Jesus is Lord
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A little later in the service, we will be hearing from our confirmation class. They will be making what we call a Profession of Faith, saying publically what they believe. The heart of the entire time is condensed into one simple question and answer: I will ask “who is your Lord and Savior” and they (I believe) will answer “Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior.” We don’t use the word “Lord” much in our culture, we don’t have Lords and Ladies, Kings and Queens in our world. For us, “Lord” is an archaic term, something that points back to a former time. In , Peter is talking to a Roman military officer named Cornelius. Almost as an aside, Peter says of Jesus of Nazareth:
“he is Lord of all.” For Cornelius, “Lord” would have been a familiar word. He served in Caesar’s army, he was a representative of the Emperor. He would have known that the Emperor (Claudius at that time) was “Lord.” Peter’s comment about Jesus demands from Cornelius a decision: who was really Lord, Jesus of Nazareth or Claudius? Like Cornelius, we have many things that vie for the title Lord in our lives. Our jobs, our families, our traditions, our experiences, our expectations, the time and place within which we live; all demands from us allegiance, all want to be Lord. Peter’s conversation with Cornelius reminds us that we can have only one Lord, only one thing can order our lives and be the measure of who we are and what we do. So the question I will later ask the confirmands is the same question I ask you this Easter Sunday: who is your Lord and Savior?
That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced:
you yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed:
Peter doesn’t ask Cornelius a question; Peter makes in a case for Jesus as Lord. Peter is telling Cornelius, and by extension he is telling us: God Made Jesus Lord! To recognize any other Lord, to fail to acknowledge Jesus as Lord is to ignore what God did in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Again, I ask the question: who is your Lord?
Lord Over Suffering and Bondage
Lord Over Suffering and Bondage
God made Jesus Lord over Suffering, Sickness and bondage. Look at verse 38:
how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.
God “anointed”, God poured out on Jesus of Nazareth the Holy Spirit and power. How do we know that? Because of what he did. Peter says first that “he went about doing good”. The gospels are full of the stories about what Jesus does: the blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the castaways are welcome home. He takes particular delight in sharing meals with those too low, too non-religious for his time. He takes on the really hard cases, people who have been sick for decades he heals, those bound in chains in the wilderness he sets free. He goes about doing good. He does that in his home town, in the region of Galilee: he goes so far as to do good in the gentile area near Syria and among the hated Samaritans. Jesus brought God’s peace, God’s healing and freedom to Jews, and Gentiles.
But look again. He was in the business of healing “all who were oppressed by the devil.” Sometimes things are wrong because of what people do, and other times things are just wrong. Jesus freed people from the forces that opposed God in the creation.
You would think that someone who did good, who helped people and brought God’s wholeness would be welcomed or at least not opposed. You would be wrong: the complained that he did his good on God’s Sabbath; they declare what Jesus did labor and labor was banned on the Sabbath. He touched the sick and the bleeding and the lepers. His touch made them whole, but the act of touching made him impure.
Lord Over Death
Lord Over Death
They didn’t just disagree with him to try to correct him. Jesus of Nazareth, the one who came “preaching peace” was met with violence and death. Look at verse 39:
We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree;
Here is the story of Holy Week. This one, anointed by God, a healer and one who brought hope to the hopeless is met with violence and murder. Peter doesn’t tell Cornelius that they killed Jesus or the crucified Jesus; no, he uses a euphemism: “hanging him on a tree.” It wasn’t enough just to put him to death. The people who killed him wanted to make a statement about Jesus and God. The idea of “hanging him on a tree” goes all the way back to the book of Deuteronomy. It says in :
When someone is convicted of a crime punishable by death and is executed, and you hang him on a tree, his corpse must not remain all night upon the tree; you shall bury him that same day, for anyone hung on a tree is under God’s curse. You must not defile the land that the Lord your God is giving you for possession.
When someone is convicted of a crime punishable by death and is executed, and you hang him on a tree, his corpse must not remain all night upon the tree; you shall bury him that same day, for anyone hung on a tree is under God’s curse. You must not defile the land that the Lord your God is giving you for possession.
The law said specifically “anyone hung on a tree us under God’s curse.” They killed him in the one way that anyone who knew anything about the Old Testament would know said he was cursed by God. It wasn’t enough just to kill him, they had to make a statement about Jesus and his relationship to God. They thought on Good Friday that they had the last word. They didn’t.
but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear,
God anoints Jesus, God empowers Jesus, then God raises Jesus on Easter morning. The peace of God was met with the violence of the cross and God once again acted. This wasn’t God raising Jesus in the spirit or God keeping the memory of Jesus alive in the minds and hearts of his followers. No, this was a physical resurrection. They broke bread with the risen Christ, they shared drink with him. For 40 days they saw and touched and heard. Jesus was now Lord over Death.
Lord over sickness, bondage, sin, Lord over Death. But God wasn’t done:
Acts 10:43
To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”
He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead.
Lord of the Future
Lord of the Future
One of the things we fundamentally believe about God is that someday, God will bring justice to the creation. Cornelius would have lived through the reign of Emperior Caligula, an especially unjust and depraved Emperor. The question of how justice would be known in the Empire was troubling after that reign: could the emperor be trusted? Peter’s answer is emphatic: Jesus, this one who we know did good and set people free, this one who God raised from the dead, this one is Lord not only over our lives and our death, but he is Lord of the future. He will be the judge of everyone, the one who will bring God’s justice to the creation. He is Lord of the future.
Who is your Lord and Savior?
Everything we know about Cornelius tells us he was an honest and an upright man. He was a leader of soldiers, a faithful servant of the Emperor. In his travels he had hears about the God of the Jews. You couldn’t be a true Jew and a member of Casear’s legion, but Cornelius got as close as he could. He is called a God-fearer: he gave charity to the synagogue, he kept the dietary law, he did everything he could to observe God’s commandments. But he wanted something more.
To whom could he give his alliance, who could give guidance and direction to his life. Who was his Lord? Peter tells him about Jesus of Nazareth; it was like Cornelius had waited his whole life to hear this story. Who was his Lord and Savior? Jesus Christ became his Lord. Who is your Lord?