Jesus marveled

(by Pastor Joe)

The Word for Today: Luke 7:1-17

mark this: Luke 7:9
"When Jesus heard these things, he marveled at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, said, "I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith."

"I've never met a _______ that I didn't like."
Each one of us could fill in the blank with something different.
Maybe it's a candy bar or a type of clothing or a certain car or a something electronic.

The Bible, we never encounter a centurion that we don't like.
Think about it. In a book full of all kinds of unsavory or at least flawed characters, there is nothing mentioned negatively concerning centurions. We have good patriarchs and bad ones, good and bad kings, good and bad priests, good and bad prophets, even good and bad apostles (well, just the one that went rotten.) But nary an unfavorable word concerning centurions.

Centurions were the backbone of the Roman military. They, by hard work and leadership, were placed in the officer rank over a group of around 100 soldiers. But they certainly were not of the higher general rank. They would lead and then fight beside their troops in battle.

In the Bible, it was a centurion that spared the imprisoned Apostle Paul's life (1). In the Bible, the very first Gentile conversion in the early church is a centurion named Cornelius (2). In the Bible, it is the not the priests or rulers, but instead a humble centurion who recognizing the crucified Jesus as "the Son of God (3)."

Today's passage (also found in Matthew 8) we see another centurion highlighted. It begins like so many of the healing accounts found in the Gospels. You know, a person or persons with an urgent physical need come to the "miracle maker" and Jesus provides healing and restoration.
In this account, the unnamed commander is greatly concerned for a servant of his, and he sends a delegation to make the need known to Jesus.

Jesus does agree and, indeed, heal the servant. But that is where the similarity with the other healing stories ends. We know from verses 4 & 5, this centurion was a real, stand-up guy. But what stands out even more is just how big and accurately he saw Jesus. He recognized that Jesus could help his sick servant, and he took action that brought that request to Jesus. But even beyond that, he also recognized that he was not deserving of even hosting the Son of God. He recognized that Christ's power was not limited to certain proximity. All his life he had been a part of the Roman authority structure, with Caesar at the top. Now he recognizes that one greater than any Caesar is here, whose very words bring life and hope and restoration.

The results are remarkable. Not only is his servant well, but we see a unique reaction and commendation from Jesus Himself. Jesus marveled, was amazed, astonished. The only other instance in all the gospels of this kind of reaction from the Lord comes from the blatant "lack of faith" of the people from his hometown (4). This story involving the centurion provides us with not only a great example of Jesus' miraculous ability, but also a great example of what it means to trust Jesus for salvation.

Like the centurion, we are not worthy or deserving to even welcome Christ anywhere near us.
Like the centurion, we depend solely upon His word.
Like the centurion, we recognize that Jesus alone has the real authority over life and death, Heaven and Hell.

So if you find yourself weak in the areas of faith and trust, don't try to artificially inflate yourself with bigger faith. Instead, follow the example of the centurion and come to understand a bigger Jesus- the only thing worth marveling over.

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(1) Acts 27:43
(2) Acts 10
(3) Matthew 27:54, Mark 15:39, Luke 23:47
(4) Mark 6:6

never, no, never, no, never

The Word for today:
Luke 6:37-49

mark this: Luke 6:47-49
Whoever comes to Me, and hears My sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like: He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently against that house, and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock. But he who heard and did nothing is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation, against which the stream beat vehemently; and immediately it fell. And the ruin of that house was great.

When I was seven, I learned this song at summer camp:

The wise man built his house upon the rock,
The wise man built his house upon the rock,
The wise man built his house upon the rock,
And the rains came tumblin' down.

Oh yes, the rains came down and the floods came up,
The rains came down and the floods came up,
The rains came down and the floods came up,
And the house on the rock stood firm.

But…

The crazy man built his house upon the sand,
The crazy man built his house upon the sand,
The crazy man built his house upon the sand,
And the rains came tumblin' down.

Oh yes, the rains came down and the floods came up,
The rains came down and the floods came up,
The rains came down and the floods came up,
And the house on the sand went WHOOSH!!

It was wacky and funny and at the end when the house blows away, we yelled out the "WHOOSH" with all our might!

It would be a while before I found out that the lyrics were by Jesus. I thought the words were just words…

until many, many years later, when the words of the song turned very, very true. They turned so true that it wasn't even funny any more. "WHOOSH" is putting it mildly.

Then after the Whoosh--quite possibly because of the Whoosh--I sought out the author of "The Wise Man Built His House Upon the Rock." He was right about the Whoosh, so I wanted to see what else he had to say.

After reading his book, I built another house. But this time I built on a different foundation. As I was building, I came across a grown-up version of that old camp song. It goes like this:

1. How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said
To you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?

2. "Fear not, I am with thee, oh, be not dismayed,
For I am thy God and will still give thee aid;
I'll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,
Upheld by My righteous, omnipotent hand."

3. "When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
The rivers of sorrow shall not overflow;
For I will be with thee thy troubles to bless
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress."

4. "When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
My grace, all-sufficient, shall be thy supply.
The flames shall not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine."

5. "The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose
I will not, I will not desert to his foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I'll never, no, never, no, never forsake!"

Jesus wrote the lyrics to this song, too (1).  Don't make the mistake I made, when I thought His words were just take 'em or leave 'em words. His words maintain a different standard than man's words often will; His yes means yes, His no means no (2), his Whoosh means Whoosh.

And when he says he will "Never, no, never, no, never forsake," he means never, no, never, no, never.

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(1) Each stanza of the hymn emphasizes a different promise (see 2 Pet. 1:4) in God's Word:
Stanza 1: see Luke 6:47-49 (above)
Stanza 2: Isaiah 41:10
Stanza 3: Isaiah 43:2
Stanza 4: 2 Corinthians 12:9
Stanza 5: Hebrews 13:5

(2) Matthew 5:37

you don't have to sit so far away

The Word for today:
Luke 6:12-36

(As I write this, I'm in sort of a lovey-dovey mood, it being Valentine's Day and all, so I'm going to roll with it while I've got it. Heaven knows it might be a long while before this mood strikes again.)

***

Little nuances that outsiders would scarcely notice make a big difference in the language of love.

Love notices the slightest alterations--in a mood, or in the texture of a smile; in body language, or in spoken language. Love measures the pressure in a hand; the linger in a look; the empty space between a couple, sitting on a park bench, in the dwindling twilight of a dwindling summer.

Some commentators can be so academic about biblical matters that it makes you wonder whether they've ever been in love with God. And if we're not careful, we can get sucked into that sterility, too. Pretty soon we can catch ourselves going on and on about covenant and dispensation and law and election and explication and implication. We can reduce the chemistry of love to the periodic table of the elements.

I, for example, am often a reactionary writer. (Don't worry, there's a support group for that, too.) That means I often write against, instead of for, something. Reacting against a matchstick Jesus, I have made it my imperative to write and teach the infinite attributes of an expansive Jesus who is Light itself.

But in the glare of my Cosmic Creator's Light show, I can lose sight of the Suffering Servant whose single purpose was to close the gap--the great gulf fixed (1)--between God and man.

***

That's precisely why God gave us four gospels, each of them stressing a different Jesus who is, paradoxically, always the same (2). In Matthew, for example, Jesus is presented as the King, the Lawgiver. Fittingly, his genealogy traces his royal lineage through his legal father, Joseph.

But in the gospel of Luke, Jesus is one of us--the Son of Man. Thus his genealogy, tracing his bloodline, is taken from Mary's side of the "wedding aisle."

In Matthew, the King delivers the Magna Carta of the Kingdom from high atop a hill. We call his proclamation the Sermon on the Mount:
And seeing the multitudes, He went up on a mountain, and when He was seated His disciples came to Him. Then He opened His mouth and taught them, saying:
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, For they shall be comforted.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled." (from Matthew 5:1-6)

Here in Luke, the Son of Man speaks similar words, but in a different tone. You could call it the Sermon on the Plain:
And He came down with them and stood on a level place with a crowd of His disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem.
Then He lifted up His eyes toward His disciples, and said:
"Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who hunger now, for you shall be filled.
Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.
Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude you, and revile you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of Man's sake. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy! For indeed your reward is great in heaven, For in like manner their fathers did to the prophets." (from Luke 6:17-23)

***

The heart will note the subtle shift in forms of address--from the regal, third-person "they" in Matthew to the pointedly personal "you" in Luke.

Which means, of course, that you don't have to sit so far away from the Son of Man.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(1) Luke 16:26/NKJV
(2) The gospel of Mark presents Jesus as the Servant, while the gospel of John presents Jesus as the Son of God. Fittingly, neither of these gospels give a genealogy: the Servant's only credential is his work; the infinite Son of God has no beginning to trace.

Unclean! Unclean! -- part 2

The Word for today:
Luke 5:27-6:11

mark this: Luke 5:12-13
Behold, a man who was full of leprosy saw Jesus; and he fell on his face and implored Him, saying, "Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean." Then He put out His hand and touched him, saying, "I am willing; be cleansed." Immediately the leprosy left him.

(Today we conclude a two-part article on the subject of leprosy, which is the Bible's most prevalent--and most instructive--picture of sin. Yesterday we concentrated on leprosy as it was depicted in the Old Testament.)

***

Immediately after the Sermon on the Mount, when Jesus was descending the mountainside, a faint "Unclean! Unclean!" began to be heard through the din of the crowd. As if the prow of a boat were moving through he throng, the leper made his way to Jesus as the people fell back, fearing contamination. He fell with his face to the ground.

The leper epitomizes the teaching that begins (Matt. 5:3-4) the Sermon on the Mount:
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn.
In this leper, the Word becomes flesh--and the Beatitudes become prophecy.

Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.
Aware of his condition, He did not ask for healing. He asked to be made clean. If he'd had any illusions of wholeness, all he had to do was hold the remainder of his hand before his eye and his illusions vanished. He saw himself as perfectly hopeless, apart from a divine work. There was nothing he could do to help himself.

"Unclean! Unclean!"
In another of the Bible's absolutely upside-down ironies, the leper's cry has shaped his whole psyche. He knows what he is, he knows he's helpless--and thus he is in the perfect posture to receive grace. God doesn't come to the self-sufficient, to those who perceive no need.

If you would come to Christ today, you would come by saying, 'Unclean! Unclean!' If you were to say, "I'm only partly unclean" or "I'm 25% clean," He will not receive you. That is the great tragedy of the comfortable today--we cannot accept that we are unacceptable. That is why the gospel is such an offense and a reproach. People don't want to be told that they're lepers.

Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.
He'd heard about what Jesus had done. He'd heard Jesus' words. There was no doubt in his mind that Jesus was omnipotent and sovereign. The only question was--Would He do it for him?

Sin controls people through two opposing lies.
The first is to say, "I'm pretty good, I don't have any need; I can make it."
The other is to say, "I'm so bad I'll never make it--I'm beyond the reach of grace. I am such scum that God can't do anything with me." But write this down: God is in the business of healing lepers.

The touch of exchange.
Jesus reached out His hand and touched the man.
Perhaps it had been twenty or thirty years since he'd known even one touch. His life had been lived at a distance. Skulking and lurking, he'd watched his children grow up from a quarter-mile away. But the separation--from man and God--was now over.

Why did Jesus do this--when he'd healed without contact before?
Christ's pure hand on the rotting leper is a parable of the incarnation and the cross: Jesus took on flesh, became sin for us, and gave us His purity: He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. (2 Cor. 5:21)

The healing was sudden and complete:
Immediately the leprosy left him.
The toeless, ulcerated stubs that were his feet were suddenly whole. The knobs on his hands grew fingers before is eyes. Hair, eyebrows, eyelashes returned; and skin, supple and soft.

This is what Christ does today. In a split second of belief, the healing of Christ in salvation from sin is instantaneous and complete: The blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from every sin (1 John 1:7).

He himself bore (your name)'s sins in his body on the tree, so that (your name) might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds (your name) has been healed (1 Peter 2:24).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Unclean! Unclean! -- part 1

The Word for today:
Luke 5:12-26

mark this: Luke 5:12-13--
Behold, a man who was full of leprosy saw Jesus; and he fell on his face and implored Him, saying, "Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean." Then He put out His hand and touched him, saying, "I am willing; be cleansed." Immediately the leprosy left him.

(Over the next two days, Stand in the Rain will range between Old and New Testaments in order to look closely at the subject of leprosy, which is the Bible's most prevalent--and most instructive--picture of sin.)
***

Leprosy is illustrative of the hopelessness and stench of sin. Of all diseases, scripture uses leprosy to represent sin more than any other.

The Messiah has power to deliver from the effects of sin.
Jesus healed physical disease in order to show before the scribes that he could forgive sin:
Which is easier, to say, 'Your sins are forgiven you,' or to say, 'Rise and walk'? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins"--he said to the man who was paralyzed--"I say to you, rise, pick up your bed and go home." And immediately he rose up before them and picked up what he had been lying on and went home, glorifying God. (Luke 5:23-25)

Two birds: The ritual for cleansing lepers. (See Leviticus 14:4-7, 49-53.)
The first bird is slain: Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin (Heb. 9:22).
The blood is then poured into an earthenware vessel--a jar of clay. (See 2 Cor. 4:7)
The second bird, dipped in the blood of the first, flies free.
[The Bible student will see a prophetic picture of the gospel--the death and resurrection of Jesus--in this ritual (1 Cor. 15:3-4). He will also see himself here--as the leper upon whom the blood is sprinkled.]

Full of leprosy. (Luke 5:12)
Leprosy is a painless hell. Leprosy-today known as Hansen's disease--is not a rotting infection. Hansen's disease destroys the body's warning system--the pain. It is an anesthetic that numbs the nerves, so that the leper might wash his face with scalding water, or grip a tool so tightly that a hand is traumatized, or reach into charcoal embers for a baked potato. Then infections take place and pretty soon the appendages are damaged. In third world countries, vermin will chew on lepers without their knowing it.

The poor man in Luke 5 had not been able to feel for years, and his body, mutilated from head to foot, was foul and rotting. If we could see ourselves apart from Christ, we would see that sin has invaded every part of our being.

"Unclean! Unclean!"
The person with such an infectious disease must wear torn clothes, let his hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of his face and cry out, 'Unclean! Unclean!' As long as he has the infection he remains unclean. He must live alone; he must live outside the camp. (Lev 13:45-46)
Apart from Christ, we are excluded from the fellowship of the family of God. (See Eph. 2:12-13.)

Dead men walking.
Lepers were treated as if they were the dead. But the leper is no more sinful than anyone else.

According to Ephesians 2:1, we are dead in our transgressions and sins. The spiritual world sees us shot through with the horrifying effects of sin. Even our righteousness--our three-piece suit, so to speak--is as filthy rags and makes us waste away (Isaiah 64:6-7).

The featureless, faceless, anonymity of sin.
The ears and noses and fingers of the leper would fall away.
Sin is neither distinctive nor self-expressive. It robs beauty, uniqueness--and lumps us in with the rest. The extremities of the unique individual fall off, leaving an indistinguishable middle, a stump.

And God saw that it was not good.
Sin is life by man's design, man by his own hand. So death is by man's design, by his own hand.

(to be continued tomorrow...)

at your word, I will let down the nets

The Word for today:
Luke 5:1-11

mark this: Luke 5:4-6 --
And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch."
And Simon answered, "Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets."
And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking.

Sometimes--like right now, for instance--it all gets away from me.

The Bible gets way too big for me. And faith starts to seem like the differential equations that I could never solve in high school; there are just too many variables.

Even Jesus, heart of my own heart, can sometimes seem so deep and so smart and so together that he simply outdistances my intellectual and spiritual grasp.

When I was first a believer, someone gave me one of those rubber bracelets that asked, "What Would Jesus Do?"

I always knew, back then, what Jesus would do. But now, sometimes, I don't have a clue.

When I start to get paralyzed like this, I have a special spot where I go. If you have your Bible open to our passage for today, then you can see my special spot from where you are:
"Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word, I will let down the nets." (Luke 5:5)

I've heard the life of faith described in so many ways, in too many ways. But the only definition that makes sense to me is this one:
At your word…
Just keep your nose in your Bible!
…I will let down the nets.
To the best of your understanding, just do what it says.

So whenever the life of simple faith begins to elude you, don't forget to come back to this special spot. Odds are, we'll run into each other, 'cause I hang out here a lot.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

bound by nothing

The Word for today:
Luke 4:31-44

mark this: Matthew 8:16 --
That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick.

Your Bible, especially the four gospels, comes equipped with supplementary materials to aid your understanding! They are called parallel passages, because they describe an event from another vantage point--as if it were observed from the other side of the tracks.

In Matthew 8:14-17, the parallel description of Luke 4:38-41, Jesus cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick.

With a word. Martin Luther (in his hymn, "A Mighty Fortress is Our God") put it like this:

And though this world, with devils filled,
should threaten to undo us,
we will not fear, for God hath willed
his truth to triumph through us.
The Prince of Darkness grim,
we tremble not for him;
his rage we can endure,
for lo, his doom is sure;
one little word shall fell him.

***

But many aren't aware of the power of God's Word. Jesus said so:
"Your problem is that you don't know the Scriptures, and you don't know the power of God." (Matthew 22:29/NLT; cf. 1 Cor. 1:24)

Well then, let's take a brief review of the power of God's word:

God spoke the cosmos into existence (Genesis 1). And he maintains the cosmos in the same way:
He upholds the universe by the word of his power. (Hebrews 1:3)

The faith which activates salvation is but an after-effect of his word:
So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.(Romans 10:17)

Indeed, the Savior himself is the Logos, the Word:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. (John 1:1, 14)

***

But what does the word of God mean for us today, as we stand, inherently powerless, to face the dragons we must face. It means different things to each of us, as Jesus said: those who weakly know the scriptures know a God who lacks power; while others, established in scripture, know an all-powerful God.

But no matter who you are, if you are considering these thoughts, then you are wrestling with the Word of God and, like Jacob, you're not going to let go until you get a blessing. (Genesis 32:26)

So here's the blessing I can convey. It's something we know, but we forget to remember:

It's not a paper Bible that we bring to the battle; it's not like we're going to "throw the book" at evil or at our problems! No, but we're bringing Jesus, the embodied Word, alive and active. (Hebrews 4:12)

We're told to arm ourselves with the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God (1). That doesn't mean we bring words on paper, or even words committed to our memories, or written on our hearts. We do not arm ourselves with concepts.

We're bringing no papier-mache` sword. We're bringing no paper tiger to this fight.

We're not showing up with a word bound in leather. We're showing up with the Lion of Judah--unleashed, undefeated, unconquerable, and bound by nothing.

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(1) Ephesians 6:17