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Luke 23:1-56 - Lectionary for Sunday of the Passion, Series C

4/11/2019

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4/11/19
Many churches throughout the world use a Bible reading schedule called a "lectionary." It's just a fancy word meaning "selected readings." Posts like this reflect on the readings for an upcoming Sunday or other Church holiday, as found in the three-year lectionary.

The evangelist Luke, when telling about the crucifixion, notes a period of darkness, approximately three hours’ worth, followed by the veil in the temple being torn, along with Jesus’ calling out to the Father that he was surrendering into the hands of God. He breathed his last and died. Luke 23:47-48 record the centurion in charge of the death squad being amazed, along with all the crowds. They saw what had happened and they understood it, no doubt better than we possibly can.

I’d like to mention just a few of the surprising factors. First, though both solar and lunar eclipses were understood in antiquity, we have no record of a solar eclipse in or around Palestine in the years surrounding Christ’s death. A solar eclipse doesn’t really last very long, but this period of darkness lasted for several hours. Luke and those he talked with interpreted this as a sign from God, not as any sort of natural phenomenon. Second, the veil of the temple was torn in two. This was a tremendously large piece of cloth-work, dividing the outer court from the very holy place. It would not pull apart easily. There’s no record of anyone actually doing it. The accounts given by the evangelists don’t have contrary evidence, such as letters saying it remained intact. There was no natural phenomenon which could have caused this to happen. Yet it’s reported. Again, the impression the witnesses at the time received, the impression we are to receive, is that God is doing a sign. Third, though Jesus was in the same kind of intense suffering which kills people in crucifixion, he had been talking reasonably about forgiveness just moments before. The process which would normally take several days to kill someone did not kill Jesus. Because people typically die of asphyxiation and dehydration in a crucifixion, they don’t have much of a voice. But he called out with a loud voice, then died. The only reasonable conclusion the centurion could have come to was that Jesus didn’t die of being crucified. He died because he surrendered his life. This would also have been evident to the onlookers.

What do we make of this account? Our reasonable conclusion is that God is doing something he wants us to notice. He is opening the holy place. He is making his work obvious to everyone who knows what time it is and that it is normally light in the middle of the day. He is showing that Jesus, the Christ, does have authority to lay down his life, as he said he did, and that he will presumably have the authority to take up his life again.

The Gospels give very real, believable accounts of real events. They were published early enough that readers and hearers could bring contradictory evidence. They show Jesus speaking and acting like the very God who is giving his life to redeem others. Based on these accounts, we should have the same, very reasonable, response to the events. Indeed, Jesus is innocent, indeed he is the Lord.

If this brief meditation was helpful to you, I hope you will check out the other materials on our website at www.WittenbergCoMo.com and consider supporting us.

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Philippians 2:5-11 - Lectionary for Sunday of the Passion, Series C

4/10/2019

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Philippians 2:5-11 - Lectionary for Sunday of the Passion, Series C
4/10/19
Many churches throughout the world use a Bible reading schedule called a "lectionary." It's just a fancy word meaning "selected readings." Posts like this reflect on the readings for an upcoming Sunday or other Church holiday, as found in the three-year lectionary.

There are two verses in our Epistle reading for this week which can be misinterpreted very easily. I’d like to take a quick look at them. We find of Jesus’ humiliation, “7but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:7-8, ESV) We owe it to the text, and to Jesus, to interpret these verses rightly.

First off, when verse seven says Jesus is “in the likeness” of man, it doesn’t mean he is sort of like a human, as many heretical sects have claimed over the centuries. Wanting to defend Jesus’ deity, these people say he wasn’t really human. He just seemed kind of human. But the text here says very clearly that Jesus is born as a human. He is just like humans. If I buy two identical shirts and give one to myself and one to you, one is mine, and yours is in the same likeness. They are not the same shirt, but they are really like each other. Jesus is as human as you or I could ever claim to be. That’s what verse seven says. He laid aside his deity and took up humanity. This is of critical importance to Christian theology because human sin requires the death of a perfect human. If Jesus isn’t human like you or like me, his death can never take our place. He is entirely human.

What about the problem with verse eight? This one is kept a little more hidden. But we want to realize that he was obedient to the death. While Paul says “to the point of death” some, again, trying to defend the deity of Christ, have suggested he was obedient to the point of death but then his death was an illusion or there was a substitute who died in his place, because, being God, he couldn’t actually die. This is not what Paul says, though it could come off that way in translation. What Paul is saying is that Jesus was obedient even though it killed him. Yes, verse eight says that God the Son, Jesus, died a real death, a shameful death, a death which inflicted all manner of pain and suffering upon him.

Is there some good news in this passage? Yes, it is very good news. The Jesus who, though he was and is God, became man, was able to take on all our fallen humanity’s sin. Because he remained perfect, his death was able to substitute for ours. Because God really died for us, he is also able to bring us into his exaltation, where we can be raised with Christ. Because Jesus became like us, he is able to take care of us and make us like himself. Jesus, the Christ, is the one who can walk through death on our behalf and raise us to new life. That was his intent, and that is exactly what he proceeded to do.

If this brief meditation was helpful to you, I hope you will check out the other materials on our website at www.WittenbergCoMo.com and consider supporting us.

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Psalm 118:19-29 - Lectionary for Sunday of the Passion, Series C

4/9/2019

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4/9/19
Many churches throughout the world use a Bible reading schedule called a "lectionary." It's just a fancy word meaning "selected readings." Posts like this reflect on the readings for an upcoming Sunday or other Church holiday, as found in the three-year lectionary.

Our Psalm passage for Sunday of the Passion has us entering Jerusalem with the Savior, expectant of the sacrifice to be made to God. We start with a gate, the gate of righteousness. We have the metaphor of a building stone and we immediately thing that we are talking about constructing something. What is being built here? A gate of righteousness? What kind of special stone do we use for that? For the gate of the Lord, the building stone is one which has been rejected by man. We find, only later, that Jesus is the stone rejected by the builders, but selected by the Father. How does he construct this gate of righteousness? Not as we would expect. In verse 27 it is built from a sacrifice, one which will atone for our sin.

The foreshadowing of the narratives surrounding Christ’s death is amazing here. He enters into Jerusalem and people quote verse 26. He is rejected by man and selected by God. He is the one who saves all who call on his name. Jesus, the light of the world has shone on his people, even when he is fastened to the horns of the altar as the sacrifice - the altar called a cross. He is the one who was lifted up for us, due to the hatred of mankind and the love of God. By his death, burial, and resurrection, Jesus has opened the gates of righteousness. The empty tomb with the stone rolled away, the temple with the veil ripped in two, both are signs that the way has been opened for all who believe on Jesus to enter into God’s presence, through the gate of righteousness.

If this brief meditation was helpful to you, I hope you will check out the other materials on our website at www.WittenbergCoMo.com and consider supporting us.

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Deuteronomy 32:36-39 - Lectionary for Sunday of the Passion, Series C

4/8/2019

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4/8/19
Many churches throughout the world use a Bible reading schedule called a "lectionary." It's just a fancy word meaning "selected readings." Posts like this reflect on the readings for an upcoming Sunday or other Church holiday, as found in the three-year lectionary.

How great is the compassion of God! Our Old Testament reading from Deuteronomy 32:36-39 points out God’s compassion when he vindicates his people (v. 36). When doese this happen? It is when the people’s power is gone. God’s care for his people shows when his people have hit bottom, when they are at the end of themselves, when they have no earthly hope.

Why would the loving God leave his people to get into such a desperate condition? We see our tendency in verses 37-38. As fallen humans, one of our failings is to take matters into our own hands and try to work out a way of salvation apart from God. Here the temptation was to make other gods and worship them. What is God’s response? He lets his people try their own way, only to see it fail. Those other gods we designed, the ones we trusted, to whom we gave sacrifices and offerings, what happened to them? They were our creations. They were never trustworthy. They couldn’t help us at all, so we fell into failure.

It is when we realize our resources are no good that we turn to the true and living God, the one who can rescue and bring life. It is then that we find the Lord was always there, caring for us, even when we went off on our own way.

If this brief meditation was helpful to you, I hope you will check out the other materials on our website at www.WittenbergCoMo.com and consider supporting us.

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