Posts filed under ‘ABC Extra’
ABC Extra – One Barley Harvest From Redemption
Depression is epidemic in our world. According to the latest statistics available, major depression affects approximately 15 million American adults, or about eight percent of the U.S. population. And these statistics pertain only to people 18 years of age and older. This does not take into account the severe depression that plagues four percent of adolescents. Interestingly, the fastest growing demographic for anti-depressants is toddlers. Experts estimate that at least four percent of toddlers – over one million tikes – are clinically depressed. Yes, depression is a major problem in our world.
In Adult Bible Class this weekend, we tackled the problem of depression and looked at the story of Naomi. There can be hardly a doubt that Naomi was a depressed woman. In the first five verses of the book of Ruth, Naomi has to move from her hometown of Bethlehem to the foreign and pagan land of Moab where she loses her husband as well as her two sons. If I lost my home and family, I would be depressed as well!
Naomi’s depression manifests itself first in the way in which she treats her two widowed daughters-in-law. She, as a worshiper of the true God of Israel, actually encourages her daughters-in-law to return to their former paganism (cf. Ruth 1:15), a suggestion that would have shocked and revolted any ancient Israelite. Moreover, Naomi blames God for her tragic plight. She declares, “The LORD has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me” (Ruth 1:21). In the Latin Vulgate, the Hebrew word for “Almighty” is Omnipotens, from whence we get our English word “omnipotence,” a word which references the all-powerful nature of God. Thus, Naomi is accusing God of using His omnipotence not for her welfare, but for her harm. Indeed, the Hebrew word for “misfortune” is ra’a, meaning “evil.” Naomi, then, goes so far as to accuse God of being the author of evil in her life.
As I mentioned in Adult Bible Class, Naomi’s response to hardship is not exactly the pinnacle of piety. Her response to trouble differs vastly from Job’s more famed response to his trials: “The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised” (Job 1:21). Job’s response, in the opinion of most people, seems to be the more dignified and pious response to affliction. And yet, our responses to suffering more often mirror Naomi’s than they do Job’s. I know that mine do.
Still, there is hope. For just as God restores the fortunes of Job, He also restores the fortunes of Naomi. He does this not on the basis of her faithfulness to Him – for she acts faithlessly – but according to His grace and care for her. Indeed, even as Naomi is accusing God of bringing evil on her, the biblical text clues us into the fact that God is working behind the scenes to care for this desolate and despondent widow: “So Naomi returned from Moab, accompanied by Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, arriving in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning” (Ruth 1:22). It is at this barley harvest that Naomi’s daughter-in-law Ruth meets a man named Boaz who is exceptionally kind to both her and her mother-in-law, providing them with food, and eventually marrying Ruth and providing an heir to carry on Naomi’s family name. While Naomi is complaining about God, God is all the while working through something as inauspicious as a barley harvest to redeem Naomi’s tragic circumstances. Naomi was only one barley harvest away from being redeemed by God – and she didn’t even know it.
Interestingly, the barley harvest in ancient Israel was also known as the Feast of Firstfruits. The Feast of Firstfruits was an opportunity for the Israelites to bring the first and best of their harvest before God in thankfulness to Him (Numbers 15:17-21). Notably, this was also the day on which Jesus rose from death, for He too is “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:20). The Feast of Firstfruits, then, was a time to celebrate the redemption of God and, finally, how that redemption is expressed fully and finally in Christ, even as Paul writes: “Christ was delivered to death for our sins and raised to life for our justification” (Romans 4:25). For on the Feast of Firstfruits, Christ, risen from the dead, redeemed us from sin, death, and the devil.
In Ruth 1:22, the barley harvest is beginning. And though Naomi cannot yet see it, she will soon be celebrating the redemption of God, just as she should be at the Feast of Firstfruits. She is only one barley harvest away from having her tragedy redeemed by her Lord.
In your times of trial, do you believe that God can redeem you out of tragedy? You should. Scripture exhorts us to “wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:23). There is a Day coming when our Lord will appear and redeem us out of all our trouble, heartache, and pain, for the older order of this sinful world will pass away. This day is the Last Day of Christ’s return, sometimes pictured as a harvest (cf. Matthew 3:12). Thus, like Naomi, no matter what we face today or tomorrow, and no matter how much depression it might bring us, Scripture promises that we are only one harvest away from redemption. I hope you hold fast to this precious promise.
Want to learn more on this passage? Go to
www.ConcordiaLutheranChurch.com
and check out audio and video from Pastor Tucker’s
message or Pastor Zach’s ABC!
ABC Extra: Children Who Rebel
Rebellion has become a sort of rite of passage as children move into adulthood. The teenage son breaks his curfew to sneak out with his friends and party late into the night. The teenage daughter secretly dates that cute boy she’s head over heals for in spite of her parents’ strong objections. The Fourth Commandment, “Honor your father and your mother” (Exodus 20:12), seems of little consequence to many teenagers.
It is a common misconception that it didn’t used to be this way. Children did not used to so headily and so arrogantly rebel against their parents. The truth of the matter, however, is that children have been rebelling against their parents for centuries. Jesus puts it like this: “Children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death” (Mark 13:12). Indeed, the rebellion of children against their parents goes back even farther. It stretches all the way back to the Fall into sin.
In Luke 3, the evangelist presents us with a genealogy of Jesus Christ. And what a genealogy it is! It traces the Lord’s lineage all the way to the first man, Adam. It’s especially interesting the way Adam is talked about. In the midst of a bunch of genealogical standard fare – “so and so was the son of so and so, and so and so was the son of so and so” – we come to this: “Methuselah was the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalalel, the son of Kenan, the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God” (Luke 3:37-38). Luke says that Adam, like everyone else throughout the course of history, was a son. He was a son of God. And just like every son that has come after him, he rebels against his parents, or, more precisely, his Father. God commands His son Adam not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and Adam sneaks off and eats from the tree anyway. The first sin was one of rebellion. And children have been rebelling against their parents ever since.
This weekend in worship and ABC, we studied 1 Samuel 2 and the story of the rebellion of Hophni and Phineas against their father and against God. The author of 1 Samuel is pointed in his analysis of the sons’ character: “Eli’s sons were wicked men; they had no regard for the LORD” (verse 12). Their rebellion was two-pronged. On the one hand, they took animal sacrifices that were properly to be burned in honor of the LORD and instead kept these animals for private meals (cf. verses 13-15). On the other hand, they engaged in sexual immorality with the women who served at the temple where they were priests (cf. verse 22). Eli, Hophi and Phineas’ father, although he condemns the latter sin, does not condemn the former. We find out why he does not condemn the former sin just verses later when a prophet of God arrives at Eli’s doorstep and rebukes Eli for too partaking of animal sacrifices which properly belong to God! The prophet asks in the stead of the LORD: “Why do you scorn My sacrifice and offering that I prescribed for My dwelling? Why do you honor your sons more than Me by fattening yourselves on the choice parts of every offering made by My people Israel” (verse 29)?
The Hebrew word for the “choice parts” of the Israelite offerings on which Eli and his sons are fattening themselves is re’shi’ith. Interestingly, this word is most often associated with the practice of tithing: “Bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil to the house of the LORD your God” (Exodus 23:19). The Hebrew word for “best” is again re’shi’ith. Be it Hophni or Phineas or their father Eli, this is a family that is not interested in bringing their first and best before God. And so they receive judgment from God.
Does your family bring its first and best before God? Does your family give the first of its week to God in worship? Does your family give the first of its money to God in finances? Does your family give the first of its day to God in prayer and study of God’s Word? Although the practice of giving the first to God in your family’s life may not prevent those hoary teenage years of rebellion altogether, it is good training in righteousness – for your children…and for you. And righteousness has a mysterious way of repressing rebellion.
Want to learn more on this passage? Go to
www.ConcordiaLutheranChurch.com
and check out audio and video from Pastor Tucker’s
message or Pastor Zach’s ABC!
ABC Extra – Be Reconciled Today
This weekend in worship and ABC, we continued our series “Five Family Fiascos! Is There Hope For Us?” with a look at the fiasco of familial estrangement. Certainly the scene is familiar: one family member betrays, embarrasses, or even inadvertently hurts another family member and retaliation ensues. But this retaliation does not take the form of a fistfight or of cutting words or of a heated demand for an apology. No, this retaliation takes the form of a cold shoulder – a refusal to speak to, or sometimes to even acknowledge, the other person. And the longer this goes on, the further these two family members drift apart. This is sad story of estrangement.
The story of King David and his son Absalom follows this all too proverbial pattern of estrangement. As we learned this weekend, after Absalom’s brother Amnon rapes their sister Tamar, Absalom becomes furious at his father for not stepping in and meting out justice against Amnon in the face of such shocking wickedness. Absalom subsequently becomes estranged from his father. Indeed, we read, “Absalom lived two years in Jerusalem without seeing the king’s face” (2 Samuel 14:27). Two men, two years, in the same town – and they never so much as catch a glimpse of each other.
Tragically, it’s not as if they didn’t want to see each other. We read in 2 Samuel 13:39: “The spirit of the king longed to go to Absalom.” But David defies his spirit’s yearning. He never goes to see his son. Indeed, he even prevents his son from seeing him. “He must not see my face,” David says just verses later (2 Samuel 14:24).
Eventually, the estrangement between father and son becomes too much for Absalom to bear. He rebels by staging a coup against his father. Battle lines are drawn, strategies are devised, and, in the end, David proves victorious – but only after Absalom is killed. When David hears the news that his son has been killed and the threat to his throne has been removed, a wave of remorse and regret comes rushing over the king: “O my son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! If only I had died instead of you – O Absalom, my son, my son” (2 Samuel 18:33). Interestingly, this is the first time that David calls Absalom, “my son.” Before this, he referred to him only as, “the young man” (cf. 2 Samuel 14:21, 18:5, 12, 29, 32). But now he longs for the relationship he could have had. Now he dotingly calls Absalom, “my son.” Now he wishes, “If only I had died instead of you.” But now it’s too late. Trading his own life for Absalom’s life would do David no good. Absalom is already gone.
Certainly one of the weighty lessons of this story comes in the utter tragedy of leaving relationships estranged. Indeed, this story ends on a terribly tragic note – with a wailing monarch riddled by regret. And yet, through David’s tear-choked words, we hear a distant note of hope. For though David cannot die in the stead of Absalom and restore their broken relationship, there is someone who can. And there is someone who has. For when our sins separated us from God, God traded His Son’s life for our lives so that we would no longer be estranged from Him, but reconciled to Him, even as Paul declares: “We were reconciled to God through the death of His Son” (Romans 5:10). God is in the business of reconciliation. And His reconciliation is truly the most challenging and most glorious reconciliation of all – for He reconciles imperfect people to His perfect Person. Will you, as an imperfect person, seek reconciliation with other imperfect people from whom you are estranged? Remember, the remorse of estrangement will always be heavier than the challenge of reconciliation. Be reconciled today.
Want to learn more on this passage? Go to
www.ConcordiaLutheranChurch.com
and check out audio and video from Pastor Tucker’s
message or Pastor Zach’s ABC!
ABC Extra – Too Busy for God
In 2007, the Gallup organization took a survey of the reasons Americans do or do not go to church. According to this study, the number one reason that people go to church is to receive “spiritual growth and guidance.” This is good. But what is the number one reason Americans do not go to church? They don’t have enough time. They are simply too busy to worship the God who created the heavens, the earth, and them.
It saddens me that what the evil one could not do to the Church for thousands of years through persecutions, threats, and ghastly tortures, he does through something as insipid and stupid as busy-ness. For when Satan violently persecutes the Church, it grows. But when Satan draws our attention away from God’s Church and its Gospel and instead distracts us with the things of this world, we seem to fall for it every time.
This past weekend in worship and ABC, we continued our series “Five Family Fiascos” with a look at what happens to families and individuals when they are stretched too thin. In our text for this weekend from Exodus 18, we saw how Moses became stretched too thin when he “took his seat to serve as judge for the people of Israel, and they stood around him from morning till evening” (verse 13). There were simply too many cases for Moses to hear and arbitrate. Blessedly, Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, guided his son-in-law toward a saner schedule:
What you are doing is not good. You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out. The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone. But select capable men from all the people – men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain – and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens. (verses 17-18, 21)
Long before management gurus peddled the value of delegation, Jethro suggested it to Moses.
In ABC, I mentioned that the Hebrew word for “heavy” in verse 18, where Jethro suggests that Moses’ workload is too “heavy” for him, is chabed. This is the same word that is used for “glory,” and specifically God’s glory, in the Old Testament. It is in this word that I think we find the sinful root of so much of the busy-ness that plagues our lives and our world. Rather than looking to the glory of God, we look to the things that the world considers glorious. Whether these glorious things be a job, or a product, or a leisure activity, or a lifestyle, this world invites us to trade in God’s glory for the glories which it has to offer. And sadly, many people make the trade. Sadly, as the Gallup poll betrays, many people spend so much time chasing after the glories of this world that they’re too busy to worship the glory of God.
The greatest danger in being too busy is that we can easily become too busy for God. And this is a grave travesty. This is why Jesus invites us to reject that which would pack our calendars and starve our souls and instead find rest in Him: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). Jesus invites us, rather than being busied by the cares and concerns of this world, to find peace in Him.
So this week, I would challenge you with a little exercise. Beginning today, find one thing each day that you can cut from your calendar and use that time instead to worship and pray to God. I would guard you against cutting any activity that involves time with your family, as those times ought to be honored and cherished. Instead, cut an errand and instead say a prayer. Reschedule a meeting and instead take a walk and praise God for His good creation. Use the time that you would normally check the headlines to instead read your Bible. Take a reprieve from the some of the glories of this world so that you can better focus on the glory of God. And the promise is, you’ll find rest – not just rest from your calendar, but rest for your soul.
Want to learn more on this passage? Go to
www.ConcordiaLutheranChurch.com
and check out audio and video from Pastor Tucker’s
message or Pastor Zach’s ABC!
ABC Extra – How Could God Allow the Fall?
This weekend, we continued our series in worship and ABC titled, “Five Family Fiascos! Is There Hope For Us?” This weekend’s topic was, “When You’re Caught in Blame.” Blame, as we learned this weekend, is as old as the Fall itself. God gives to Adam and Eve a single command: “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die” (Genesis 2:16-17). But Adam and Eve transgress this commandment. And when they do, rather than confessing their blame before God, they try to “pass the buck” of their sin:
The man said, “The woman you put here with me – she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” (Genesis 3:12-13)
Adam and Eve, though they ‘fess up to their sin, refuse to take responsibility for their sin. They are all too ready to blame someone else for their failing. Adam blames Eve. Eve blames the snake. It’s a tragic – if not even a somewhat comical – scene.
One of the perennial questions I receive concerning the story of the Fall is, “If God knew that Adam and Eve would break His command and bring sin and pain and death and despair into this world, then why would God create them – and, by extension, us – in the first place? Why couldn’t God just not have created anything and saved us all a lot of heartache?” Though I would certainly not presume to try to answer every facet of this question, for we are not called to “fathom the mysteries of God and probe the limits of the Almighty” (Job 11:7), there is an answer, I believe, that at least partially and appropriately answers this familiar inquiry. Perhaps an analogy will help us understand God’s willingness to allow us – and Himself – to endure the Fall of Genesis 3.
Before a husband and wife have children, they are no doubt vaguely aware that raising a child can be a burden at times – both for them and for the child! There will be problems which call for a heavy disciplinarian hand. There will be times at which a child feels as though his parents do not understand him. And yet, countless couples have chosen to become parents regardless of the future problems they know they will encounter! Why? Because parents have a strange, truly indescribable way of loving their children before they’re even conceived. The prospect of having a son or daughter excites them. And so they are willing to take on the pain of the future they know they will soon have to endure for the child they love.
So it is with our heavenly Father. According to His omniscience, God knew all about the Fall and all the pain it would bring into our world long before the Fall ever happened. And yet He created us anyway. Why? Because He loved us even before He created us and so was willing to endure the pain and suffering He knew we would cause. As the apostle Paul writes: “God chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will” (Ephesians 1:4-5). God loved us before He made us, Paul says. Indeed, God’s love for us was so deep that He even made arrangements for our salvation from creation. This is reflected in Revelation, where we read of “the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world” (Revelation 13:8). According to eternity, God was planning to send Jesus to be slain to forgive our sins from the very beginning of the world. Thus is the depth of the love of our God.
The Fall of Adam and Eve was truly the greatest fiasco this world has ever known. For from this Fall springs every subsequent fall into sin and fiasco from sin. And living under the effects of the Fall is not always fun. And yet, God’s love for us is stronger than the Fall. And so, when you fall, rather than trying to pass the blame on to others for your sin, pass the blame on to the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world. For He willingly takes on your blame and takes away your sin.
Want to learn more on this passage? Go to
www.ConcordiaLutheranChurch.com
and check out audio and video from Pastor Tucker’s
message or Pastor Zach’s ABC!
ABC Extra – From Agony to Glory – 1 Corinthians 9:24-27
It’s not easy being a Christian. Sometimes, we too easily forget this important truth. Indeed, Jesus himself warns while also inviting us: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24). Following Jesus involves not only the cross of salvation, but a cross of suffering.
The early church fathers understood the cross of suffering well. For example, consider Blandina of Lyon. Blandina was a lowly slave, thrown into prison during the reign of Marcus Aurelius. When she was finally brought forth from her cell to be tortured, her companions pleaded for leniency, worried that her fragile body would not be able to endure brute beatings. The official presiding over Blandina, however, demanded that the executioners torture her in the most heinous manner possible.
Church lore has it that, even though the executioners brought their worst tortures against this frail lady, they could not kill her or even bring her down as she repeated over and over, “I am a Christian, and we commit no wrongdoing.” Being unable to kill her, she was finally scourged, placed on a red-hot grate, enclosed in a net, thrown before a wild steer who tossed her into the air with his horns, and at last killed with a dagger. Such was the gory martyrdom which this faithful woman endured.
This sad story prompted the famed church historian Eusebius to write: “Though small and weak and despised, yet clothed with Christ the mighty and conquering Athlete, she…having overcome the adversary many times might receive, through her conflict, the crown incorruptible” (Eusebius, Church History, 5.1.42). Blandina faced the most terrible of tortures, but because of her faith, even death could not thwart her final and eternal victory in Christ. Christ is “the mighty and conquering Athlete,” writes Eusebius, and he has given to Blandina “the crown incorruptible.”
Eusebius derives his analogy of Christ as an Athlete and the prize of salvation as a crown from our text for this past weekend in worship and ABC:
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. (1 Corinthians 9:24-25)
As I mentioned in ABC, the Greek word for “competes” is agonizomai, from which we get our English word “agony.” Thus, competing in the game of life is not always easy. Sometimes, it can involve agony, pain, and persecution. This is why the apostle Paul writes of his ministry: “We proclaim Christ admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. To this end I labor, struggling” (Colossians 1:28-29). The Greek word for “struggling” is agonizomai. Paul freely admits that preaching the gospel and contending for the faith can sometimes be agonizing. But Paul continues: To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me” (Colossians 1:29). Paul’s ministry may involve agonizomai, but he does not have to face agonizomai alone. No, Christ’s strength powerfully works in him and endures it with him. After all, Christ endured the worst agonizomai of all – the agonizomai of the cross. Thus, he can surely help us as we face the agonizomais of life.
Are you suffering? Are you being persecuted? Are you hurting? Christ gives his energy to help us face the agonizomais of this world and of our lives. He gives us strength for today and a crown for eternity. And as Blandina and all the martyrs would most certainly tell us, the agonizomais of this life cannot even begin to compare with the crowns of glory which await us (cf. Romans 8:18). So stand strong!
Want to learn more on this passage? Go to
www.ConcordiaLutheranChurch.com
and check out audio and video from Pastor Tucker’s
message or Pastor Zach’s ABC!
ABC Extra – Falling in Love – 1 Timothy 6:3-11
Melody and I are in the process of house hunting. It’s no easy task. We’ve looked at property after property and home after home. We don’t like the style of some houses. We didn’t care for the location of others. Still other houses were over-priced. But then there were those special houses – the houses that catch your eye and tickle your fancy. Those houses that are so quaint, they make you fall in love with them. Thankfully, however, as I began this process, I spoke with a dear congregational member who has a lot of history in the real estate business. He gave me some sage advice. “Pick an established neighborhood,” he told me. “You don’t want to see a strip mall go up across the street from your house in two years. And never, ever fall in love with a house. If you fall in love with a house, you’re more likely to pay too much and get too little. Remember, a house is just a commodity. There are things more important than the house you live in.”
This member’s advice concerning home buying is truly seasoned and wise, not only from a financial standpoint, but from a spiritual one. For the commodities of this world – be they homes or cars or gadgets or gizmos – have a way of trying to capture our hearts. But we are not to fall for their allurements. For these are things that “moth and rust destroy, and thieves break in and steal” (Matthew 6:19). They’re not eternal. They’re just commodities.
In our text for this weekend from 1 Timothy 6, Paul offers a stark warning against falling in love with the commodities of this world. In one of the most famous verses of all the New Testament, Paul writes, “People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs” (1 Timothy 6:9-10). Loving commodities and the money which purchases them is the surest way to much grief. It is a trap. Don’t fall for it.
The Greek word for “trap” in verse 9 denotes a snare. Like some wild game caught in a snare, soon to lose its life, money wants to seize us in its clutches, and it wants to “plunge us into ruin and destruction.” It wants to make us lose not only our lives, but our eternities. For it wants to entice us into “wandering from the faith.” Interestingly, Paul speaks of this same trap earlier in this same epistle when he warns, “Do not fall into disgrace and into the devil’s trap” (1 Timothy 3:7). Here, Paul alerts us to the one who sets the trap of loving money – it is none other than the devil himself.
Loving money does not just cost us our bank accounts as we try to live beyond our means, it costs us our souls as we forget about that which is truly priceless and transcendent. Perhaps the great preacher Chrysostom put it best when he said, “Riches are not forbidden, but the price of them is.” In other words, it is okay to have riches, but it is not okay to sacrifice that which is truly important – things like “righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness” (verse 11) – to get those riches. That is a price for riches that is simply too high to pay.
Never, ever fall in love with money or the things which money can buy. They’re just commodities. And there are things more important than commodities. There are things that money can’t buy. Things like the forgiveness of God, bought not with a checkbook, but with the blood of his one and only Son. And it is okay if he captures your heart. For Jesus is eternal.
Want to learn more on this passage? Go to
www.ConcordiaLutheranChurch.com
and check out audio and video from Pastor Zach’s
message or Pastor Nordlie’s ABC!
ABC Extra – Being Subject to Judgment – Matthew 5:21-22
In Adult Bible Class this past weekend, we continued our “Fit for Life” series with a look at our relational health. As with emotional health in last week’s ABC Extra, I thought some statistics might offer a telling aperture into the state of our relationships:
- As of 2003, 43.7% of custodial mothers and 56.2% of custodial fathers were either separated or divorced, giving credence to the oft-quoted statistic that 50% of marriages will end in divorce. Many marriages are broken.
- According to The State of Our Unions 2005, only 63% of American children grow up with both biological parents – the lowest figure in the Western world. Families are broken.
- A 2006 study in the American Sociological Review found that Americans on average had only two close friends to confide in, down from an average of three in 1985. The percentage of people who noted having no such confidant rose from 10% to almost 25%. Friendships are broken.
Between the breakdown in marriages, families, and friendships, it is clear that our relational health is on life support.
Jesus knew all about the disaster that results from relational sickness. Divorces, grudges, and loneliness are devastating. Indeed, from the very beginning, God spoke of the importance of relationships and relational health. God says of Adam, “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18). And so God makes Eve for Adam. God desires that we be in relationship with each other and with him.
It is with this in mind that Jesus offers us a stark and sobering warning about the damage a fractured or fissured relationship can bring: “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment’” (Matthew 5:21). Notice that Jesus says those who murder are “subject to judgment.” What judgment was rendered for murder? Moses explains:
If a man strikes someone with an iron object so that he dies, he is a murderer; the murderer shall be put to death. Or if anyone has a stone in his hand that could kill, and he strikes someone so that he dies, he is a murderer; the murderer shall be put to death. Or if anyone has a wooden object in his hand that could kill, and he hits someone so that he dies, he is a murderer; the murderer shall be put to death. The avenger of blood shall put the murderer to death; when he meets him, he shall put him to death. If anyone with malice aforethought shoves another or throws something at him intentionally so that he dies or if in hostility he hits him with his fist so that he dies, that person shall be put to death; he is a murderer. The avenger of blood shall put the murderer to death when he meets him. (Numbers 35:16-21)
No matter what the means of murder, the judgment against it is the same: murder invokes capital punishment. But now, in Matthew 5, Jesus takes this dire judgment one step farther: “But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment” (Matthew 5:22). In other words, those who are angry are subject to same judgment as those who murder. Both anger and murder result in death.
As I mentioned in ABC, the Hebrew word for “murder” in the fifth commandment is rasach, a word that denotes murder in particular over and against killing in general. Thus, this word describes not only the act of killing someone, but the intention behind that act. In other words, if you slay someone on a field of battle in self-defense, it is not rasach. If you kill someone with malevolent intent, however, it is rasach. Thus, when Jesus speaks against being angry with your brother, he is picking up on the intention behind the action in this commandment. And so Jesus says, “Be it the action of rasach or the intention behind the action, the result is the same: you will be ‘subject to judgment.’”
But can Jesus really be serious here? After all, the judgment rendered against the act of murder is death. Certainly the judgment rendered against the anger that accompanies the action can’t also be death! Indeed, in first century Jewish communities, save the reclusive Essenes, there were no standardized punishments for anger. How can Jesus now levy a punishment as harsh as death on a mere emotion?
Anger leads to death. Sure, it may not lead to the kind of death that happens with capital punishment – a lethal injection or an electric chair or a noose – but it can certainly lead to its own kind of death. Anger can lead to the death of a friendship, the death of community, the death of a marriage, the death of joy, and finally, if unchecked and unrighteous, the death of your soul. This is why Jesus is so concerned about letting go of anger – because he knows the consequences for unrighteous and unrepentant anger can be devastating.
In truth, God has every right to be angry with us because of our sin. And yet, because of Christ’s of propitiatory work on the cross, we can rejoice that “God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:9). God’s wrath at our sin was placed on Christ at the cross. God let go of his anger on Christ. And now, even as God’s wrath has been turned back at us, we are called to turn back our anger at others. As Paul says: “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” (Ephesians 4:31-32). May it be so with us.
Want to learn more on this passage? Go to
www.ConcordiaLutheranChurch.com
and check out audio and video from Pastor Tucker’s
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ABC Preview – Righteous Anger – Matthew 5:21-22
This weekend in Adult Bible Class, we continue our “Fit for Life” series with a look at relational health. Jesus addresses the perils of relational sickness in our text for this weekend: “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment” (Matthew 5:21-22). Jesus says anger is antithetical to healthy relationships. And yet, again and again, we read in the pages of Scripture of a God who gets angry. Indeed, the Psalmist says: “God rebukes [the peoples] in his anger and terrifies them in his wrath” (Psalm 2:5). God gets angry. But Jesus cautions against anger. So how can one who gets angry teach against anger?
The syntax of Jesus’ words in Matthew 5 is instructive. Jesus warns against being a person “who is angry.” In Greek, this is a present tense participle, denoting not an incidental reaction to sin or injustice, but an ongoing temperament. In other words, the person “who is angry” is continually angry, perhaps with no good reason at all. Anger forms the core of this person’s character.
Our God does indeed get angry. But his anger is always with good reason and as an incidental reaction to our sin. Indeed, it would be an egregious miscarriage of his character if our holy God did not get angry at our ugly sin. God’s anger is a righteous anger.
Perhaps the best description that I have read concerning God’s righteous anger comes from J.I. Packer:
What manner of thing is the wrath of God?…It is not the capricious, arbitrary, bad-tempered, and conceited anger that pagans attribute to their gods. It is not the sinful, resentful, malicious, infantile anger that we find among humans. It is a function of that holiness which is expressed in the demands of God’s moral law (“be holy, because I am holy” [1 Peter 1:16]), and of that righteousness which is expressed in God’s acts of judgment and reward…God’s wrath is “the holy revulsions of God’s being against that which is the contradiction of his holiness”; it issues in “a positive outgoing of the divine displeasure.” And this is righteous anger – the right reaction of moral perfection in the Creator toward moral perversity in the creature. So far from the manifestation of God’s wrath in punishing sin being morally doubtful, the thing that would be morally doubtful would be for him not to show his wrath in this way. God is not just – that is, he does not act in the way that is right, he does not do what is proper to a judge – unless he inflicts upon all sin and wrongdoing the penalty it deserves. (J.I. Packer, In My Place Condemned He Stood, 35)
Blessedly, as Packer goes on to note, God makes provision for his holy anger in the cross of his Son, Jesus Christ. As Paul writes: “Since, therefore, we have now been justified by [Christ’s] blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God” (Romans 5:9). God’s righteous anger at our sin is put on his righteous Son on the cross. In theological parlance, we call this propitiation.
Thus, there is a place for anger. But it must be the right kind of anger. It must be righteous anger. So confess the times that you have fallen prey to the “sinful, resentful, malicious, infantile anger that we find among humans,” as Packer says. And thank God for his righteous anger. For sin deserves and even demands wrath from a righteous God. But praise be to God that he poured out his wrath not on us, but on his Son. Why does God do a thing so terrible as pouring out his wrath on his Son? Because God’s anger never stands alone. It is always coupled with his love for you and me.
ABC Extra – Meaning in Meaninglessness – Ecclesiastes 1:1-11
“Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD” (Psalm 130:1). We all know what it feels like to be in “the depths.” A tragedy strikes, depression hits, or despair wreaks havoc on our hearts and our emotional states can quickly take a turn for the worse. Just this past week, I have heard stories of great trouble, tragedy, and trial from many of our own congregation members. Tears come to my eyes as I think of the depths they are having to endure. As they are in “the depths,” I cry to the Lord in prayer for them.
In worship this past weekend, we continued our series “Fit for Life” by talking about our emotional health. In my studies for this weekend’s theme, I found that for all the health problems we have physically as a nation – cancer and diabetes and swine flu and coughs and colds – our emotional health problems are even direr. Consider these statistics:
- According to PBS, 15 million adults, a full 8% of the US population, suffers from what is described as “major depression,” that is, depression that has become unmanageable. And this number does not even include people 18 and younger. There are millions more high school students who suffer from major depression.
- Every sixteen minutes, someone commits suicide in our country. Suicide is the seventh leading cause of death overall and the second leading cause of death among college students. Every year, more people die from suicide than homicide.
- According to the Centers for Disease Control, anti-depressants are the most prescribed drugs in America. Of the 2.4 billion prescriptions written in 2005, 118 million of those were for anti-depressants. Interestingly, the number of anti-depressants prescribed between 1999 and 2000 tripled.
These statistics sadly attest to how we, as a nation, are not emotionally healthy. Emotional sickness, however, is not unique to our day and age. Depression struck the ancients even as it strikes us.
Consider Solomon in Ecclesiastes. He opens his book: “Meaningless! Meaningless! Utterly meaningless!” (Ecclesiastes 1:2). The Hebrew word for “meaningless” is hebel, meaning, “emptiness,” or “vanity.” Notably, the Hebrew construction reads literally, “Hebel of Hebels,” or “Vanity of Vanities.” This is to express the superlative force of the meaninglessness of which Solomon speaks. In other words, Solomon is not just addressing that which is meaningless, he is addressing that which is most meaningless. And what is most meaningless? Solomon answers, “Everything is meaningless” (Ecclesiastes 1:2). Everything? Yes, everything! Money, fame, power, prestige, accomplishment, wisdom, connectedness – it’s all meaningless! Talk about a depressed outlook on life!
Blessedly, Solomon further clarifies his assertion that everything is ultimately meaningless by noting the location at which everything is meaningless: “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun” (verse 9). This phrase, “under the sun,” is key to Ecclesiastes and appears some twenty nine times. It serves as a circumlocution to speak of that which is on this earth. In other words, as long as we are on this earth and are living by the values of this earth, our lives will be ultimately devoid of meaning. We will find ourselves trapped by “the depths” of sinfulness. Thus, if we are to receive true, lasting meaning for our lives, we must receive it from somewhere – indeed, from someone – not under the sun. And so Solomon finally points us to God as our source for true meaning:
What does the worker gain from his toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil – this is the gift of God. (Ecclesiastes 3:9-13)
Even though this world is full of trouble, toil, and tribulation “under the sun,” we trust in a God who delivers his gifts from above the sun – he delivers his gifts from heaven, even as James says: “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights” (James 1:17). God sends his gifts from above the heavenly lights into our world. Indeed, he even sent the good and perfect gift of his Son, the ultimate heavenly Light, to redeem our world from its misery and meaninglessness. It is in Christ that we find transcendent meaning for our lives.
How is your emotional health? Are you happy or sad? Fulfilled or empty? Elated or in despair? Whether times are good or bad, remember that life is not hopeless “under the sun.” For God has sent his Son from above the sun to give us meaning and purpose as we live under the sun. And so never despair concerning your life’s meaning. For God has given your life – and every life – meaning. And that meaning’s name is Jesus.
Want to learn more on this passage? Go to
www.ConcordiaLutheranChurch.com
and check out audio and video from Pastor Tucker’s
message or Dr. Player’s ABC!
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