Category: Sermon Supplements

Jesus sees and Jesus acts, do we?

When Jesus sees the crowds He is moved with compassion. The word behind compassion has no one English equivalent. It means compassion, pity, and sympathy and more. It is a visceral, gut-grabbing kind of compassion. Why don’t we see this way? The answer – sin. Sin blinds. It can blind in numerous ways to the crowds all around us. Prejudice, racism, hatred are all obvious blinders, but selfishness, materialism, and lust are equally as effective.

God’s Word, especially the truth of the gospel, helps us to see. We have to be taught to see. We have to be sanctified to see. Other tools are helpful as well, perhaps none more so than Operation World.

So what do you see when you look at the Muslim world? The Hindu world? The Buddhist world? The materialistic, pluralistic, atheistic, humanistic world? Are you moved deeply in your gut with compassion? When you look at India do you see the largest concentration and variety of the least-reached peoples on earth? Do you even look at India? When you look at Afghanistan do you see the 48,000 mosques, the absence of even one church building, and 70 unreached peoples? When you look at Africa do you see 13 of the worlds 20 least-evangelized countries? Do you see the 240 million Bengali who comprise the largest unreached people in the world? Yet, these statistics mean nothing if we have not been gripped by the glory of the gospel, that God saves sinners, for there is no one else to save.

But Jesus not only sees, He acts. His action is a call for action. He calls for His disciples to pray that the Lord of the harvest would send laborers into His harvest. Some might see the need as so great and say, “What? Pray? That’s it?” No prayer is not to be our only action, but it is to be our first and greatest action. John Bunyan said, “You can do more than pray after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed.” Prayer calls down heavenly firepower, the only firepower that can storm the gates of hell, advance the kingdom, and rescue captives. The greatest doers are the greatest prayers, relying on power from above and not from within. God may bless in spite of us, but when we pray we will most often get what we can do – nothing (John 15:5)! But when we pray we get what God can do. The harvest is God’s. He sends out laborers, He gathers in the nations. Prayer is our greatest weapon. Nations are won because of prayer.

But Jesus’ action doesn’t end in His calling his disciples to prayer. He then answers that prayer in authorizing and sending His disciples to proclaim and act. We must be willing to be God’s answer to our own prayers. Really we should all be the answer to this prayer, the question isn’t whether or not we should be involved in world missions, but to what extent should we be involved? Really our hearts should be burning with desire asking, “To what extent can I be involved?” We shouldn’t have to wrestle so much with going to the mission field as much as staying here.

Do you see? Do you pray? Do you act? Do you proclaim? Do you act?

Do you sing?

May God be gracious to us and bless us

and make his face to shine upon us, Selah

that your way may be known on earth,

your saving power among all nations.

Let the peoples praise you, O God;

let all the peoples praise you!

                                                    – Psalm 67:1-3

We all mourn differently. This is especially true across cultures. In our western culture we mourn very quietly, not so the Jew. The cacophony, commotion, and chaos of Jarius’ house were a common scene. Among this mournful crowd there would have been professional mourners hired by the family. One Jewish writing says that even the poorest of families was expected to hire not less than two pipers and one wailing woman. Biblically we can trace the custom as far back as Josiah at the latest. (2 Chronicles 25:35). Jeremiah uses this common imagery when He writes:

Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Consider, and call for the mourning women to come; send for the skillful women to come; let them make haste and raise a wailing over us, that our eyes may run down with tears and our eyelids flow with water. For a sound of wailing is heard from Zion: ‘How we are ruined! We are utterly shamed, because we have left the land, because they have cast down our dwellings.’” – Jeremiah 9:17-19

Jarius’ being a ruler, and thus no doubt a man of some means, would have been expected to have several professional mourners. Also a frenzy of activity would be taking place as the family scrambled to make all preparations to bury the body within twenty-four hours.

Jesus comes on the scene and dismisses the crowd. Remember His presence necessitates feasting not fasting (Matthew 9:14). The King is present, the kingdom is breaking in, away with such mourning, she is only sleeping. They laugh taking Jesus literally.

Sleep was a metaphor for death, but it is easy to see how the crowd misunderstood Jesus. If simply taken as a euphemism he would be in effect saying, “Go away, for the girl is not dead, but dead.” So Jesus isn’t simply using a euphemism for death, but He isn’t saying she is just snoozing either. Again, Jesus isn’t using a euphemism for death, He is euphemizing death. Jesus is saying is that because of Him, death is just a nap.

All this foretells a far greater awakening. Paul says we will not all sleep (1Corinthians 15:51), but be assured, all those who die in Christ are only sleeping; they will rise again with renewed, sinless, glorified bodies. All mourning will be eternally dismissed.

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. – Romans 6:23

Tax collectors were unacceptable in every way: socially, politically, and religiously. Some might say that things haven’t changed much, but really the plight of the tax collector is so much better in our day. We might despise the IRS auditor in our own house, but we like the idea of him in the house of a scoundrel. Further, no one ever thinks the IRS employee a Benedict Arnold because of his job. He may be one, but it is not inherently related to his job. But to the Jew, the tax collector was the worst of traitors. Backed by Roman soldiers he extorted his own countrymen to finance the enemy. Rome grew stronger, the Jews grew weaker, all while the tax collector grew wealthier. In addition he would be religiously unclean because of his frequent dealings with Gentiles.

There was only one reason to be a tax collector in this society, money. You were virtually free to charge as much as you want and any surplus collected was pocketed.

Now imagine the kind of company that such a person who has so ostracized himself form respectable Jewish society would keep. They would be the sort of riffraff who have nothing to lose by associating with him. Jesus was dining with the likes of pimps, prostitutes, thieves, and gamblers.

Jesus seems to call the oddest of disciples and keep the worst of company. Isn’t it wonderful that we’ve now refined the church so that such persons rarely have any dealings with the church except perhaps to beg outside its doors? Evidently Paul still had this problem, the early church being made up of those with less than desirable backgrounds (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). Jesus may still call such disciples, but the church rarely does.

But our “health” may come at a cost. If we keep our illusion of health, the Great Physician will have nothing to do with us, He came for sinners.

Sinner, never fear of being too sinful for Jesus, rather, dread thinking yourself too healthy.

Come, ye sinners, poor and needy,
Weak and wounded, sick and sore;
Jesus ready stands to save you,
Full of pity, love and power.

Let not conscience make you linger,
Not of fitness fondly dream;
All the fitness He requireth,
Is to feel your need of Him.

I will arise and go to Jesus,
He will embrace me in His arms;
In the arms of my dear Savior,
O there are ten thousand charms.

– Come Ye Sinners by Joseph Hart

Logic is a powerful tool, but tools can destroy as well as build. Used wrongly a tool can be deadly to the user. The Pharisee’s logic here is valid. They think Jesus is blaspheming. In Mark they are recorded as thinking, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” They are right. God is always the most offended party in our sin, it is ultimately His prerogative to forgive sin. Your sin never hates anyone as much as it hates God. Sin mocks and belittles all that God is. Think of an attribute of God, then meditate a little, it shouldn’t take long to see how even the smallest sin laughs at that attribute. “Your omnipotent God, do something about this! You are all wise; well I think this is the better way to live. All seeing, do you see this? Your gracious, you’ll forgive this sin.” Sin is the hating of God, the seeking to de-god God. So the Pharisees rightly reason thus:

Only God can forgive sin.

Jesus is a man.

Therefore Jesus cannot forgive sin.

The logic is valid; the problem is that the second premise is false. Jesus is more than a man. That’s the point of this text, the healing of this paralytic is a subplot.  Jesus is the God-man with authority to deal with all of our problems at the root.  Jesus doesn’t come as the Great Physician to merely alleviate symptoms, but to do radical surgery by His own wounds.

All sickness is due to sin. It may or may not be due to a particular sin in your life, but all sickness is ultimately due to sin, namely the sin of Adam. Sickness then is a vivid, pervasive picture of the heinousness of a greater plague of which we all suffer, sin. The greatest disease is not to be dreaded as much as the least sin.

Jesus comes to make all things new; a new heaven and a new earth with no more sickness, pain, or death. In order to do this He will have to deal decisively with sin. This He did on the cross, as the God-man. As Anslem would reason, only God can deal with sin, only man ought to, and only in Jesus do the can and ought meet.

So it is the Pharisees, not Jesus, who blasphemed that day. I do not rejoice that the Pharisees blasphemed, but I do rejoice that it was blasphemy. Jesus does have the authority to forgive sin.

Irony: the disciples who after seeing Jesus’ supremacy over the storm, ask, “What kind of man is this?” receive their answer from demons once they come ashore. Jesus is the Son of God, the Sovereign Judge before whom demons fall, beg, and tremble, the One who in the weakness of His exhausted human flesh beats up a legion of demons with a single word. Learn from the demons not only who Jesus is, but that intellectual assent is not enough (James 2:19).

Insanity: the locals learn to tolerate the kingdom of darkness, but when Jesus demonstrates His power over the realm of evil they beg Him to leave.   They prefer pigs to persons and swine to the Savior.

But that little ship did present a figure of the Church, in that she is disquieted ‘in the sea,’ that is, in the world, ‘by the waves,’ that is, by persecutions and temptations; the Lord, through patience, sleeping as it were, until, roused in their last extremities by the prayers of the saints, He checks the world, and restores tranquility to His own.  – Tertullian

So the boat is the church, the sea the world, the waves persecution and temptation, Jesus’ sleeping His patience, the disciples cries the prayers of the church, and Jesus stilling the storm His deliverance? Nope. That is a horrible way to read this text.  The boat is… a boat. The sea is the sea, the waves are waves, Jesus is Jesus, and the disciples are disciples. What then is the point of this story? How are we to relate to it?  You are meant to with these disciples, as disciples, marvel at the Christ.

While few may be in danger of allegorizing the text as Turtullian did, many may spiritualize the text and make application in a similar way.  “Come to Jesus when the storms of life suddenly arise and you will have peace.” There is truth in that, but that is not the point of this text. Jesus says, “Peace, be still” and all is calm except for their hearts.  Luke says “they were afraid and they marveled.”  Mark adds further insight recording they were “filled with great fear.” The storm is stilled but they are still in awe. Something more awesome remains in their presence.

“Awesome” has to be one of the most abused words in the English language. Films are awesome, CDs are awesome, clothes are awesome, gadgets are awesome, you might even have a friend who is awesome. No, that which is awesome arouses a complex mixture of dread, wonder, and veneration. Storms are awesome, tornadoes are awesome, hurricanes are awesome, earthquakes are awesome, volcanoes are awesome, tsunamis are awesome.  Here these disciples encounter the exceedingly awesome. When sinful men encounter the glory of the holy Christ, they are filled with awe.

The tragedy of their fear and little faith is that they were more in awe of the storm than the Sovereign, but that soon changed. They caught a glimpse of Jesus, and when they did faith flourished, worry wilted, and fear was properly redirected.

The tragedy of all humanity is that we were made for the Awesome, but we are enamored with the trivial. No wonder our faith is so small and our fears are so big.

Nothing, in fact, has done more harm to Christianity than the practice of filling the ranks of Christ’s army with every volunteer who is willing to make a little profession, and talk fluently of his experience. It has been painfully forgotten that numbers alone do not make strength, and that there may be a great quantity of mere outward religion, while there is very little real grace. Let us all remember this. Let us keep back nothing from young professors and inquirers after Christ. Let us not enlist them on false pretenses. Let us tell them plainly that there is a crown of glory at the end. But let us tell them no less plainly, that there is a daily cross in the way.  – J.C. Ryle

Jesus is redeeming a vast people for Himself from every tribe, language, people, and nation, but he is not after a crowd, he is after disciples. Jesus is not after a million-man-militia ready to run at the first hint of danger, He is after the 300 of Thermopylae ready to lay down their lives, and He lets you know the terms up front.  Jesus does not refuse either one of these would-be disciples, nor does he eagerly accept their proposal, rather he calls them to think. He calls them to count the cost.

You cannot barter the terms of you discipleship. You may not build your own custom Christ desiring the benefits of knowing Him as Savior without the demands of His being Lord. What are the terms?  All. Your heart, your mind, your will, in totality, are to be His.

Discipleship costs, but it is a blissful bankruptcy. In sacrificing all we are the ones who receive. We give up the finite for the infinite. So yes, count the cost, but also consider the Christ.

Initially, as he approached, He seemed to be just yet one more joining the crowd to see this One who spoke with such authority and worked wonders. But as he drew nearer they noticed that his clothes were torn, his hair hung loose, and his upper lip was covered.  He was an outcast. He was a leper! Surely he would divert his path, at least he would soon cry out, “Unclean, unclean!” so that the crowd could divert theirs.

***

Leprosy could refer to several diseases that could affect the skin in a particular way including Hansen’s Disease (Leviticus 13). Hansens’ disease is a peculiar disease. It is not dreaded for the pain it causes (though in the initial stages there is some), but for the pain it anesthetizes. Leprosy does deform, but the most severe damage comes precisely because the leper doesn’t feel any pain. But to the Jew  the most dreaded aspects of this disease were not physical, they were religious and social. According to the law the leper was unclean. That is why the leper asked to be cleansed rather than healed. You were healed of other diseases, but you were cleansed of leprosy. Being unclean he dwelt outside the camp. He dwelt alone. He was a picture of sin, cast away from God and God’s people.

***

Perhaps others started to slow down and murmur. They didn’t want to touch this leper and render themselves unclean. Jesus’ pace and trajectory didn’t change, neither did the lepers. The holy Christ and the unclean leper were on a collision course. The crowd gasps, they are shocked, they step back. This is taboo. The leper’s boldness was matched only by his reverence and humility. Now “Lord” could mean nothing more than “sir” in this culture, but when applied to God it was a title of supreme sovereignty. This bold leper, this bowing leper was not simply being polite, he recognized in Jesus a supreme kind of authority. The question was not whether or not Jesus could heal him, but would He heal him?

***

Later in the 5^th century the Talmud would say to stay at least 6 feet away from all lepers, 150 feet if the wind was blowing. This dread disease is contagious by contact and can be airborne; hence the prescriptions in the law (such as covering the upper lip) had a practical as well as spiritual purpose.

***

The lepers boldness is not the most socially starling thing in our text. Though the leper’s behavior is both shocking and a violation of the law, it is understandable from a human point of view. One can understand the loneliness and desperation this man must have felt. No, the most astonishing actions here are not those of the leper, but Jesus. Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him!

***

Leprosy wasn’t something one was commonly healed from, this is one of the reasons it was so dreaded. In the Old Testament only two persons are healed by leprosy, Miriam via Moses’ prayers (Numbers 12), and Naaman via Elisha’s advice (2 Kings 5:1-4).   Both were healed without touch, from a distance.

***

Jesus would later heal from a distance in this chapter. Jesus didn’t need to touch this leper, He wanted to touch this leper.  Just imagine what that touch must have felt like.  Just to be touched by someone must have been wonderful, but to be touched by Jesus!  Moreover to feel His gracious healing touch, well, we can only speculate as to the bliss that leper’s heart was filled with.  This leper could never come close to God’s temple of stone, but in the temple of Jesus’ flesh God came close to Him.

***

Jesus cleanses more than sin defiles.  Edmund Clowney well writes,

Ceremonial symbolism in the Old Testament uses the fundamental distinction between the clean and the unclean.  The comparison of sin to filth is linked with the need for cleanness to approach holy things of the holy Lord.  The prevailing power of sin is shown in the fact that the unclean pollutes the clean, never the other way round.  Haggai’s message focuses on this feature (Hag. 2:10-14).  In fulfillment, the prevailing power of Christ reveres this principle.  When Jesus touches a leper, Jesus is not defiled, the leper is cleansed…

You are cursed with a greater malady of which leprosy is a fit, but faint analogy.  You have only one hope, His name is Jesus, and He is willing to heal would you reverently bow to His supreme authority.

Some will say that in the Sermon on the Mount we find Jesus at His truest; simply a fine moral teacher, perhaps the best there ever was.  People who offer such analysis simply can’t read. Jesus’ claims to supreme authority are the warp and woof of this fine tapestry, unravel this thread and the beauty is lost.

Jesus says those who are persecuted for His sake are blessed (5:11). Jesus does not simply say he came to keep the law, but to fulfill it, that He is everything that it points to (5:17). Repeatedly, at least twelve times, Jesus says something like “I say to you”, or the more emphatic ‘Truly, I say to you,” emphasizing that He stands as the authority behind His own words.  He does not quote the Scriptures or appeal to other teachers as the scribes do, He does not even say “thus says the Lord” as the prophets do, His words carry their own authority precisely because they are His words. Great men don’t speak like this. Sane men don’t speak like this. If Jesus is not divine He is not a good man, He is the worst kind of man.

With nuclear force you collide with this reality in this text. Jesus calls for a decision. You cannot simply be amazed at His authority as the crowds were, you must bow to it. The doctrine you must clearly face here is the supremacy and exclusivity of Christ.

Concerning the narrow way some may say that it seems so, well, narrow. By that charge I take it they mean arrogant.  Imagine you go to a doctor and he tells you that you have a certain problem, immediately you think of your friend who had a similar malady and only needed minimal surgery with one tiny incision. The doctor explains that your problem is such that it requires intensive and extensive surgery, it is the only way. After further multiple expert collaborations would you deem all such doctors narrow and arrogant?

I think the charge of arrogance is laid before us not because we claim to know the only way, but because people think that like doctors we do it based on our own expert knowledge and authority. But they are laying the charge of arrogance at the wrong feet.  I haven’t found the only way by my own intellectual superiority or spiritual fervor, it was graciously revealed to me as good news. I didn’t make the news, I heard it, and now I tell it. Christians don’t claim Jesus is the only way on the basis of my own authority, I claim it on His.

Ultimately the charge of narrowness and arrogance is self-defeating. When others say that it is arrogant to say that your religion is superior, that all others are wrong, and that you shouldn’t try to convert others, they themselves are making a religious statement they think is superior to yours and trying to convert you to it. So who is arrogant? Upon what authority do you make your truth claim? Ultimately it must be yourself. Oh sure you may read others, but you are the one who has ultimately evaluated and decided.

So let us all lay the charge of arrogance where it belongs, at the feet of all humanity. As Christians we don’t deny our hubris, we admit it, repent of it, and bow to kiss the Son (Psalm 2). In such light, the narrow way isn’t arrogant, it is gracious.