When the apostles began to proclaim the resurrection of Jesus Christ
immediately following Pentecost, they placed this event in historical
context. They related Jesus' resurrection to the history of the
Jewish people. And so today, in order to fully appreciate this very
New Testament event, we must look first to the Old Testament.
Today's sermon is also the first in a series on the Ten
Commandments. You might find the connection a bit of a stretch,
but I'm hoping by the end of this hour you will see how the two go together.
The disciples, as they proclaimed the resurrection of Jesus, declared
that he was both Lord and Christ. These are loaded words. These are
words that the Jewish people understood to mean that he was God, the
Messiah. The claim infuriated many, those who believed that anyone
claiming to be God was a blasphemer. Their sensitivity to this matter
came from the foundation of Judaic law, the first two commandments of
the Ten Commandments. So this is where we must start today in order
to make sense of Peter's first sermon.
There are two words that I would like you to write on your bulletin.
Notice every time I mention those words, because the whole story
hinges on them. The first word is relate and the second
word is rescue. These two words set the context for the
Ten Commandments. In about 2,000 BC, give or take a few years
depending on which scholar you read, God said to Abraham, "Let's
be related. I want to be your God. You and your descendants will be
my people." And that is when Israel was born. He didn't choose
Israel because Israel was numerous or prosperous but because the he
loved them (Deuteronomy 7:7). About five- or six-hundred years later,
God intervened in human history in a very miraculous way through the
Exodus. He rescued his people from a terrible situation, their
oppression and slavery under the Egyptians. We spent several weeks
since January going through the book of Exodus to appreciate that
whole saga. God heard their cries for relief, related to them,
and then rescued them from the hand of the Egyptians. They are now in
the desert, the wilderness of Sinai. God brought them there, using
Moses as their human leader. Because God loved them and because they
were now totally dependent on him for survival, God told them at Mt.
Sinai that there would have to be some agreements, some rules of
order for them, in order to remain safe in his care. These rules of
order are the Ten Commandments, or as one author calls them, ten
"disciplines of grace."
The first two commands take the form of prohibitions. You shall have
no other gods before me, and certainly you shall have no idols,
nothing cast like my concrete bunny here [referring to the children's
sermon]. Those are forbidden as objects of worship. Martin Luther,
the father of the Protestant Reformation, defined idol worship this
way. He said, "A god is that to which we look for all good and
in which we find refuge in every time of need." We can examine
in our own lives those objects that are potential idols. What are
those things that can do no wrong, and what do we take refuge in time
of need?
The fact is, everybody worships something. We're either true
worshippers of God, or we are true idolaters. What commands our allegiance?
For some, the god is money. On our coins it says, "In God
we trust." Would it perhaps be more accurate if it said, "In
this God I trust"?
For some of us, our appetites are our gods. Paul identifies,
sadly, some members of the Philippian church whose god is their
stomach. Do we live to be satisfied? Our appetites would be our god.
Perhaps technology or science have become our gods.
This takes many forms: I think of the media and computer games
as two examples. I realized this week in order to pull away to become
centered on the message of this week, I needed to unplug my computer,
and that was surprisingly hard for me. I think computers are
wonderful tools, and I often find solace there in times of need. Yep,
there's an idol, I confess.
Pleasure. Particularly in our cultural today, sexual pleasure
has become an idol. There's an ad that has been running for several
weeks in the Contra Costa Times, front section, that says, "Sex
is life." Now there is a mantra for our culture today! For some,
sexual pleasure is an addiction. That is an idol.
And finally, if all else fails, one's self can take the place
of God. About 25 years ago, in an interview with the Washington Post,
Shirley MacLaine said this: "The most pleasurable journey you
can take is through yourself. The only sustaining love involvement is
with yourself. The only thing you have is working to the consummation
of your own identity." Some people, like you and me, have put
our own selves on the throne that belongs to God.
Now you're probably saying, "Come on, Mary. Money isn't all bad.
Sex isn't all bad." And they aren't all bad. But they are
good only in their place. When they replace God on the throne
that governs our lives, then they become the false god prohibited by
God's first two commandments.
In these commandments, God forbids rivals to his authority and his
power. These rivals can take a material form, like my concrete bunny,
or they can take a mental form. And frankly, our mental form is very
powerful. How many of us have said, "Well, the God I worship is
like..." What we conjure up is invariable The God We Like. If
you recall, there is a lot more to God than The God We Like. We
talked about The God We Don't Like, in reference to his holy wrath.
If our mental image of God does not include The God We Don't Like, we
are worshipping a counterfeit. We are deifying our own preferences
without taking the whole God into account. That too is idolatry. The
prohibition says, "You shall have no idols, no rivals that take
away your worship from me.".
But where is the word of grace? What is the positive command that God
is giving? God says, "You can't have these others, but you have Me."
The great news is that there is the God, the most wonderful
God, plenty of God for us to worship in Almighty God, our Heavenly
Father. We don't need any other! We don't have to bear the weight of
either creating a god, like my 25-pound bunny or Aaron's golden calf,
or becoming a god, which for many is the object of life. We are
simply free to love God, to let God be God, and to follow in an
ordered, disciplined, graceful life that he provides. We are free to
love God with our heart, mind, soul and strength. He is big enough
and reliable enough and competent enough to deserve all the love and
allegiance we can give him. This is not a God merely to tolerate, but
a God who accepts and welcomes our love, even as he has already loved
us first.
The great news of the Bible is that God who loves us has made himself
known in Jesus Christ. He is the one we can relate to, and the own
who has rescued us from our slavery to sin.
About now you're wondering what on earth any of this has to do with
Easter. It has everything to do with Easter! Jesus is the one who was
sent by God, heralded by the angels at his birth and given
credibility through his teachings, his miracles, and his sinless
life. But it was the claim he made that put him to death, and that
claim was that he was one with God. The religious leaders of the
time, when they heard him say, "I am that I Am," went
ballistic. (Remember that was "Yahweh," the burning bush
name for God.) We know Jesus Christ said, "Yes, I Am that I
Am." It took their breath away, and they picked up stones to put
him to death. Why? Because Jesus Christ was claiming that he was one
with God. No person could claim that he himself was God, a great
disobedience of the first commandment. Jesus Christ died because the
people missed who he really was. Now I suppose people in our midst
might say, "Yes, I am God. Please give me the respect due me. I
am God." That person, like every other human being, will die and
remain dead forever. Jesus Christ, however, claimed to be one with
the Father and they put him to death for blaspheming. What they
didn't count on was that his claim would be true. What they didn't
expect was that God would break into history one more time to
obliterate their preconceived ideas of what God was like!
Here is this rabbi from a hick town in Galilee who died a harsh,
disgraceful death, abandoned by all his followers, but then rose from
the dead! bursting out of that grave! not to be held in its power any
longer! The apostle Peter (on Pentecost) immediately interpreted this
extraordinary event, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, to mean that
almighty God had indeed come into their midst in human form in Jesus
of Nazareth. This one had accomplished what no human being was
able to do. He was able to fulfill the law of God and rescue us from
the consequences of our sin against that law. Jesus' resurrection
proved that he was God, proved that everything he had said before was
actually true. His claims were valid. Unlike any other human being,
Jesus alone could say, "I am the Lord."
His resurrection accomplished the tasks which God had started by
working with his people 2,000 years before. Jesus' resurrection
accomplished what God had set out to do with Israel. He rescued
us and reconciled us to God from whom we had been estranged. His
death was not a meaningless act, but a powerful sacrifice for our
failure to obey the law. He rescued us from the legitimate, just
consequences for our sin. His atonement for our sin resurrected and
renewed our personal relationship with our Creator. He bridged the
gap that was created by humanity's rebellion against God. And so our
broken relationship has been repaired by Christ's personal act of
salvation. Once that sacrifice was made, that which we observed on
Thursday night and Friday noon this week, Jesus Christ was raised
from death, thus proving who he was all along: Lord of all.
That is why we are here today.
If Jesus is Lord of all, then he is one with the Father. He said,
"I and the Father are one. If you have seen me, you have seen
the Father." If he is God, then he is the only one who presents
a truly relevant and worthy alternative to the stone bunnies we
lug around with us all week long. He is the only one who can address
our disappointment and disillusionment with the world's idols.
If Jesus is Lord of all, then he is the only one that can love you as
you are this very moment, even while he envisions your rescue from
the sins that bind you. If Jesus is Lord, he is the only one that can
address the guilt that you brought to church with you today.
If Jesus is Lord of all, then he is the only one worthy to receive
our worship, our ultimate loyalty. He cannot break. He doesn't fall
asleep. He is always listening, and his yoke is easy; his burden is
light. For those who need the Lord, need a focus for their life,
Jesus is the one. And if he is Lord of all, then he is the one who is
capable of actually helping you to live a good, clean, and helpful
life under the disciplines of grace he has spelled out for you in the
Ten Commandments. Are you confused a little bit about what is moral
or ethical or right? Look to Jesus and listen well, for he is the one
who has defined goodness and empowered upright living.
Easter is the perfect day to recommit ourselves to the One we
worship. But I am aware that there are some here who may not be ready
to confess belief. So as we conclude today, rather than put words in
your mouth that might not be "yours" yet, I chose instead
to give you the opportunity to read the historical, biblical
affirmations about Jesus and his Lordship. Then when you
are ready to confess your faith, you will know what to say. If you
would like Jesus to redeem, rescue and relate to you, then use these
words with the pronoun "I" to confirm your belief in Jesus
as your Savior and Lord. Let us read with joy and conviction.
Q. What is the First Commandment?
A. The First Commandment is: you shall have no other gods
before me.
Q. What must one do to obey this commandment?
A. One must trust in the grace and mercy of God, turn from the
ways of sin, and renounce all evil and powers in the world which defy
God's righteousness and love.
Q. How does one acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior?
A. One turns to Jesus Christ and accepts him as one's Lord and
Savior, trusting in his grace and love.
Q. What demonstrates that trust in everyday life?
A. One demonstrates trust in Jesus Christ by living as a
faithful disciple, obeying his words and showing his love.
Q. By whose power does one obey the First Commandment and
embrace Jesus as Lord?
A. One's trust and obedience rests solely on the character of
Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit to live a new life.