far
So we are, as you know, in the middle of a series called The Story. We've been taking a look specifically at the fall of Israel and Judah. That's what we looked at last week. This week we want to focus in on the result of that fall, specifically on what the prophets were talking about during that time period. We want to focus on their message, their story.
Because if you remember, Israel had been given this promise that they would last forever, that David would be sitting on a throne and that throne would never fail. And then everything falls apart. Israel and Judah fall to Assyria and Babylon, respectively. So there's this question of, can God be trusted? Does God keep his promises? What gives? Clearly, the same kinds of questions that we ask ourselves even today.
The Anointed One
So the prophets began answering these questions. They began preaching and prophesying about someone called the Anointed One. Because if you were a king in Israel or in Judah, you would be anointed with oil. That was the act of God, the divine, touching you and creating you as something special.
In Hebrew, the word for the Anointed One is Messiah. In Greek, that's Christ. And this person, this Messiah, this Christ that the prophets were talking about, would make everything right again, would prove God to be faithful in his promises.
However, in the years between the prophets and the time of Jesus, wires got crossed about what the prophets had actually said this Messiah would be about, and what would actually happen when Messiah, this Anointed One, this Christ, would come.
So to show this, we're going to take a look — actually skipping ahead — at Luke 24, a story with Jesus and some of his disciples, to show how these wires got crossed, and then show what the prophets actually said about Messiah.
The Road to Emmaus
Luke chapter 24. Jesus has just been killed on Friday. It's Sunday now, and rumors are going around that Jesus' tomb, for some unknown reason, has been emptied. We pick it up in verse 13.
That same day — that's Sunday, what we now call Easter — two disciples were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. And they were talking with each other about everything that had happened. And as they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself comes up and walks along with them, but they were kept from recognizing him.
Which makes sense if you think about it. The last time these disciples would have seen Jesus, he would have been beaten up, flogged, bloodied, pierced — completely unrecognizable, barely looking human because of the process of crucifixion. So if somebody comes up and walks alongside you on the road a couple days later, after you saw Jesus being crucified, you probably don't think it's Jesus. There's probably something supernatural going on as well with their lack of recognition. But even without that, you probably are assuming that the person you saw dead is still dead.
Continuing on in verse 17. Jesus asks these two disciples:
"What are you discussing together as you walk along?" And they stood still, their faces downcast. And one of them, named Cleopas, asked him, "Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?" "What things?" Jesus asked.
In other words, Jesus is playing dumb to hear what these disciples are going to say. And I've always personally taken this as proof that playing dumb was okay to do. If my wife were to say, "Hey, did you do the things I asked you to do?" I could say, "What things?" And I would be quoting the words of Jesus.
So the disciples answer Jesus' playing-dumb question. They say:
"About Jesus of Nazareth. He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. And the chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel."
In other words, we thought he was a prophet, and then he's dead. We had hoped he was going to be the one to redeem Israel, but clearly that's not going to happen. He's dead. So the disciples continue:
"What's more, it's the third day since all this took place. In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning, but they didn't find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels who said he was alive."
You almost hear the sarcasm in these disciples' voices — like, you know women and their visions of angels. "So some of our companions went to the tomb" — because you've got to see if these women are telling the truth or not — "and found it just as the women had said. They did not see Jesus."
So Jesus says to these disciples, verse 25:
"How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?" And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, Jesus explained to them what was said in the scriptures concerning himself.
Beginning with Moses and all the prophets — in other words, the whole of what we call the Old Testament. So these disciples, who thought they knew the scriptures and what the scriptures had said about Messiah, ended up being completely wrong. And they get schooled by the Messiah himself.
The Haunting Question
Here's the haunting question for us: Are we the same? Do we recognize Jesus for who he really is, or just who we want him to be? Another way to put it would be: if Jesus returned, would we just end up crucifying him again? Is it possible that we get so caught up in what we think Jesus is supposed to look like that we would miss him when he was right there in front of us? Or, even worse, think that something that clearly isn't Jesus is?
So Israel and Judah have fallen. The prophets start talking about this mysterious figure called Messiah, the Anointed One. He's going to make all things right. He's going to establish the throne of David, the kingdom of God. But in the hundreds of years between the fall of Israel and the coming of Jesus, the messages get crisscrossed and expectations get mixed up. So let's talk about three examples of that today.
Nationalism versus a Destroyed Wall
First of all, nationalism versus a destroyed wall. Many first-century Jewish people had this nationalistic expectation of Messiah — that when Messiah showed up, he would finally judge (which is a code word for kill) all of those pesky Gentiles once and for all, and Israel would reign over the earth without any other nation ever getting in their way.
We see this throughout Jewish history and throughout the New Testament. One example I particularly like — I always found it funny — is Jesus talking to his disciples just before the Ascension. In Acts chapter 1, verse 6, the disciples go up to Jesus and say, "Hey, are you finally going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" In other words, "Hey Jesus, so I guess you're the Messiah after all, but why is there still Caesar reigning over us, bro?"
So the disciples had this nationalistic expectation. And Jewish history, before the first century and in the first century as well, is littered with group after group after group trying to expel all the Gentiles from Israel, usually in terms of violence and revolution. Throughout the book of Acts we see these nationalistic tendencies, an initial resistance to including Gentiles within Christianity at all. And then in Ephesians we see that there is a sect trying to bring division, this very clear dividing wall between the Jews and Gentiles, and the Jews are obviously better.
So that's the nationalistic expectation that first-century Jews would have had about Messiah. But — and this "but," this B-U-T, is what we're going to do for each of these examples — what the prophets actually said is this. In Isaiah chapter 2, the prophet says:
In the last days, the mountains of the Lord's temple will be established as the highest of all the mountains. All nations will stream to it. The Lord will judge between the nations and will settle the disputes for many peoples. And as a result of all this, they will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.
I have "all nations will stream to it" underlined in my notes. And whenever you see "nations" in the Old Testament, it's the Hebrew goyim — it's Gentiles, it's the non-Jew. So the Lord's going to judge between the nations and settle disputes for many people groups. When Messiah comes, any sort of nationalistic tendency will fade away. Nations will be shown to be what they really are, which are just constructs, and they will fade away. And the tools that we use for war are going to be tools for agriculture — in this case, for feeding people, not killing them.
In the book of Amos, chapter 9, the prophet says:
After this I will return and rebuild David's fallen tent. Its ruins I will rebuild, and I will restore it, that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, even all the Gentiles who bear my name, says the Lord.
"After this" — this is God returning. "Rebuild David's fallen tent" — in other words, the temple. And whenever you see temple language in prophecy, we see that coming true in the church. The church is God's temple. The part I have underlined is "that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, even all the Gentiles who bear my name." So we see in the message of the prophets that the message is clearly not nationalism. It's not individualistic, just for the Jews or just for Israel. It's for all nations.
Eventually, many years later, the apostle Paul is going to write this to the church of Ephesus, which is dealing and struggling with this question — Ephesians chapter 2, verse 14. Any notion of there being some sort of hierarchy between one nation and another, one people group over another, has been completely put aside by Jesus, who died for all. The New Testament tells us that in God there is no favoritism. Again, Paul makes this absolutely explicit in the book of Galatians, chapter 3, verse 28:
There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
So this Holy Spirit of God, this power of Christ, is a reconciling force, breaking down divisions. So if you hear of a philosophy, or a worldview, or a religion that attempts to bring those barriers back — barriers of nationality, barriers of race, or of gender — if you hear of some sort of philosophy, worldview, or religion that tries to build walls between people, that's Antichrist. That's not the Messiah you are looking for. That's not the Messiah that the prophets prophesied about.
Legalism versus Transformation
So the first thing that was gotten wrong was nationalism. Secondly is legalism versus transformation. The second thing they got wrong was legalistic tendencies. When Messiah would come, they thought that he would at last restore the Torah, the law, to Israel — and again, just Israel, because all the other nations have been judged (slash killed) at this point.
The New Testament is filled with example after example of this. In the book of Acts you have the Judaizers, who basically just follow Paul around wherever he goes and try to convince all the churches Paul is planting that they need to be circumcised, they need to follow the kosher laws, they need to become Jewish in order to follow Jesus. We see this in the Galatian sect: in the book of Galatians there's a group that again is trying to get everyone circumcised and following kosher laws and the feasts.
Most obviously, we see this in the Pharisees. Here the Pharisees have Jesus, the Messiah, standing right in front of them, performing these outrageous, ridiculous, powerful miracles of healing and exorcism. The Messiah is doing this right in front of them, and the Pharisees are so caught in their legalism that they're like, "Ah, Jesus, it's Sabbath, it's Saturday, could you do that maybe tomorrow?" That's how caught up they are in their legalistic expectations that they can't see Messiah standing right in front of them.
So again, what do the prophets have to say about that? In Hosea chapter 6, we see that God desires mercy, not sacrifice, the acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings. So that temple system of sacrifice and offerings — all of that is not really all that high on God's priority list. It's mercy and knowledge of God.
In Jeremiah chapter 31, which we talked about briefly last week, God says:
I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel, and it will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors... I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.
It's not going to be like the old covenant, God says. In other words, this isn't some external attempt at transformation. It's not just "try really hard, grit your teeth, go through the motions, and you'll be righteous at last." This is a transformation of the heart. It's from the inside out. Yes, God absolutely is moving us toward justice and toward righteousness, but it's no longer through what the New Testament calls a temporary tutor or a guardian called the law, or the Torah. That was a temporary thing for a certain period of time. God is now moving us toward justice and righteousness by his Spirit, who indwells us.
In Galatians chapter 5, Paul puts it this way:
You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope... For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
In other words, the more you try to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps and try to be righteous, the more you're actually pushing yourself away from Jesus. And all of this active-yet-passive language here I love: it's through the Spirit that we eagerly await. So we're not just waiting passively, we're awaiting eagerly. It's an active waiting, by faith, for the righteousness for which we hope. Faith, as James tells us, requires action, but it's a hope for something that's yet to come. It's this active waiting that we are doing for righteousness, because it's through the Spirit that this is all going to happen, not through pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps.
So the harder you try to be righteous through your own power, the further away you walk from Jesus. Legalism is like quicksand: the more you struggle, the more you strive, the more you're just going to sink. Sure, legalism is simpler. It's easier to have 613 commandments all written out for you that you can check, check, check off the boxes. And following the Holy Spirit — well, that's hard. It requires discernment and prayer and accountability from others. It's messier. It makes us break out of our black-and-white thinking. But it's also the way of Jesus.
So, application: transformation is internal. It's inside out. Beware of "Jesus plus." Beware of any attempt to legislate morality, because even God admitted that didn't work out too well.
Redemptive Violence versus Redemptive Suffering
So the first thing gotten wrong was nationalism — but it's not nationalism, it's breaking down the dividing wall. The second thing gotten wrong was legalism — but it's not legalism that Messiah came to bring, it was transformation. So that's walls and laws. Let's talk about brawls. Thing number three: redemptive violence versus redemptive suffering.
There is this implicit connection between Messiah and violent warfare — that when Messiah would come, God would finally get out his sword and start swinging. And this, of course, matches hand in hand with those nationalistic tendencies. We see this idea of supposed redemptive violence in Jesus' disciples. In Luke 22:49, Jesus is in Gethsemane and the crowd has come to arrest him, and a disciple asks, "Should we strike with our swords?" And one actually does start swinging. They thought it was their responsibility to take on this battle on behalf of Messiah and start swinging their swords.
In John 18, verses 33 and following, Jesus is on trial before Pilate, and Pilate has asked, "Are you the king of the Jews?" And Jesus says, "Look, if my kingdom were like earthly kingdoms, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest." And therefore the implication is, it's not that kind of kingdom. I didn't ask my disciples to fight. I did not fight my arrest. I'm a different kind of kingdom, not one based on violence.
In first-century Palestine, there are all sorts of attempts to bring violence and warfare in the name of Messiah. People would take on the title Messiah, thinking that they would be the one who would finally restore Israel and restore the law. And it never ended up all that well, until the one true Messiah came about. For instance, there was a group called the Sikari, a name that comes from their kind of dagger, a Sikker. They were like these Jason Bourne-like assassins. They would go into a crowd, slash a throat or disembowel someone — usually a Roman or a Greek, some political authority over the Jews — and then just fade away. It's possible that Judas Iscariot might have been a Sikari.
There was another group called the Zealots. The Zealots wanted to violently overthrow Rome and create their own Jewish kingdom, and so they would very often cause riots and a lot of trouble for Rome, which usually ended poorly for the Jews. Violence was kind of the word of the day, and usually done in the name of Yahweh, in the name of the Anointed One, in the name of trying to restore Israel and the throne of David.
But again, what do the prophets have to say about this? And remember, when the prophets are speaking, this is Israel in its darkest hour. They're exiled. The kingdom has fallen. And Isaiah is describing their hero — the person who's going to restore everything, this person who's going to make all things right, all things new, restore the world, undo the curse. Here is how Isaiah explains what this hero is going to be like, in Isaiah chapter 53:
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. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by God, and afflicted. 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. He 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. He had done no violence, nor was there any deceit in his mouth. 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 is going to see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. And after he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied.
Not the hero you expected, right? This is the Messiah: a suffering servant, a person whose suffering brings redemption. Suffering on behalf of others, absorbing violence for the sake of others, bringing redemption.
Now, before we dismiss this hero of Israel, this suffering servant, as "well, that's Jesus, of course he's going to do that, you can't ask me to do the same thing," we've got to remember the words in Philippians chapter 2, which says, "Let the same mind be in you that was in Jesus." This Jesus who emptied himself, took the form of a slave, humbled himself, became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. All those things about that suffering servant — yeah, the Bible says be like that.
You see, the myth of redemptive violence is exactly that: it's a myth. Last week we celebrated communion together as a church. Depending on what denomination you're in, there's debate about exactly what the bread and the wine are. Is it literally the body? Is it literally the blood? Figuratively, mystically, literarily — what's going on? We could debate that all day long. But here's something Jesus is clear about, in the book of Matthew chapter 25: Jesus says that for those who are suffering — the destitute, the imprisoned, the hungry, the thirsty, the sick, the immigrant — it's in those people, Jesus says, that we encounter the living Christ. When we encounter the suffering, we're encountering Jesus himself.
Walls, Laws, and Brawls Won't Save the World
So, to summarize: walls, laws, and brawls won't save the world. Division, legalism, violence — this is not what's going to save the world. The Messiah just isn't about those things. He breaks down walls and barriers. He puts aside the law so that we can become truly righteous through transformation of character. He suffers on behalf of others to bring redemption to the world, and he invites us to do the same.
So let's go back to our disciples walking with Jesus on the road to Emmaus. Here's how that story ends. These disciples have invited this stranger — who we know is Jesus, but to them it's just a stranger — into their home, and Jesus was at the table with them. In verse 30:
When Jesus took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and began to give it to them, then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight.
It's in brokenness that we recognize Jesus for who he really is. It's in the brokenness of God dying for us. It's in the breaking of bread. It's in the brokenness of our fellow human being in need. There's Messiah.
So when Jesus returns, are we just going to crucify him again, just like our ancestors of 2,000 years ago? Are we going to ignore the words of the prophets once more? Or are we going to be people who, like Jesus, tear down walls of division, seek righteousness through transformation by the Holy Spirit, and recognize our Lord and Savior in the face of the suffering and the broken?
So that is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Grace and peace be with you.
