Everything is discipleship

 

Everything is discipleship

 

Matthew 28:16-20, NIV - Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go.  When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.  Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

 

In Matthew’s gospel, this appearance of Jesus is the first time the eleven have seen the resurrected Christ.  This explains their spontaneous worship of Him when they see Him.  They confirm with their own eyes the reports they have heard that Jesus was raised just as He said He would be.  It also explains the phrase “but some doubted.”  Sometimes, it is hard to believe even what you are seeing with your eyes, especially when it is something like a resurrection.  I like that Matthew mentions both the worshipful and doubting responses.  If I had been there that day, I hope that I would have been in the worshipful camp, but I know I am capable of being doubtful as well.  It should be noted that all eleven of the remaining disciples go on to be prolific leaders in the early Christian church.  Their doubtfulness did not disqualify them. Onto Jesus’s last instructions which has traditionally been called “The Great Commission.”

This commission is a monumental departure from Judaism.  While Judaism stressed that the faith traditions and ways of living should be passed on from generation to generation within the Jewish family, teaching non-Jews to live this way was rare and not encouraged.  When Jesus includes “all nations,” this signals a huge shift in focus.  All should be taught the ways of God’s kingdom.  No one should be excluded.  When Jesus says to “baptize” them in the name of the Trinity, He is signaling that God’s chosen people is no longer just Israel.  All should be brought into God’s family.  As we say in the South, “Y’all means all. 

One of my mentors, Jack Stephenson, taught me some important principles of making disciples.  He really takes that seriously and he expects all of his staff to take it seriously as well.  When the church Jack was serving was building their new building, they thought ahead and knew that they would need a power lift to get to all the ceilings and light fixtures. So they planned to purchase one.  The first proposal was to buy a one-person lift.  Jack insisted that they buy a lift that would hold at least two people. He explained that a two-person lift allows for discipleship.  One person who knows how to do the job can take someone up with them and show them how to do it.  Jack insisted on this everywhere.  Every sound booth had to have at least two chairs. Even though the church had a huge campus, he insisted on having a volunteer yard crew with multiples of every kind of equipment.  He would ask us in staff meetings all the time, “how is this discipling?” Reproducing ourselves is the Prime Directive for those who follow Christ. Everything is discipleship.

The Christian life is not just learning how to love and serve God and people.  It is also teaching others how to do the same.   Matthew thought that his gospel should end on the command to disciple and teach. Furthermore, he stresses Jesus’s promise to be with us as we fulfill that command.  It begs our final question for the book of Matthew.

 

Question:  Who are you teaching to do what?

 

Prayer:  Thank you God for those who have taught us the Christian ways of living. Help us see how we can teach others what you have taught us.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for teachers/disciplers of all kinds today

 

Video: I Am Because of You

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K3_U8q3tWM

A More Than Inconvenient Truth

 

When the Truth is More Than Inconvenient

 

Matthew 28:11-15, NIV - While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened.  When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.’  If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.”  So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.

 

The guards who had been “scared stiff” by the angel now go to report the empty tomb to the chief priests.  This detail is a bit curious, for Roman guards don’t report to chief priests. They report to Pilate, the governor.  However, reporting that Jesus is no longer in the tomb may not be something these soldiers want to report to their boss.  After all their job was to make sure that very thing did not happen.  Reporting this to Pilate might mean their jobs or worse.  But NOT reporting it is probably just as dangerous, because the governor almost certainly is going to find out at some point.  Furthermore, would the governor even believe such an incredible story.  The guards are in a tough spot. They had been incapacitated by . . . an angel?  This truth is more than inconvenient.  So perhaps, they thought the chief priests could help them out.

If that is what the soldiers thought, then they were right.  For the chief priests, this “truth” can not be allowed to see the light of day.   They convene a meeting.  Don’t miss this.  The religious leaders convene a meeting to discuss how they might cover up the resurrection of a popular religious teacher who predicted it would happen just as it now has.  This truth is more than inconvenient.  It could be their undoing, which is something else Jesus predicted.  To hold on to their power and position, the priests must stop this.  They are only too willing to help out the soldiers.  So they formulate what they know to be a big lie.  Even two thousand years ago, unscrupulous leaders knew that if you tell a big lie enough times, it begins to throw a cloud over the truth.  This is their plan.  Decades later, Matthew, writing his account of all this, acknowledges that their plan worked, at least partially; “this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.”

Once again, we can gain more from this story to the extent that we are willing to put ourselves in the place of those who acted less than nobly in the story.  Is it possible that we, when confronted by a truth that more than just inconvenient to us personally, might find ourselves galvanized against that very truth?  Could it be possible that a truth is so personally threatening to our position and standing that we literally are unable to hear it, much less embrace it?  The gospel that we have worked our way through over these past months is such a truth, whether we realize it or not.

To embrace that Jesus really did raise from death as He said He would means we must take seriously not just whether His resurrection is true, but whether or not everything He ever did and said is true.  It all is a package deal.  We embrace ALL or it or none of it.  If we embrace all of it, this truth is more than inconvenient.  It could mean that our life, as we know it, could be undone.  The gospel makes an enormous claim on those who embrace it.  Yes, it is fantastic news for all of us that are sinners.  It is death defeated.  It is indeed all the wonderful things that Matthew and his fellow gospel authors say it is.  However, it is not without cost to us personally. 

This truth makes a claim on our life that might require us to spend our time in ways we would not have chosen before we embraced it (“take up your cross”).  It will certainly make a claim on our resources (“you can not serve God and money”).  Jesus taught that embracing this truth is literally like “losing your life to find it.”  Embracing the resurrection is also embracing loving your enemies, forgiving those who have hurt you, turning the other cheek, and a whole lot longer list of inconvenient truths.  The Truth will indeed set you free, but first, it will rock the very foundations of your life.  The guards understood this and chose a different path.  The chief priests understood better than most and reset themselves against the truth of Jesus. 

As Matthew moves to conclude his gospel, he confronts us with the same dilemma.  There is no less at stake for us than those soldiers who were scared stiff and those chief priests who looked at their potential undoing and said “Hell, no!”

 

Question:  Will we embrace the truth of the resurrection AND all the more than inconvenient truth that comes with it?

 

Prayer:  Lord, forgive us for we tend to be “pick and choose” disciples.  We want salvation, but we resist that salvation making a claim on everything we know.  We want forgiveness, but we don’t like paying it forward.  We are overjoyed at blessings, but we are misers when it comes to sharing them.  We revel in being loved by You so lavishly, but we like to forget that You love everyone that way, even people we think you shouldn’t.  We hate it even more that you want us to love them too.  Help us embrace not just the parts of the truth that we like, but all the parts that are more than inconvenient.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Spend time praying about how you will embrace more of God’s truth than you have up until this point

 

Song:  I Surrender - Hillsong Worship

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7jXASBWwwI

The Resurrection

 

The Resurrection

 

Matthew 28:1-10, NIV - After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.

There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.

The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.”

So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples.  Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him.

Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

The two Mary’s go to the tomb to grieve.  Matthew has been sure to let us know that it is the women who stayed with Jesus to the very end.  They were there for the crucifixion and they were there with Joseph of Arimathea when Jesus’s body was laid to rest.  They were there to see the tomb sealed by the Roman guards and now, on Sunday morning, they return to the tomb.  They will be the first witnesses of the resurrection.

I can’t help but think that they came that morning with hope in their hearts.  Throughout our journey through Matthew, we heard Jesus tell His followers SO many times that he would die, but three days later, he would be raised.  These women would have also known that Jesus raised others who had died.   They come this early morning to grieve, but I feel sure there is some vestige of faith in Jesus’s promise, if only a mustard seed’s worth.

If that is true, then their faith was confirmed in a spectacularly dramatic way.  An earthquake shakes the ground beneath them.  An angel so impressive that two Roman soldiers are literally scared stiff shows up.  The angel rolls back the stone (a feat that would normally take several very strong people) and then takes a seat atop the stone.  The angel says, “do not be afraid,” but that was pointless.  They are afraid nonetheless.  I’m not sure any human who has ever lived would not be afraid. 

I highlight their fear, because I want to highlight the fact that, unlike the “macho” Roman guards, the women are not paralyzed by their fear.  They follow the angel into to the tomb and see that Jesus is not there.  They hear, believe, and follow the angel’s instructions even though they never cease to be afraid.  Matthew notes that as they run to tell the disciples the most incredible news ever given, they were “afraid yet filled with joy.” 

Their faithful action in the midst of fear is rewarded for, in following the angel’s instruction, they literally run into the Risen Christ!  He, like the angels begins with, “do not be afraid” as the women throw themselves at His feet.  I’m sure their was more details to this actual encounter, but Matthew doesn’t give us anymore than Jesus’s instructions about where the disciples can meet Him.  They follow Jesus’s instruction as well, but I’m not sure their fear is completely gone. 

Faith is not the absence of fear.  Joy is not the absence of fear.  The presence of fear does not mean we have to be consumed by it or paralyzed by it.  We can hear God’s revelation in the midst of fear.  We can follow God’s instructions in the midst of fear.  We can even experience joy while simultaneously still experiencing fear.  These remarkable women show us this wonderful possibility. 

 

Question:  Have you ever been, or are you now, paralyzed by fear? 

 

Prayer:  Lord, even in our fear, allow us to hear and follow your voice.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for people who are being overwhelmed by fear today.

 

Song:  I Just Seen Jesus - Larnelle Harris, Sandi Patty

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yLgtd_kkxw

Even After He’s Dead. . .

 

Even After He’s Dead. . .

 

Mathew 27:62-66, NIV - The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate.  “Sir,” they said, “we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’  So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first.”

“Take a guard,” Pilate answered. “Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how.”  So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard.

 

One thing that good writers do is they try to anticipate the concerns of potential readers as the story is being told.  The writer tries to ask themselves, what are the problems that different kinds of readers will have buying into the story being told.  One of those problems Matthew’s readers will have with buying into the resurrection of Jesus is that it sounds like fiction.  After all, how many resurrections have you personally witnessed? 

For this chasm of skepticism to be bridged, Matthew addresses as least one potential story that could be proposed when readers are confronted with reports of the resurrection; Jesus’s body was stolen and the rest was fabricated.  Ironically, this is the very pretext the religious leaders give for Pilate assigning a guard to the tomb.  They make it impossible to steal Christ’s body by posting Roman guards.  Further, the Roman seal placed on the tomb makes anyone who attempts such a theft an enemy of the state.   I love that the last thing the religious leaders (and Pilate) do in the gospel is to make sure that the account of the resurrection is more believable. Imagine Matthew’s joy in including these seemingly insignificant details in his gospel account.

I have to say that, over the years, God has granted me some compassion for these leaders that seem obsessed with discrediting the Jesus movement.  Putting myself in their shoes, I feel just a bit of the misery and desperation they must have felt.  Thousands had followed this Jesus that criticized the these very religious leaders at every turn.  They were undermined by this rebel and their influence was eroded.  So discrediting Jesus would restore their rightful position and influence.  At least that’s how I imagine the thought process progressing.  What a terrible position to be in – having to tear down someone else in order to feel better about oneself.  I have compassion for these men because I have felt that very sentiment.  It is indeed misery. 

I wish I could say that I am beyond such misery, but I am not.  The impulse to make others smaller so that I, by comparison, feel larger is one that I still encounter often.  It can rob me of being happy for someone getting a promotion that I feel I deserve.   It can keep me from opening up to the possibility that I might be wrong about something because I would have to admit that “that other one” is right.  It can cause me to see someone who might otherwise be a potential friend or ally as a threat and treat them accordingly.  This impulse is so manipulative that it can lead me to believe that a big lie is actually the truth. 

Throughout our journey through Matthew’s gospel, I have encouraged us to adopt the habit of putting ourselves in the place of the “villains” instead of the “heroes.”  There is more potential for our transformation by the gospel when we do that.  If the religious leaders had done that, imagine what could have happened.  But more importantly, imagine what could happen if we did. 

 

Question:  When was the last time you were able to have authentic compassion for an “adversary?”

 

Prayer: Just between You and me God, I confess that I struggle to trust that you love me completely regardless of my position compared to others and whether I am right or wrong. Before you, I confess my unhelpful impulses and ask you to forgive me when I have pursued them.  Even more than that, I ask that you replace those dark impulses with compassion for others and for myself.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Perhaps a specific “adversary” has popped into your mind as you went through the devo today.  Pray for God to bless that person.

 

Song:  Pray for Me – Kirk Franklin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUBwZZSiUzM

Surprising Details About Jesus’s Burial

 

Surprising Details About Jesus’s Burial

 

Matthew 27:55-61, NIV - Many women were there, watching from a distance. They had followed Jesus from Galilee to care for his needs.  Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of Zebedee’s sons.

As evening approached, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who had himself become a disciple of Jesus.  Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body, and Pilate ordered that it be given to him.  Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth,  and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut out of the rock. He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and went away.  Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were sitting there opposite the tomb.

 

Jesus has just breathed His last breath on the cross.  Creation revolts in anguish.  Roman soldiers are convinced by the display that “surely, this was the Son of God.”  Then, what does Matthew tell us next?  Who was there for it all?  “Many women were there.”  We should also notice who wasn’t there.  Matthew, who’s telling the story, was not there.  Many of the disciples were not there.  They were hiding out of fear that they might be next to hang on a cross.  But the women were there.  The women were the witnesses.  For Matthew, to not only admit that, but record it in his account is so surprising.  It speaks to the role women played in the early Christian community, a marked departure from their exclusion prior to Jesus’s ministry.  Jesus changed the world in a million different ways, but often this one is overlooked.  Women would play a central role in the community Jesus founded. 

Another surprising detail in this passage is the rich man Joseph, described as a disciple of Jesus.  Earlier in Matthew, Jesus said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God” (Matt. 19:24).  Another rich man had went away discouraged because Jesus suggested that the man give up his possessions  (Matthew 19:16-22).  Yet, here, at Jesus’s death, Matthew highlights a rich man who had heard those teachings and now, was counted one of Jesus’s disciples.   Even though His Master Jesus had been killed, Joseph arranged to spare Jesus further humiliation by making sure His body was buried before sunset, which was the Jewish custom.  Left to the Romans (or the Chief Priests for that matter), this almost surely would not have happened.  This is the only reason history remembers Joseph of Arimethea, but it is no small thing.  This was the camel would had walked through the eye of a needle.  This was a rich man who used His possessions to honor Jesus.  The tomb Joseph surrendered for the Savior would become the most famous tomb in history. 

The women and the rich man saw to Jesus while He was dead – a double-reversal in a long line of reversals in Matthew’s gospel account.  The kingdom of God never ceases to surprise.  There are no usual suspects.  God is always doing something new and you never know who God will use to do it.  I love that about God and I love that I have been blessed to see God do the most amazing things with the last people you’d ever expect to be involved.  I can’t wait to see who surprises me next.

 

Question:  Who are examples of people you have seen play a central role in the unfolding of God’s plan that would have never-in-a-million-years expected?

 

Prayer:  Lord, thank you for the role that surprising people have played in the story of Jesus and in the stories of our own faith in Jesus.  Help us to be open to your plan so as to not miss what You are doing because of our biased expectations.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Ask God to show you the potential of people around you, especially the people you might have discounted for whatever reason.

 

Song:  Were You There? - Danny Rivera

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1sbTlGljGo

Jesus's Death: Shock and Awe

 

Jesus's Death:  Shock and Awe

 

Matthew 27:50-54, NIV - And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.

At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life.  They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people.

When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, “Surely he was the Son of God!”

 

Oh to see what is described in this passage!  It would have been terrifying, awe-inspiring, and faith-building all at one time.  I have been around to witness miracles before, but nothing like this.  It’s as if the death of the Son of God, Jesus, caused such a metaphysical disturbance that all of creation reacts by life springing up elsewhere when death claimed Jesus.  Creation testifies that Jesus is the Son of God and the centurion and other guards simply state the obvious. 

These events are the “proof” that the chief priests and other mockers of Jesus were taunting Jesus in his dying moments.  They dared Him to prove that he was the Son of God by coming down from the cross.  Ironically, Jesus “proves” the true nature of God by NOT escaping the cross, but submitting fully to death.  The violent reaction of creation and the resurrection of others who had died gives witness that it is the death of Jesus that is where God’s power is truly seen - not in escaping death by supernatural power, but in God’s sacrificial love for all.  Death is not conquered by physical miracles, but by Miraculous Love – the Love Incarnate whose name is Jesus.  N.T. Wright puts it this way:

“A new sort of power will be let loose upon the world, and it will be the power of self-giving love. This is the heart of the revolution that was launched on Good Friday. You cannot defeat the usual sort of power by the usual sort of means. If one force overcomes another, it is still “force” that wins. Rather, at the heart of the victory of God over all the powers of the world there lies self-giving love, which, in obedience to the ancient prophetic vocation, will give its life “as a ransom for many.” Exactly”   (The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus's Crucifixion)

People have been missing this point ever since Jesus died.  Supernatural Love, not supernatural force, is the greatest power in the universe. 

                When we follow Jesus, we invite this Power to be at work in our lives.  This power doesn’t rescue us from suffering and death.  We all still suffer and we will all one day die.  But when Love is at work in us, our suffering and death has power just as Jesus’s suffering and death has power.  It is precisely the power of Jesus’s suffering and death at work in us!  Our suffering accomplishes things that cannot be accomplished any other way and our deaths are but an entrance into eternal life.   

 

Question:  Have you invited the power of God’s self-giving love in Jesus to be at work in your life?

 

Prayer:  Lord, we are impressed by miracles, but we are transformed by your Love.  We invite the power of Jesus’s suffering and death to be at work in us.  Amen,

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for God to transform the suffering of those you are led to pray for today.

 

Song:  The Power of the Cross – Casting Crowns

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6LhbNTsDgo

Jesus's Message From the Cross

 

Jesus's Message From the Cross

 

Matthew 27:45-50, NIV - From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land.  About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).

When some of those standing there heard this, they said, “He’s calling Elijah.”

Immediately one of them ran and got a sponge. He filled it with wine vinegar, put it on a staff, and offered it to Jesus to drink.  The rest said, “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to save him.”

And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.

 

In the last reflection, we talked about how alone Jesus must have felt.  We took some comfort in the fact that when we feel completely cut off from everything, we can take solace in the presence of Christ with us.  But listen to Jesus’s last intelligible words in the gospel of Matthew again.  Jesus knew these words would be recognized as the beginning of Psalm 22.  By simply quoting the first line, he is able to deliver a lengthy description of His thoughts in the last moments before He dies. Today, I include a link to a dramatic reading of this Psalm as a way of hearing Christ speak directly to us from the cross.  I encourage you to listen to it and reflect afterwards. 

 

Psalm 22 Dramatic Reading

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz4gshe7jQE

 

Question: What happens in your mind and spirit as you hear this Psalm in Jesus’s voice from the cross?

 

Prayer:  Write you own prayer today in response to your experience of hearing these words.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for those who feel cut off from God.

 

Song:  Psalm 22 – Francesca LaRosa

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3YNrluAXHA