Month: April 2013

I’ve always been fascinated by Luke 4:16-21. Jesus has achieved some fame as a prophet and he returns to his hometown of Nazareth. There he is invited to preach to the synagogue so he takes his place in front and chooses to read from Isaiah chapter 61. Have you ever wondered why, of all the passages Jesus could have preached from, he chose this one?

 

Jesus Rejected at Nazareth
^{Luke 4:16} And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. ¹⁷ And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,

¹⁸         “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me

to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives

and recovering of sight to the blind,

to set at liberty those who are oppressed,

¹⁹         to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

²⁰ And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. ²¹ And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

 

I’ll be preaching from this same text this coming Sunday at Canyon View but as I was translating the text from ancient Greek in preparation for my upcoming lesson, I came across the word thrauo, “oppressed.” This is the only place it is used in the New Testament and it literally means “to break into pieces.” Now that is a vivid image isn’t it?

Part of the ministry of Jesus (and part of our ministry as Christians) is to heal broken hearts! Unfortunately, all too often Christians are responsible for just the opposite. We can be too critical and we’re often swift to judge others.

Jesus often used humor to poke fun at this kind of hypocrisy. Do you remember when he talked about the Pharisee’s soup? “You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!” (Matthew 23:24) I can just picture a camel doing the backstroke in a bowl of chicken soup while the poor Pharisee is chasing a gnat around the dish with his spoon.

Have you heard of the “Jesus Preaching Principle”? Jesus pointed sin out to saints but he pointed sinners to God. In other words, people whose lives are in pieces already know that. They don’t need people to point out their condition; they need people to point them to a loving God who can heal them. On the other hand, sometimes people who claim to know God need to have someone point out the camel in their soup.

“Ummm, waiter! What’s this camel doing in my soup?”

“I believe it’s the breast stroke sir…”

 

 

 

There is a delightful old joke about a monk who took a vow of silence. He was only allowed to speak to the head of the monastery once a year. At the end of the first year, he was asked, “Brother, do you have anything to say?” to which he answered, “The beds are hard!”

Another year passed and he was asked, “Brother, do you have anything to say?” to which he answered, “The food is bad!”

Finally, another year passed and he was asked, “Brother, do you have anything to say?” to which he answered, “I quit!”

The head of the order shrugged his shoulders and replied, “Well, I’m not surprised. All you’ve done since you got here is complain.”

A week has passed and I still can’t speak. I have a terrible sore throat and I’ve hardly gotten out of bed. I’ve even resorted to channel surfing. I’ve watched more TV in the last week than I have in the last five years. I’m afraid I might become a “Swamp People” addict! (That’s a television show about hunting alligators in the swamps of Louisiana where the main characters are Cajuns who race around in boats shouting, “Choot ’im! Choot ’im!”)

It’s been an interesting experience. For example, people will shout from across the house, “John, do you want anything?” That’s really nice but I can’t shout back “I’d love a Fudgsicle!” Or, it’s natural when I whisper, people whisper back to me like we’re keeping some great secret.

It’s a great challenge for a preacher to lose his voice! Imagine what it would be like, if suddenly all of the preachers lost their voices? Before you add that to your prayer list, my dear friend and fellow minister, Jim Hinton observed, “Well, they could still send text messages!” That may be, but an unspoken dread most ministers share is a kind of discouragement that causes us to wonder if we are doing any good? Is anyone really listening to what we have to say? Are we relevant or just tolerated?

One of the curses God pronounces on Israel through the prophet Amos is a famine for the Word of God (Amos 8:11, 12):

“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord God,
“when I will send a famine on the land—
not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water,
but of hearing the words of the Lord.
They shall wander from sea to sea,
and from north to east;
they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the Lord,
but they shall not find it.”

The challenge for preachers is two-fold. The first is not to give up but continue to speak out. Noah preached for over 100 years and no one except his own family listened to what he had to say; yet he is called a man of God. The second is the far more important imperative. The famine isn’t of preachers but of “hearing the words of the Lord.” It isn’t enough to just speak. We must be sure of our message! Now excuse me while I gargle again and try to find my voice for Sunday’s sermon.

Through the centuries there have been many powerful symbols used of Christianity. One of the earliest is the fish and that’s appropriate because there are many references to fish and fishing in the Gospels. Jesus told his apostles to lay down their nets and follow him and he would make them “fishers of men,” (Matthew 4:18, 19). But there is another, better, reason. The Greek word for fish, ichthus, (pronounced “ik-thoos”) is an acronym for Christians:

I is the first letter in the name “Jesus” (I in Greek is the same as J in English)

Ch is the Greek letter “Chi,” the first letter in “Christ”

Th is the Greek letter “Theta,” the first letter in “Theos,” “God”

U is the first letter in the Greek word for “son”

S is the first letter in the Greek word for “savior.”

When you put them altogether, it spells “Ichthus” (“Fish”) which stands for “Jesus Christ, God’s Son and Savior.” Some writers have even speculated it was a kind of sign/counter-sign for early Christians as they traveled during times of persecution. When you entered a new city and were trying to find other Christians, you would casually draw the lower half of the fish symbol in the dust. If the other person was a brother, he would draw the upper half completing the symbol. I’m not sure that is true but it is a wonderful story isn’t it?

Other Christian symbols were the lamb, the Good Shepherd with the lamb on his shoulders (Luke 15), the “Chi-Rho” symbol (It looks like an X with a P – the Greek letter R – superimposed on it. These are the first two Greek letters for “Christ.”), the Alpha and Omega (the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet signifying Jesus is the beginning and the end. See Revelation 1:8; 21:6; 22:13), the anchor (Hebrews 6:18, 19), and even the pelican (legend says when a pelican can’t find food for its young, it wounds itself and feeds them on her blood).

Of course the most famous symbol of all is the cross but there are two variations: the cross and the crucifix. The difference is a crucifix portrays Jesus hanging on it and this symbol plays a powerful role in Catholicism, however I believe the cross is the better symbol because on a crucifix, Jesus never gets off the cross. We worship a Risen Savior who triumphed over death and that is why we celebrate and that is why we have hope of eternal life!