Their last chance

THEIR LAST CHANCE

“Here is your king.” said the local ruler to the representatives of the little nation of Israel. He was talking about Jesus, who was on trial for blasphemy. The soldiers had whipped Jesus and now brought him out to display to the people. Jesus wore a mockery of a crown, woven from the branches of a thorn bush. The soldiers had dressed him in a royal gown.

For years the Jewish nation had waited for a second King David, such a king would bring peace and justice to their land. A second king David would himself be subject to a higher power and that power would be God. God would guide him and grant him protection from his enemies, food would increase and natural threats decrease. A king like King David would care for the population’s welfare and their hopes and dreams would become reality.

What would have happened if the religious people had realized that Jesus was the man they had been waiting for? Could they have known that the whipped and suffering man standing on display was not only their hoped for king but the prince of the kingdom of God?

If they had recognized who Jesus was would God’s kingdom in heaven have come to earth? What would such a kingdom be like? We know that God is merciful; we know that God is kind; we know that God is just, we know that God is strong, so no enemies could destroy his people, we know that God is creator, so his kingdom would lack nothing and his people would receive all they needed.

‘Thy kingdom come’ is the hope of all religious people. “Do away with Jesus” is the response of all those who resist right ways.

Why did they not recognize this second King David? They did not because they could not think theologically, or even clearly. Conceit and deceit often accompany positions of power and such things cloud a person’s ability to judge rightly. The ordinary people in the nation of Israel had already recognized Jesus. They called him Son of David, The Anointed One. The Son of God.

“Do away with him.” said the representatives of the nation. We only have one king and he is Caesar.

Is it possible that only the poor, only the powerless, only the uncomplicated person can recognize Jesus? Was this what Jesus meant when he said that only child-like people can respond to his invitation to become citizens of heaven?

Is it true that the more a person possesses, the tighter his possessions bind him? Is it true that the more a person subscribes to the lies surrounding him the blinder he gets to the truth? Is it true that the more a person learns the less he knows?
The representatives lost their chance. The Romans continued to rule. By doing away with his messenger the representatives of the nation discarded their God. .

The kingdom that Jesus spoke about is the sphere where God is the accepted ruler. Citizenship is not by compulsion but by invitation only. The proof of citizenship in the kingdom of God is not the name of a religion but an individual’s choice to give God priority and authority over their own life.

The kingdom exists, not geographically, but spiritually. Wherever diverse people willingly obey God, resulting in humility, honesty, and love for others, the kingdom of God exists. Humans are brothers and sisters to each other not only because we all spring from the same source of life but more powerfully because many of us are citizens of the same heavenly nation which is the kingdom of God.

Disappointed by clever men become evil, and good men become powerless, people increasingly long for God himself to be our governor, our president, our king. When the time is right God will establish his kingdom over the whole earth. The dead will live again, and all injustices be righted. Sad and miserable indeed are the people who cannot recognize Jesus or see the Kingdom coming.

The gospel of John: chapter 19, verses 12 - 16
The gospel of Mark: chapter 10, verse 15

Judging Jesus

The Jewish leaders who conducted the first trial of Jesus were frightened men. They thought their way of worship, their leadership, their livelihood and national security were all threatened by Jesus because he made himself equal to God and said that there was a kingdom of God.

These men worshiped the same God that Jesus worshiped. The situation became uncomfortable for them when their mental picture of God was not big enough to accept the picture Jesus was presenting. This discomfort frightened the priests so much that they tried to extinguish the source. The source was Jesus who had declared himself to be: the truth about God, the way to God, and the light from God. Kill him they did, but the light from God had come into the world and all their self-induced darkness could not put out that light

The faith these frightened priests possessed was the faith that true worshippers of God throughout time and place possess:
There is only one God.
We should worship him and nothing else.
God requires us to do justice, love mercy and behave humbly.
God is supreme.
God’s attitude towards humanity is loving and caring.

We understand God in human terms because he is person. But when we try to limit him to be similar to humans we loose him. The name of Jesus, ‘God With Us’ how can that be when God exists is spirit? Jesus was crucified, how can that be when God is supreme above all human power? The answer is that God the Supreme, God the Great, became human and suffered as people suffer, for us and for our sakes. We cannot fit it into our mental concepts, but why do we imagine that human minds can encompass the whole nature of God?

This relationship is initiated by the divine and we cannot behave as though it was our good idea. It would appear that every time our understanding of God’s nature causes us to return to pure faith, without the distortions of self-love a struggle erupts. Jesus expected this; he referred to it as defeating the devil and overcoming the world.

Before we defeat the devil and overcome (the evil of) the world we each have to deal with our fear. We are afraid of how expanding our mental concept of God would affect our relationships and behavior. We are afraid that if we examine our religious behavior and cut away the parts that are motivated by self-love we may have to make sacrifices. Like the Jewish leaders we are afraid. We need a hand stretched toward us, a leader to guide us, a friend to encourage us.
We need God-With-Us.

The Gospel of John chapter 18, verses 2 – 27
Is there a god beside me? Isaiah chapter 44 verse 8
The Man at thy right hand: Psalm 80 verse 17
My Lord says to My Lord: Psalm 110 verse 1

Their Inheritance

Despair seized the hearts of the twelve close friends of Jesus. They later fell asleep in sorrow, but at the moment they stood around Jesus, and listened, as he continued to pray.

That prayer was like the reading of a last will and testament. Jesus outlined what he had given to the people who had received his message and believed his words. He prayed not only this first generation of disciples but all who would believe in him through their message. Their message has of course, become our scripture and it is their message that you are reading now.

It could be summed up in the one word, ‘same.’

The same mission – to go into the world and teach all people
The same dedication – to be set apart for a purpose
The same message – that Jesus Christ is from God.
The same glory as Christ – that of humble obedient servants of God
The same gift to give to the world – the friendship with God that is eternal life
The same destination – to be with Jesus where he is
The same suffering – the world would hate them and persecute them
The same protection – the power of the name of God
The same unity – God in Christ and Christ in them

They were yours, said Jesus to his Father, and you gave them to me, and whatever is mine is yours, and whatever is yours is mine.

Unity had been explained earlier by Jesus when he said to the disciples, “I am the vine and you are the branches.” A vine can have many branches, each leading a distinct path, but the unity of the branches is that they all share the same nurture from the stem which feeds them. Jesus will spiritually be present in the life of each believer and they will be strengthened and nurtured by this presence.

This unity of being ‘in Jesus’ and Jesus being in them is the unity which Jesus prays for and which he says will convince the world that God was in Christ. for the purpose of reconciling people to himself.

Modern day disciples sometimes mourn that we are different groups with different names, but we have one Lord, he is Jesus who is called, ‘The Anointed One’. We have one God, the Father who is over all and in all, we have one faith, and we are all one baptized in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost.


The Gospel of John, chapter 17 verses 1 – 25
The letter of Paul to the Ephesisian believers, chapter 4 verses 3 to 6.
The letter of Paul to the Corinthian believers, chapter 5, verse 19

It is time

It is time! How often we have said those words, usually with eagerness, because a day we have waited for has come. Jesus said the same words the evening before his court trials and execution.

Jesus had expected this day for many years. He understood that his work on earth was to show people what God was like and to give them a message from God. When that work was done there still remained work to be done by dying.

Jesus stands and looks up to heaven. In front of his disciples he begins to pray for himself and for them. We might think it conceited that his opening request is for glory. By his death Jesus intended to show humanity something they had lost sight of: the generous nature of God, his faithful love of the people in this world, and his intention to renew their broken union with him. These qualities are part of the glorious nature of God. By his death Jesus would glorify God.
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The true nature of God has been lost to humanity by their disinterest and dislike of God, by his death Jesus would show God as acting righteously. Although he had lived in unbroken union with God, God would attribute to Jesus all the sins of humanity. More than that, God would attribute to humanity the sinless perfection of Jesus. How could God attribute to all the people who had ever lived or would live, the perfect rightness of Jesus? This desire to forgive is the generosity of God. By attributing the rightness of Jesus to the people who believe, God draws them to himself and into the environs of divine love. As they believe they are enabled to receive power from God to resist the enemy of souls and the evil that surrounds us. All of these acts of God display his true nature. His true nature is his glory.

Jesus was glorified by his attitude of willing faithfulness to God, but much more by his resurrection three days afterwards. God vindicated him, and said to the watching world, “This man is indeed my Son.”

“Father,” says Jesus, as his prayer draws to an end, “I want the people who have accepted your message to be with me where I am. I want them to see my glory, my true nature, which I received from you, and to know that you loved me long before you brought the world into existence.”

So this is the time towards which we live, the time of our resurrection, worked by the faithful generosity of God. A time when we will be with Jesus, our friend, and be where he is, and see his glory.

The gospel of John, chapter 17 verses 1 to 26

I have Conquered The World

“I have conquered the world.” said Jesus. A strange thing to say. Stranger still coming from a man who within a few hours would be dangling from a cross, so badly disfigured that it was hard to recognize him.

Jesus was, and is, God’s gift to the world. Why was he now talking of overcoming it? It is his love which overcomes the world. His overpowering love reassures those who are afraid of God, enlightens those who are offended by his claim to be the Son of God. It is the power of his preaching about the purposes of God that causes people to desire to identify with all the goodness of God.

The battle between good and evil was still waging fiercely. Three years ago the Power of Evil had offered to give Jesus control of the world (which he rightly said had been give over to evil) the only condition was that Jesus worship the Power of Evil. Jesus refused, quoting Jewish scriptures and saying that God is to be worshipped, and no other. His worship of God took the form of complete obedience to the things written in the Jewish scriptures and to the inner voice which explained them to him and gave him commandments. Jesus knew that he would overcome the world through his life of total obedience to God. Already Judas, one of his twelve close disciples, had gone to the temple and offered to show them which of the men gathered together in the dark was Jesus. Jesus was aware that all that remained to him would soon be accomplished and that his continued obedience would be used to vanquish the power of evil.

I am not alone he said, because the Father is with me. As the time of suffering drew nearer, the presence of God, the source of all goodness, was strongly felt by Jesus. Knowing that his Father would be faithful to him even if he died, Jesus was aware of a deep inner peace. Like all the gifts of God it can be shared without being reduced and given away without being lost. Peace I leave with you, he said to his bewildered disciples, not the kind of peace the world gives, but my personal peace, I give it to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.

Conquered the world. Gospel of John, chapter 16 verse 33
Worship God only: Gospel of Luke,chapter 4 verses 1-8
The ruler of this world is coming: Gospel of John, chapter 14 verse 30 My peace I give this to you: Gospel of John, chapter 14 verse 27

Let love be the victor.

Do not be afraid, is an instruction, not just a consolation. Jesus was preparing his disciples for the shock of his arrest and crucifixion. In these circumstances, ‘Do not be afraid,’ sounds unreasonable. The followers of Jesus would rightly reason that because their leader was in danger they also were in danger. When Jesus was arrested 10 of the 11 remaining disciples, left him and ran for their lives. Peter the more courageous did follow at a distance, but when challenged he denied that he had ever known Jesus.

And yet, Jesus did not give commands that were unlikely to be followed. The difference would be in the indwelling. If you love me, said Jesus, keep me commands, and my Father will also love you, and we will come to you and make you the dwelling place of Trinity. Remembering what Jesus had taught them, and carrying out of his instructions became the most important thing in life for the people who had listened to Jesus. There were many more than the 11 who were called disciples. Through their memory we have received the gospels of Matthew, Mark Luke and John.

The dying usually extract promises from their loved ones; instead, Jesus gave promises to his loved ones. His promises were not limited to the 11 men in the room with him, but to all who believed what he had said and showed their love by following his instructions. He promised that after a little while he would come for them and take them to be where he is. He promised that they would not be left alone in the world, and he promised that they would do greater works than he had done.

Greater works than he had done, how could that be? Jesus’ works included raising the dead, healing the blind deaf and lame, taming nature and feeding people who had no food. How could there be anything greater? But there was! The people who loved Jesus did do the same kind of miracles but did them in greater numbers, and in many more places, and for many more generations.

Countless numbers of people have been healed by their prayers and through their hospitals, countless numbers have been educated and fitted for a better life through their schools, and countless starving have been kept alive through their distributions. All the major religions do good works for the people who believe what they believe. The followers of Christ delight to do good works for the people who do not believe as we do, we include the atheists and the people who hate Jesus in the love we put into action on their behalf. We do good to our enemies and pray for those who treat us badly.

Today, hatred and revenge spill out all over our world, secular leaders try to exterminate evil by exterminate those who do evil. God has another way, on the human battlefield between Good and Evil, God has raised a banner.
A banner is a sign which shows intentions and becomes a rallying point for followers. His banner says one word, ‘Love’ and the people present with him are instructed to ‘love one another’

Hatred and violence have erupted around us but God continues to do good in the very presence of the evil which threatens to roll over us like lava from a volcano. Every generation sees progress in the service of God. This generation’s opportunity is to follow the instructions of Jesus, so powerfully that, ‘Love’ becomes the supreme value and rule of conduct for all people. This cannot happen through our secular leaders, but can happen through persistently following our spiritual leader’s instructions. All the major religions proclaim that they love God and his work, therefore we must come together to exalt God. As we work together we must of necessity learn how to allow each person to worship as they have been taught, without force or penalty. Never denying Jesus but honoring all those who declare that they love God. Together we can express such strong and powerful love for the whole world that our love will triumph over the hatred and destruction presently being worked. God will bless and strengthen our love, when it is true and pure from conceit. Greater works than mine, you shall do, said Jesus.

His banner over me is love: Song of Solomon chapter 2, verse 4.
The instructions of God: Deuteronomy, chapter 5, verses 1-22
The instructions of Jesus: Matthew, chapters 5 through 7
The last instruction of Jesus: John, chapter 13 verse 34
Promises made at death’s door. John, chapter 14. verses 3,12, 16, 23, 27