Rock Songs

Introduction

We are continuing our walk through the Gospels this week, with some rock songs. Scott… hit it.

Don’t worry, I am absolutely not going to attempt a rock concert on stage here this morning, there are churches who are much better at that than us and I’ll just leave that to them.

However, I wasn’t kidding about rock songs actually.

We’re going to step forward through the Gospel narrative today, and use that as a lens to look back, and see what led us to this point. You may remember last week Bryant preached about how Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey in what we call today “the Triumphal Entry”.

He was greeted on the road to Jerusalem by a massive crowd all chanting praise to Him, and that’s where our reading takes place today. If you have your Bible, please turn with me to Luke 19:37-40

Luke 19:37–40 ESV

As he was drawing near—already on the way down the Mount of Olives—the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

If these were silent, the very stones would cry out.

But what would these rock songs be about? If these stones cried out blessings and praise to Jesus, what would they say?

Rock songs

It’s easy from our perspective here 2,000 years later to see Jesus’ life through the lens of the legacy He left behind. After all, with the single most consequential event in human history, it’s difficult to overstate the big-picture narrative. So what would these rocks sing of?

Would they sing of the uniqueness of Jesus in human history. That for all of human history before Him, there was no concept of progressing time? That the people lived in constant cycles of their rulers, the 8th year of King David, the 14th year of King Xerxes, the 70th year of Queen Elizabeth II. That’s all they had, that was how time was recorded. We stand here today in the year of our Lord two-thousand and twenty-two, would these stones cry out that this man Jesus would change the very concept of time.

Would the rocks cry out that these disciples who walked with Jesus, these flawed fishermen, a zealot, a tax collector, that most of them would end up dying rather than denounce Jesus?

Maybe the stones would sing of how 2,000 years after these events, over 2 billion people worldwide would identify themselves with this man riding on a donkey.

Would they tell the story of creation, once again, about the origin of our world, that for milenia philosophers and later scientists and physicists would claim simply always existed. That it took until 1931 for science to finally realize that the universe in fact had a beginning, a fact attested to in Genesis when it that God spoke: “Let there be light.”

Or perhaps about how all of these things would be recorded, written down by eyewitnesses and copied so prolifically that the New Testament is the best evidenced work of the ancient world, period, with over 5,000 Greek manuscripts preserved until today, many copied within a generation of the originals. That the next runner up would be Homer’s Iliad, with less than 650 manuscripts, the earliest from 1,000 years after Homer penned his famous work.

Would they talk of how even in the first couple of centuries, these writings would be translated into Latin, Syriac, Gothic, Coptic, Armenian, and today would be the most widely translated and therefore most accessible text in human history?

Perhaps they would. And hey, many of these same stones are still around Jerusalem today, perhaps if we went and asked them today, this would be their answer.

But I think our distance on the timeline can impact our view of Jesus. We see His imposing presence above human history and His sacrifice on the cross as our source of salvation but… seeing Him personally, can sometimes get lost in the timeline from then to now.

Instead, I think it’s possible that when those who were there with Jesus during His earthly ministry, have a much sharper, more personal image of Him that they sang praise to. A big part of our goal, as preachers, is to help sharpen that image of Jesus to the personal and present Lord that we believe He is.

Jesus’ Mission

As we pursue that this morning, let’s hear from Jesus Himself what the purpose of His ministry is.

Let’s flip back in Luke to chapter four. This is the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry, and He lays out for us exactly what He’s here to do in Luke 4:16-21

Luke 4:16–21 ESV

And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Jesus’ mission was simple, He is the anointed one of the Lord, in Greek, He is the Christ.

He came to proclaim good news to the poor, not just the poor in wealth but the poor in spirit, as well.

He came to proclaim liberty, to the captive, to those who are oppressed.

To give sight back to the blind, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

So it went, Jesus healed many, taught a new message of justice and compassion, and challenged the religious leaders who used their positions for their own gain, instead of for God’s intended purposes.

What can get lost when we read this though, is that actual people, with all of the hopes and fears and challenges and insecurities and pride and love that we have, are those Jesus came to see. I’d like to look back as we see the big picture of Jesus’ ministry through some of these smaller, intimate encounters.

Sabbath Healing

Our first encounter revolves around Shabbat, the Sabbath day. Sabbath rest was a fundamental part of Jewish life in Jesus’ time, and remains a critical part of the weekly rhythm of Orthodox Jewish communities today.

In the same way that after God created the universe, He paused to reflect and see that it was good, He commanded His people to also rest on the 7th day of the week.

For an agrarian society, this was quite a difficult thing to actually put in to practice at times. All of the farm chores had to be done before sundown Friday evening, and anything that was forgotten couldn’t be completed until sundown Saturday evening. This Shabbat rest was a time to thank God for His provision, as well as a reminder to rest and trust that His provision will continue when our rest is completed.

However, as this teaching was applied, as often happens, the importance of Sabbath rest was replaced with a strict requirement to refrain from “work”.

These things sound, I admit, very similar, but the difference is an important one.

For example, if I want to emphasize rest, I might find a secluded spot in nature and leave my phone behind for a day.

If I must strictly refrain from work, I may instead spend half my morning reasoning whether or not walking the nature trail to my favorite spot is “too much work” to still be obeying rules.

This may seem silly, but it’s still happening today. The Orthodox Jewish community in New York spends over $150,000 a year maintaining an “eruv” that circles Manhattan, because their custom teaches that without this ritual perimeter, it would be a sin to push a baby stroller to a park on Shabbat. That’s a lot of work just to rest!

So you see, the emphasis of the Sabbath rest is actually critical to it achieving its purpose.

Jesus sought to point out this improper emphasis during His ministry, including in Luke chapter 13, which I will read.

Luke 13:10–17 ESV

Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And behold, there was a woman who had had a disabling spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your disability.” And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she glorified God. But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the people, “There are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day.” Then the Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it away to water it? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?” As he said these things, all his adversaries were put to shame, and all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by him.

Jesus, in the synagogue on the day set aside for rest and reflection, set at liberty a woman oppressed by a physical disability, a hunch that kept her from standing for eighteen years. How much rest can we expect her to get with chronic pain and discomfort?

Jesus healed her, and the ruler of the synagogue actually complained about a miraculous healing in his own presence, because he put the emphasis on a requirement to refrain from work, instead of an invitation to rest.

As David Myers would say, he put the emPHAsis on the wrong syllAble

There are more than a couple similar stories to this throughout the Gospel accounts. Healing on the Sabbath was one of Jesus’ favorite ways to expose the cruelty and misunderstanding of the religious elite.

But in each of these occurrences, there is a person, a real person who Jesus met, sympathized with, and healed.

So what does praise to Jesus look like from her perspective?

Some speculate that we get more details about the woman’s “disability”, that she could not straighten herself upright fully, because it is recorded in Luke’s Gospel, and Luke was a physician.

From this description it sounds like Luke is describing a curvature of the spine, something likely to have been present since the woman’s birth, which would make her about 18 years old, a very young woman by our standards, but in First Century Israel a woman who was close to being considered too old to marry.

So we have this woman who for her quite possibly her whole life, could not straighten her back and stand upright. She likely had very little prospect for marriage, which we know in First Century Israel means she’d be entirely dependent on her parents and perhaps a brother for her entire life, as there was little else she could do to provide for herself.

In addition, we know today that a hunched spine can lead to weakened back muscles that make it very difficult to do simple things like walk around, or get up out of chair without intense pain. Laying down can also cause pain.

It also compresses the digestive tract, so that swallowing food can become difficult as well.

Of course, it’s hard to do things like look up at a sunset, or look a friend or family member in the eyes when speaking.

So there’s all of these complications that make her day to day life exhausting, painful even, and one day she happens to be in the same synagogue as Jesus. Maybe at this point she didn’t know the rumors about a man from Nazareth who had healed lepers and cast out demons and raised the dead, but maybe she did.

After all, Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem at this point and His fame had spread far and wide. It makes more sense to me than not that this unnamed, disabled woman in fact knew exactly who this man was that she met in the synagogue.

Unfortunately for her, the day that she finally crossed the miraculous healer’s path, was Shabbat. Under Jewish law at the time, healing was only permitted during the Sabbath day if it was to save a life. As her 18 years of torment attested, her hunched spine did not threaten this woman’s life.

Can you imagine the crushing disappointment she must have felt? To finally cross paths with the man known to have the power to relieve your suffering, to have the good fortune to be in the same room, on the 1 out of 7 days where He was forbidden to help you!

Praise Jesus that He was unwilling to let the warped emphasis of the leaders of that synagogue to heal her.

Imagine her despair turning to hope and Jesus calls her over, out of everyone in the synagogue, her!

What does she think He will say? Maybe He will at least express regreat that He’s unable to help her, maybe He’s going to tell her where to meet tomorrow to be healed? Will He refer her to another healer who may be able to help when Shabbat ends?

Instead, Jesus places His hands on her and says “you are freed from this” and immediately it is so!

Suddenly she can walk without pain, she can run, she can eat, stand, lay down to rest all without pain that she had carried her entire life, because she encountered Jesus.

That was the human impact of Jesus healing this woman on Shabbat. Yes, the theological point that strict adherence to the law should not remove mercy as the default setting of God’s people in incredibly important and makes up a fundamental big picture message of Jesus’ ministry, but what mattered to that woman, whom Jesus loved, on that day, was that before she was in bondage and now she is free.

Why Pinpoint?

It would be fair at this point to ask why I’m being so emphatic on the intimate, one-on-one impact of Jesus’ ministry.

After all, just a couple of years ago we did “The Story” where we looked at the big picture relationship between this upper story of God’s will and work and the lower story of how it played out on Earth to draw the big themes of how God has worked throughout history.

Even in this series, where we go through the Gospels in a decent amount of detail over the course of the year, we are often most captured by the greater plan behind the actions, the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus and the themes that have made up the Gospel message until today.

But I want to remember the individuals involved in this story for one reason and one reason only...

They’re us.

The small and narratively insignificant characters of the Gospel are you, and me, and us.

They often, like our woman today who stood up straight, don’t even have names in the story and that makes it even easier to see it could be any of us.

Do you think we have members of our congregation who experience chronic pain either from age or illness? I can tell you for a fact that we do.

Jesus cares deeply about your pain.

How about John 4, the Samaritan woman at the well, divorced four times, separated from her fifth husband and living with a sixth man. Jesus made it a point to meet this woman and let her know that the barriers that had kept her out of social life, religious life, He had come to bring down.

Do you think that we have members of our congregation who have been faced with divorce or other factors that have made them feel like outsiders? That saddled them with shame and guilt and doubt? I can tell you, once again, we do.

Jesus came to meet you not just in spite of your difficult marriage but because of it, so that shame that has brought you low doesn’t get to keep you there.

Just a few weeks ago we discussed Mary and Martha as they mourned the death of their brother Lazarus. How Jesus came to them, comforted them, mourned with them, and brought them joy when He raised Lazarus from the dead.

Do you think that we have members of our congregation who feel the pain of the loss of loved ones? I guarantee that we do.

Jesus mourns with you.

1 in 5000

It can be so easy to sit in church and hear all of these stories about who Jesus is and what He has done and feel like it’s a story you’re a spectator for. It’s even easy to be a dedicated Christian and feel this way. I want to show you a piece of art I saw recently that really touched me. I believe Scott has the slideshow ready for us.

Slide 1

This is a simple sketch called “Jesus Feeds the 5000” by an account called “Bible Sketches” on Etsy.

This represents a moment where Jesus was teaching in the countryside and a huge crowd gathered, 5000 men plus women and children as well. They were so far from a city and Jesus taught for so long that they wondered how they might feed all of these people so they could make it home.

Jesus’ disciples were able to gather 5 loaves of bread, and 2 fish, not quite enough to feed the crowd. But Jesus blessed the food and divided it into baskets, instructing his disciples to take baskets and feed the crowd.

As you can see, it’s a big crowd.

There were 12 baskets of leftovers.

Allllll the way at the top center you may just be able to make out the white figure of Jesus amongst the crowd. This is how it can feel sometimes if we don’t necessarily see ourselves in the people Jesus interacts with.

Yeah there’s a lot of people, and hey we might be in the crowd, but we certainly don’t picture ourselves up close with Jesus or really of much significance to Him.

Slide 2

But then we zoom in a little bit, and now we can see Jesus a bit more clearly, and we can see He is certainly interacting with some people, and we start to notice that you know, not all of these people look the same. In fact, some of them kinda look like us.

Slide 3

As we look around we start to see, hey, there’s a group of kids playing in that tree. And others running around the base of it. If you can see on the bottom near the left side, there’s a man with a basket, sharing some of the food that the Lord has provided.

There are men and women and children, perhaps families and neighbors and the more you look at it, the more it starts to look like our church.

Slide 4

And you see circles of people gathering around to sit and eat and talk, and more men with baskets, more children, more families and this is when I hope you’ll realize… you fit in this image.

You fit in this image, of the people that Jesus loved and sought to feed, who He came to meet and teach and spend time with.

You fit, as one of the 5,000.

And Jesus cares a great deal about you, one of one.

Call

It is a one-on-one relationship with Jesus, that we offer this morning, because He loves you, and He cares a great deal for you.

But it is also a one-among-5000 relationship, well, in our case, more like one-among 80-ish.

An offer to join in Christian community with other men, women, and children who seek to try, like Jesus did, to emphasize mercy, love, and grace to one another, to provide for one another, the grieve with and console one another. To build each other up so that we can be more than we could be alone.

To sing praise to Jesus, because He is so worthy of praise that if we don’t the very stones will cry out.

We believe that the Gospel teaches that water baptism of a believing person is the way Jesus gave for us to enter relationship with Him and to enter His church, so every Sunday we offer that opportunity. In just a moment when we sing a song together, anyone who wishes to be baptised into Christ may come forward to do so.

It’s a big crowd and we’re all in different parts of our journey, so if you’d rather talk after service and you have more questions than answers right now, I’m happy to talk with you then as well.

Or if you just need help and prayers right now, we offer that as well. If you needs to prayers of this community that you would see Jesus one on one, as the Savior who cares for you in addition to the Savior of the whole world, we’d love to pray with you for that.

Whatever your need, won’t you make it known, while together we stand, and sing.