Maranatha
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Maranatha! O Lord, come. Maranatha!
Most of y’all are used to hearing me say that at the end of the Lord’s Supper by now. It’s become something of a tradition for me. And, indeed, you’ll hear it today when we conclude the Lord’s Supper at the end of our service.
But today, for a number of reasons that’ll become clear as I work my way through the message, I felt a great need to start the message with this ancient Aramaic saying.
The only place we see this word in Scripture is at the end of the Apostle Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, in 1 Corinthians 16:22
22 If anyone does not love the Lord, he is to be accursed. Maranatha.
23 The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you.
24 My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. Amen.
Today, I want to talk about this word, Maranatha, and what it might’ve meant to Paul and to the early Church, as well as to the modern Church and significantly, to me after a couple of weeks of emotional and spiritual highs and lows.
So, bear with me. It might sound like this has nothing to do with the series I’ve been preaching on the foundation, formation and future of the Church.
But by the time we’re done, I think you’ll see that Maranatha is the hope of every believer and the hope of this community of believers of which Liberty Spring is a part, the Body of Christ, His Church. Maranatha is, indeed, the future of the Church.
So, let’s talk about the word first. Then, we’ll talk about its significance in the context of 1 Corinthians. After that, we’ll discuss its meaning to the Church, both ancient and modern.
Along the way, I’ll share some personal reflections on Maranatha.
And finally, as we celebrate the Lord’s Supper together, I hope you’ll reflect on these things with a greater appreciation of why I and many other pastors choose to use this word when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper.
Maranatha is an Aramaic word, and I don’t think most of us know much about that language.
It was the language of most Jews in Judea during the time of Jesus, including Jesus Himself. But have you ever wondered why?
Well, we talked last week about the Jews of Judah in exile in Babylon. During their exile, Aramaic was the language spoken there.
It had also been the official language of Assyria — the place of exile for the Jews of the Northern Kingdom of Israel — before Assyria was conquered.
And Aramaic became the official language of Persia during the reign of King Darius I, around the time the Jews were allowed to go back to Jerusalem and begin rebuilding.
So, many of the Jews who were exiled to Babylon and Assyria probably learned Aramaic in order to be able to, as we read God’s command to them last week, “Build houses and live in them.” They learned it in order to “seek the welfare of the city where [God had sent them] into exile.”
Now, I need you to understand that I’m not a linguist. I’ve done some basic research here, and I’m giving you the nickel version off this linguistic tour.
So, if you share my conclusions with someone well-versed in ancient languages of the Near east, you’re probably going to hear a lot of “Well, yeah, BUT …” and then an explanation of how I’ve oversimplified things.
Lots of things probably contributed to the spread of the Aramaic language, and some of them surely weren’t connected to Biblical events.
But my theory about the Jews learning Aramaic in exile and then bringing it back into the Promised Land WOULD explain why we see Ezra and Daniel both writing in Aramaic in the Old Testament.
Perhaps you’ll recall that Daniel held a high position in both the Babylonian and Persian kings’ courts. And Ezra recounts the rebuilding of the temple by those returned exiles.
So, the Jews would have returned to Judea with a new language. And by the time of Jesus, many of them spoke Aramaic as their primary language, using Hebrew primarily for their religious observances.
Other Jews in Judea during Jesus’ time — the so-called Hellenistic Jews, mostly spoke Greek, again using Hebrew for religious purposes. That’s why so much of the New Testament is written in Greek.
And so, here in verse 22, we see the coming together of two linguistic worlds — Greek, Paul’s primary language and that of the Corinthians, and Aramaic, the language learned during exile.
And I think it’s significant that Paul mixes the two here. It’s a subtle reminder that Maranatha — O Lord, come! — is the hope of ALL who are in Christ. Jews and Gentiles. Exiles and kings. Common and uncommon.
So, what does it mean? Well, we always say, “O Lord, come!” Or simply, “Lord, come.”
But perhaps you won’t be surprised by now, that I’m going to tell you it’s not as simple as that.
What we have in this letter is a single-word transliteration of TWO Aramaic words. That means Paul used Greek letters to show the sound of the Aramaic words. So, things become a little ambiguous. It’s not cut-and-dried.
“Most scholars agree that the first word in the phrase is maran or marana, meaning ‘Lord,’ or more probably ‘our Lord,’ and that the second word represents the Aramaic verb ‘to come.’ [Elwell, Walter A., and Philip Wesley Comfort. “Maranatha.” Tyndale Bible Dictionary. Tyndale Reference Library. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2001.]
But the verb, translated as “come,” can be interpreted with different tenses and different senses. So, there are actually five different possible interpretations.
If Paul means this as a prayer, He can be calling for Jesus’ spiritual presence in the church, especially in the context of the Lord’s Supper, which is one of the topics he covers in this letter.
He could also be praying for the Lord to come again, as Jesus has promised He would.
On the other hand, if it’s a simple statement, then Maranatha could mean “Our Lord is present.”
In that case, Paul could be referring to the presence of Jesus in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper.
Or he could be referring to the Lord’s presence among believers, as when Jesus said, “For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst.”
And finally, Maranatha could be prophetic in its force, something like “Our Lord is coming.”
But remember that it’s not a great idea to take verses — much less WORDS — out of context.
So, what’s the context here? On one side of Maranatha, we have Paul pronouncing a curse on those who don’t love the Lord. On the other side, we have him praying that the Corinthian church be filled with the grace of Jesus.
So, many scholars believe — and I think they’re onto something — that Maranatha is part of the curse AND part of the blessing.
If they’re right, then we’ve got something like this: “Let those who don’t love the Lord be cursed at His coming. And BECAUSE He is coming, you can be sure that His grace is with you.”
Now, again, please don’t go and ask a scholar of Greek or Aramaic to confirm this for you. It’s the Spears translation. The Spears interpretation, perhaps more accurately.
But I DO believe it’s a good approximation of what Paul, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, was trying to convey.
Our hope is in Maranatha — in the coming of the Lord, for sure. But also in the blessed assurance of our hope in His return. That we will one day be WITH Him where He is.
Note that I didn’t say that we’d be with Him in heaven. We who’ve followed Jesus in faith will surely be with Him in heaven.
Paul talks about that in that passage from 1 Thessalonians that I quote so frequently:
13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope.
14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.
15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.
16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
17 Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.
18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.
So, the dead in Christ — all those believers from all times and all places who’ve died before He comes in the clouds — will be raised into glorified bodies to MEET Him in the clouds. Then, we believers who are alive and remain will join them and Jesus in our OWN glorified bodies.
And then in Revelation, chapter 19, the Apostle John recounts his vision of Christ’s return to earth with His saints, the body of Christ, His Church.
Picking up in verse 11, this is at the end of the Great Tribulation, that 7-year period of God’s wrath being poured out upon the earth for the unrighteousness of mankind:
11 And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war.
12 His eyes are a flame of fire, and on His head are many diadems; and He has a name written on Him which no one knows except Himself.
13 He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God.
14 And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses.
Now, the way John describes the armies of heaven here — “clothed in fine linen, white and clean” — is very close to his description of the clothes worn by the Bride of Christ, His Church, earlier in this chapter.
Look back at verse 7:
7 “Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready.”
8 It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.
Now, the people wearing “fine linen, bright and clean” in this passage are the same ones who’ll be wearing “fine linen, WHITE and clean” when Jesus returns to vanquish His enemies and throw Satan into the bottomless pit for a thousand years.
And what I want you to see is that we’ll be HERE. We’ll be back on earth. Heaven is not our eternal home. Heaven is just a stopover for us on the WAY to eternity.
Heaven is where the Lord will take us so that we’re saved from the terrible wrath of God that will be poured out during the Great Tribulation.
We’ll come back to earth for Jesus’ great victory, and we’ll be here for His Millennial Reign.
And we’ll be here at the end of His reign, when Satan is released from the pit, when He deceives the nations and causes the unbelievers born during that time to rise up against Jesus.
And we’ll be here when they’re all destroyed by fire coming down from heaven, when Satan and the beast and the false prophet are all cast into the lake of fire.
And finally, we’ll be here when Jesus renews the earth, when the new Jerusalem comes down out of heaven from God.
We’ll be with Him here in perfect shalom — perfect peace and contentment and fulfillment and tranquility and safety and health. HE will create this shalom that even His Church is unable to create.
And we’ll be WITH Him here. Look at what John says about this in the last chapter of the Book of Revelation:
1 Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb,
2 in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
3 There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him;
4 they will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads.
5 And there will no longer be any night; and they will not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illumine them; and they will reign forever and ever.
A river of the water of life, flowing clear as crystal. The tree of life, with leaves for the healing of the nations.
The curse is gone. But what IS the curse? Death. And death is the wages of sin. Death is the just payment for our sins against God. So, if the curse is no longer, then SIN is no longer.
And I think this brings us right back to our original text this morning.
“If anyone does not love the Lord, he is to be accursed. Maranatha. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you.”
You see, I think that saying our hope is in Maranatha — that our hope is in the coming of the Lord — doesn’t tell the whole story.
It’s a great shorthand version. But we shouldn’t allow the shorthand to allow us to forget what it stands for.
WHY is our hope in the return of Jesus? What is it about Jesus that we need so badly? What is it about Him that every one of us — whether saved or not — desires in some secret part of our hearts?
I want to suggest to you this morning that our hope is in His righteousness. Our hope is in the confident assurance we have — by God’s word and because of Jesus’ sinless life, sacrificial death, and supernatural resurrection — that righteousness will reign.
Our hope — our confident assurance — is that HE is the incarnation of righteousness — Paul calls Him the righteousness of God — and that it is the light of His RIGHTEOUSNESS that will fill the earth.
Maybe this seems like a fine point to you. But this word, “Maranatha,” has been on my mind all week. I didn’t really understand why until I sat down to write this sermon yesterday.
I had a plan to talk about the hope the Church has of eternal life with Christ. But it wasn’t until I sat down at my keyboard — tired and a little sunburned from our ministry work yesterday — that God began to reveal the connection to me.
Listen, I told y’all a couple of weeks ago that I’d been experiencing a spiritual peak recently. That I’d felt closer to Jesus than ever before.
That I was loving Him more than I’d ever loved Him. And that He was opening new opportunities for me to share His love and His story with others.
And then I talked to you last week about the church’s role in BEING shalom in this broken world. Of its role in DEMANDING shalom as we live in the reality of Christ’s already/not yet kingdom.
And I should have expected what came next. But I’m not the smartest tool in the shed.
And so, when the spiritual attacks came — when our family was rocked by them — I was caught completely off guard.
Much the same as Elijah was caught off guard and fled into the wilderness to escape the wrath of Jezebel after God used him to destroy the prophets of Baal.
But God has used even family tragedy to remind me that He is GOOD. And He’s used even family tragedy to remind me that my hope is in the righteousness of Christ.
That’s my hope for salvation. I have no righteousness of my own.
Just as He did with Abraham, God as DECLARED me righteous because of my faith in Him through Jesus Christ.
HE is sinless the one who sacrificially gave His life in my place at the cross. He is the one who took upon Himself my sins and yours — and their just punishment — so that we could be saved through faith that He is who He said He is and that He’ll do what He said He’ll do.
And as I think about these family tragedies — as I think about a broken world FULL of family tragedies — I’m reminded that they’re all a result of sin. That they’re all a result of the unrighteousness of mankind.
And I’m reminded then that one day we will be here in this place with Jesus, the SON of Righteousness. And that the light of His righteousness will shine brighter than the sun.
The triune God of all righteousness planned from before creation itself, to give us His unique and eternal beloved Son, who’d pay the penalty WE deserve for our rebellion against Him.
So that all who turn to Him in faith can be saved. So we could all live WITH Him on a renewed earth where there is no unrighteousness. Where there is no more curse, no more sin, no more sorrow, no more tragedy.
THIS is our hope. THIS is the future of the Church.
And so, let us all join together and call out with one voice, confident in the promises of God, assured in this great hope of the eternal reign of Righteousness: Maranatha! O Lord, come!
Now, today IS Lord’s Supper Sunday. This is an important observance for individual followers of Jesus.
But it’s is also important to the fellowship of the church. It brings us together in a unique way and reminds us that we belong to one another in Christ Jesus.
It reminds us of the love He has for us and the love we’re called to have for one another.
Jesus commanded us to observe the Lord’s Supper as an act of obedience to Him. It’s a way of proclaiming that we who follow Him in faith belong to Him, and a way of reminding us what He did for us.
The Lord’s Supper reminds us that our hope for salvation rests only and completely on the sacrifice He made for us and in our place at the cross. It reminds us that our life is in Him.
And the fact that we share bread from one loaf reminds us that we are, together, the one body of Christ. It reminds us that we’re called to unity of faith, unity of purpose, and unity of love.
It reminds us that, just as He gave up the glory He had in heaven, we who’ve followed Jesus in faith are called to give up any claims we might think we have to our own lives as we follow Him.
Finally, it reminds us that, as we’ve been given the testimony of the Holy Spirit within us, we’re to share OUR testimony of salvation by grace through faith.
We’re not to be lukewarm Christians, but people who are on fire for the Lord. People desperate to SEE His righteousness upon the earth and committed to LIVING His righteousness while we wait.
If you’re a baptized believer walking in obedience to Christ, I’d like to invite you to join us today as we celebrate the Lord’s Supper.
Now, this sacred meal dates all the way back to when Jesus shared it with His disciples at the Last Supper on the night before He was crucified.
The conditions during the Last Supper were different than the conditions we have here today. But the significance was the same as it is today.
Jesus told His disciples that the bread represented His body, which would be broken for our transgressions.
Let us pray.
26 While they were eating, Jesus took some bread, and after a blessing, He broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.”
As Jesus suffered and died on that cross, his blood poured out with His life. This was always God’s plan to reconcile mankind to Himself.
“In [Jesus] we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us.”
Let us pray.
27 And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you;
28 for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins.
Take and drink.
“Now, as often as we eat this bread and drink the cup, we proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.”
Maranatha! Lord, come!
Now, I’d like those in the room here to remain seated for a few moments for a quick announcement. For those of you watching on Facebook, I pray this blessing over you: “May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up His countenance on you and give you peace.”
CUT LIVESTREAM
Here at Liberty Spring, we have a tradition following our commemoration of the Lord’s Supper.
Please gather around in a circle, and let us sing together “Blest Be the Tie that Binds.”
