The World on its Head
Notes
Transcript
“This is the Messiah, Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you.” (17.3)
The Messiah Has Come
The Messiah Has Come
I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.”
The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet.
Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised up above the hills. Peoples shall stream to it,
and many nations shall come and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between many peoples, and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more;
but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid; for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.
Evil and deception are overcome
The Lord’s will is known
He has carried our sins and infirmities
The Lord’s voice goes out to the whole earth
*** Photo: Planting the flag
The Messiah Has Come
The Messiah Has Come
They attacked Jason’s house. (17.5)
It Gets Personal
It Gets Personal
*** NS: Our allegiance to Jesus, the Messiah, has a very personal dimension. My heart is ruled by love for God and love for this world God has come to save. My heart wants to make known this truth that the expected Messiah has come, God’s long anticipated work has come to pass—we can know God through the power of the Spirit. God has done something new, and we’re a part of that new thing.
Joshua 24:15 (NRSV)
“[C]hoose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”
So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?”
Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.
*** Photo: As for me and my house
It Gets Personal
It Gets Personal
*** NS: We follow the Messiah, even when we’re misunderstood, even when it’s not popular, even when what we’re committed to goes against the grain
“These people who have been turning the world upside down have come here also...” (17.6)
The World on Its Head
The World on Its Head
*** Photo: “Upside down” world. It’s not an exaggeration to say that adherence to the faith turned the world as the non-Christians knew it upside down
*** Photo: Newborn baby
NS: Christianity both forbade the ancient pagan practice of the exposure of unwanted infants—which is almost certainly to say, in the great majority of cases, girls—and insisted upon communal provision for the needs of widows—than whom no class of persons in ancient society was typically more disadvantaged or helpless.
Hart, David Bentley. Atheist Delusions (p. 160). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.
Would that apply, then—confining ourselves just to things Christian—to ancient and medieval hospitals, leper asylums, orphanages, almshouses, and hostels? To the golden rule, “Love thine enemies,” “Judge not lest ye be judged,” prophetic admonitions against oppressing the poor, and commands to feed and clothe and comfort those in need? To the music of Palestrina and Bach, Michelangelo’s Pietà, “ah! bright wings,” San Marco’s mosaics, the Bible of Amiens, and all that gorgeous blue stained glass at Chartres? To the abolitionist movement, the civil rights movement, and contemporary efforts to liberate Sudanese slaves? And so on and so on?
Hart, David Bentley. Atheist Delusions (p. 219). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.
*** Photo: Hospitals. The Benedictines alone founded over 2000 hospitals in the middle ages in western Europe
We testify to God’s good intent for the world, even if that means we live and work in ways that those around us don’t understand. We live in God’s new world in the midst of the old world. We fix our eyes on the world’s one true Lord—Jesus, crucified, risen, and coming again.
*** Photo: Beds
The World on It’s Head
The World on It’s Head