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Sermons

"A RELIGIOUS REVOLUTION"
GOSPEL SCRIPTURE TEXT: MATT. 10:16-20, 34
A MEDITATION FOR HOLY COMMUNION

DAVE RING, PASTOR
LOS ALAMOS 1ST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
SUNDAY MORNING, JULY 6, 2008

SCRIPTURE TEXT: 16"I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. 17Be on your guard against men; they will hand you over to the local councils and flog you in their synagogues. 18On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles. 19But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, 20for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you….34Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword."

MESSAGE: As we prepare to celebrate the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on our behalf this morning, remembering how He willingly allowed His body to be broken and His blood shed for human sin, let us consider for a few moments one of the great paradoxes of Christianity. The word "paradox" is a big one, and I've probably already told you that it doesn't necessarily mean two physicians walking down the street together. A paradox is two seemingly contradictory statements - both of which are true.

The Bible is full of paradoxes. Many people take a surface glance at one of the paradoxes of Scripture and say, "Aha! Here's a contradiction! So the Bible isn't really reliable." But God's Word, and God's ways, are always true. It's man's understanding of God that is partial and incomplete. And it's all the more so when we don't read the Bible regularly, diligently, and with openness to the wisdom of God's Holy Spirit - guidance from Whom is essential to a full understanding of any passage of Scripture.

On this Independence Weekend have you ever considered the seeming inconsistency between various portions of the Scripture regarding the mission of Jesus to our world? On the one hand, the prophet Isaiah calls Him the "Prince of Peace." Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, offers a special blessing to peacemakers - He says they are the true children of God. When Peter draws a sword to resist the arrest of the Lord, Jesus rebukes him with sharp words: "All who draw the sword will die by the sword." And the Almighty Son of God submits to crucifixion with no resistance whatever, saying only, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

The foregoing is one side of the earthly mission of Jesus, an aspect which many of us know well. But what about the other side? What of the prophetic Jesus who sounds more like John the Baptist as He furiously condemns the hypocrisy of the Pharisees? And what of the angry Jesus who takes up a whip and drives money-changers out of the courtyard of God's temple? Or the Jesus of today's text, who warns His followers of the evils of humanity, concluding his speech with this disturbing sentence: "I did not come to bring peace, but a sword?" Although we speak far less of this aspect of Jesus in churches today, this too is part and parcel of His mission to our world.
How do these contrasting sides of Jesus' mission to our world fit together? How can the "Prince of Peace" dare to say, "I did not come to bring peace, but a sword?"

One of the smartest ideas I was taught in seminary is this: Scripture is often the best tool for explaining Scripture. The solution to this paradox is found in several portions of Scripture, but the first chapter of John's gospel probably says it best: Beginning with verse four, John writes, "In Him (that is, Jesus) was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it." Christ's coming to our world brings life - and light. In the absence of light, there is no ability to distinguish between light and darkness, good and evil, right and wrong. But when light shines in the darkness, its very brilliance produces distinctions - divisions - areas of shadow. Shadows are not a creation of the light, but when light appears where darkness once reigned supreme, shadows are cast. And evil runs for those shadows, from thence to hide - dazzled, unable to comprehend. Evil strikes out at the light, desperately trying to put it out. The Prince of Peace thus becomes a cause of strife. Evil men take up the sword to kill Him and His followers.

When the first followers of Jesus went out to preach the Gospel, signs, wonders, and miracles accompanied them. They came back exultant: "Lord, even the demons obeyed us in Your Name!" The first generation Christian Church was so powerful and effective in winning people to Christ that, in Acts 17:6, the accusation leveled against these early disciples was "they have turned the world upside down." And truly they had, for they preached excitingly strange paradoxes like, "Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for the sake of Jesus will find it."
Of course, evil is not without resources, or it would have ceased to exist long ago. When John wrote "the darkness has not understood" the light, the Gospel was fresh and new to our world. But since then evil, unfortunately, has learned. If men and women can be tricked into believing that there is no absolute light - and no complete darkness, but only shadows with varying shades of gray - evil can, for a time, successfully resist the light of Christ. The Gospel can be watered down, the mission of Jesus blurred, the Church of God sidetracked from God's work of reconciling the world to Himself into trivial pursuits.

Today, on Independence Sunday, I would invite you to start a "religious revolution." Embrace the paradox that the Prince of Peace is enlisting an army to combat the forces of darkness and evil - with light and life. Understand that the power of God is as absolute today as it was on the day Christ rose from the dead, never to die again. As you feed on tokens of remembrance of the Lamb of God who meekly died for the sins of the world, may you receive strength to fight for the Lion of Judah - for truth and righteousness in a world that lives too much under the shadow of evil. And as you fight that good fight, be assured that the ultimate outcome is already known: Jesus wins - and so can we! Amen.

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