The Key Persons of the Bible
-- by The Rev. Jason Ke (trans. J.L.)
(A Sermon for Sunday, January 18, 2015, at St.James' English Language Service)
Second Sunday after the Epiphany
1 Samuel 3:1-20
Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17
1 Corinthians 6:12-20
John 1:43-51
INTRODUCTION
Good
morning, my dear friends in Christ!
This
morning I’d like to talk about a number of key persons of the Bible. I’ll discuss the important things that these
persons have done, and then I’ll speak in particular about “the hidden glory of
Jesus.”
Our
readings for today are from The First Book of Samuel, from Psalm 139,
from The First Book of Corinthians, and from The Gospel of John,
so before talking about “the hidden glory of Jesus,” I’d like to focus on such
important persons as follows:
KEY
MESSAGES
I.
Four key persons of the Bible
The
four persons that I’ll talk about this morning are: (1) The prophet Samuel, (2) The unknown author of Psalm 139, (3) John the Baptist – a story about him being the Gospel reading
for last Sunday, (Mark 1:4-11), and (4) The
Apostle St. Paul.
II.
The contributions that these key persons have made
1.
The prophet Samuel:
Samuel
was born in the 11th century BC.
He was regarded as the last of the Hebrew Judges and the first
of the Major Prophets who began to prophesy inside the Land of Israel.
If we
look into the history of the Israelites, we’ll find that their politics (the
form of government, the ruling system, etc.) had always been led by their
religion. Then, as recorded in The First Book
of Samuel,
chapter 8, when the Israelites asked Samuel for a king, they thought that with
a wise king ruling over them, they would be able to resist any invasion from
the outside world.
Samuel
was displeased with their request for a king, so he prayed to the Lord God, and God said, “Listen to
everything the people say to you. …” (1 Samuel 8:6-8) So Samuel
told the people everything that God had said to him, saying that the king would
treat them badly -- very strictly and cruelly! But the people insisted that they should have
a king, so Samuel anointed a “tall and handsome” man, Saul, as
ruler of the Israelites. (1 Samuel 9:2,
10:1-26)
In
the history of Israel, there have been very few kings who performed well. Even King David, who succeeded King
Saul as a great king, committed some inexcusable sins in the latter part of
his life. God was pleased with
King David in some respects, but David’s ruling period, or reign, was not very long. God promised that David’s offspring would
continue to be kings of the
people of Israel, but this promise would have failed if Jesus (who is a
descendant of David) had not come to be the King!
We
know Jesus is the King, the Messiah. But
unfortunately the Israeli Jews today are still waiting for their
Messiah, a great king (and savior) that would be like King David in history. And the Star of David (大衛之星, known in Hebrew as the Shield of
David or Magen David) is now used as a striking symbol in the middle
of the national flag of Israel.
2.
The unknown author of Psalm 139:
Although
his name is unknown to us, the author of Psalm 139 has vividly expressed his
faith and insights that are transcendental – that go beyond human knowledge,
understanding, and experience!
Psalm
139 has a distinguishing feature in meaning.
It tells us that God is not far away from humans (though many of us feel
that he is so utterly far away). On the
contrary, God is very close to humans. The
author of Psalm believed that God saw him before he was born. The days allotted to him had all been
recorded in God’s book, before any of them ever began. (Cf. Psalm 139:16)
Well,
this kind of idea is what we
refer to as “predestination” (預定論) –
the belief that God has decided everything that will happen and that people
cannot change this.
3.
John the Baptist:
John
the Baptist was a very religious man, and he was able to attract,
influence, and inspire people by his charismatic
personality.
But
we know little about his speech; regarding what he had ever said, we know nothing more than what was
recorded in the New Testament. He spoke
to those who came to him for baptism, saying, “I baptize with water,
but among you stands the one you do not know. He is coming after me, but I am
not good enough even to untie his sandals.” (John 1:26-27, TEV)
John
the Baptist pointed out something even more important; he said that Jesus is “the Lamb
of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29, TEV) And the next day John again was standing with
two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he said, “Look, here
is the Lamb of God!” (John
1:35-36, NRSV)
That was a profound and very important thing for
John the Baptist to say.
The Israelites practiced
a tradition of making animal
sacrifices (such as lambs, goats, etc.,) for sin offerings. The Isrealites'
original notion of a sin offering was
and is that a person who had sinned against God could sacrifice
an animal or two (instead of himself) to ask God for forgiveness – and to ask for God’s blessings! By means of animal sacrifices, however, this
type of “sin offering” had to be repeatedly performed.
In The Book of Hebrews, chapter 10, we see
that “the
law has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the true
form of these realities .... But in these sacrifices there is a reminder
of sin year after year.” (Hebrew
10:1-3, NRSV) In other words, the writer of Hebrews is saying that such
traditional “sin offerings” could merely
function as “a reminder of sin;”
they couldn't really atone for sin.
Now -
John the Baptist said that Jesus is “the Lamb of God who takes
away the sin of the world.” (Notice the word sin,
rather than crime; the Chinese word 罪 can mean either/both of them!) – Our
Lord Jesus has come to redeem all of us, so the “gap” between God and the human
world can completely be filled up.
Jesus
is and has been the most
valuable “Lamb of God,” whose self-sacrifice on our behalf is a
once-and-for-all redemption; there’s no need to repeat Jesus' redeeming process. The Book of Hebrews, chapter 9, gives an
explanation: “Christ
did not go in to offer himself many times …. Instead, now when all ages of time
are nearing the end, he has appeared once and for all, to remove sin
through the sacrifice of himself.” (Hebrew
9:25-26, TEV)
In The Book of Common Prayer, we can see on
page 337 the part of The Holy Eucharist: Rite One regarding “The
Breaking of the Bread.” Different
priests may practice this section in somewhat different ways, but I think here,
the celebrant may say these words three
times: “O
Lamb of God, that takest away
the sins of the world.”
The congregation responds twice to these words by saying: “Have mercy
upon us.” But
as the 3rd and final response, the congregation will say: “Grant us
thy peace.”
This
is what I want to emphasize: Because Jesus has willingly sacrificed himself for us, God’s principles, God's justice, God's love and God's faithfulness can all
be fulfilled, and therefore, we
can be eligible to get close to Him and to enjoy His gift of peace!
4.
The Apostle St. Paul:
The
Apostle St. Paul has made a big contribution to the preaching of
the Gospel. But I'm not going to talk about his evangelical mission this morning –
I want to say something about his contribution to the Holy Eucharist, instead.
The
Holy Eucharist is based on the canonical Gospels, that is, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and yet in our Book of Common Prayer the words
concerning the bread and the cup (pages 334-335 and 362-363) are based on
St. Paul’s point of view. St. Paul’s
interpretation of the Lord’s Supper is seen in The First Book of Corinthians. (Cf. 1 Corinthians, 11:23-29)
Perhaps some members of this
congregation might feel confused
when the celebrant says the following words at the time of the Breaking of
the Bread: The celebrant says, “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for
us.”
And the people give a response, “Therefore
let us keep the feast.” (1
Corinthians 5:7b-8a, King James Version)
Why do we do so? Why does the celebrant at that point in the
Holy Eucharist say what he does? And,
why do the people of the congregation respond by saying the words that they do?
Obviously,
St. Paul wants the Christians in this New Testament era to take Holy
Communion and yet, at the same
time, to recall the Passover story of the Israelites in the
ancient times.
In those ancient times, while they were still slaves
in Egypt,
the Lord God had told those Israelites to put the blood of a lamb on the doorposts and above
the doors of the houses in which the animals were to be eaten. And,
interestingly, the Lord also said to them, “And do not
break any of the animal's bones....” (Cf. Exodus 12:46, Numbers 9:12, Psalm 34:20)
Do
you remember what happened to Jesus when he died on the cross? His legs were almost, but not, broken
by the Roman soldiers. This was done to make the scripture come
true: “Not one of
his bones will be broken.” (John
19:36, TEV)
Simply
speaking, we celebrate the Eucharist just as the people of Israel celebrated
the Passover festival. Our receiving
Holy Communion is somewhat like their eating the paschal lamb! I think it can be said that their festival,
their eating of the paschal lamb, finds its fulfillment in our receiving Holy
Communion.
III.
The hidden glory of Jesus
1. With special insight,
foresight, and clairvoyance, Jesus has extraordinary influence
on people:
According
to the canonical Gospels, Jesus didn’t do a lot of talking when telling a person to come with him as his disciple. For example, when he found Philip, Jesus simply said to him, “Follow me.” It's
important to point out that those words of Jesus were spoken in the imperative
(命令語氣)! It
was a command, not merely an invitation. And Philip did follow Jesus (1:43 John, NRSV) – and, quite naturally,
he later became one of his
twelve apostles!
Philip
took his good friend Nathanael to see Jesus.
At first, Nathanael had doubts about Jesus. But as soon as he heard Jesus say something
about him, Nathaniel cried out, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” (John 1:46-49, NRSV) Such evidence clearly shows that Jesus has special
power and is very influential.
By
the way, it’s a pity that the name of Nathanael is never seen elsewhere in the
Gospels, although Jesus cared a lot about Nathanael and Nathanael was
then very impressed by Jesus. – Was Nathanael too emotional to make a
sensible confession at that time? Did he
become less interested in Jesus later and therefore no longer followed Jesus? No
one knows. But it is very interesting
that nothing is ever again said about Nathaniel.
The important think for us to keep in mind, though,
is this:
whether in the spiritual or secular dimension, we should keep
ourselves from being too emotional, especially when we have to make an
important decision.
2. Jesus has revealed
that he is the means to bridge
the gap between Heaven and the physical
world in which we live:
Jesus
said to Nathanael, “I am telling you the truth: you will see heaven open and
God's angels going up and coming down on the Son of Man.” (John 1:51, TEV) Here, the phrase “the Son of Man” refers to
Jesus. In other places in the canonical
Gospels, we can find that Jesus uses the term “the Son of Man” when speaking of
himself.
Furthermore,
the whole sentence that Jesus said to Nathanael can be interpreted as
suggesting that Jesus would be “ascending and descending”
between God and humans. – This also is the hidden glory of our Lord Jesus!
CONCULSION
Where today can we look for and find the “Hidden Glory of Jesus?” I think you
can ask any believer that question, and you may get many different
answers. For me, the Hidden Glory of
Jesus can be found in our midst as we take Holy Communion, The Hidden Glory of
Jesus can be found in the Holy Scriptures as we meditate upon God's Word, the
Bible, and, The Hidden Glory of Jesus can be found in the heart, the soul of
the believer.
I
think it is good for all of us to have a further study of the Biblical
lessons for today, to meditate on the Collect for Today, and to gain
a better understanding of our Lord Jesus Christ’s glory – through some key
persons of the Bible that I’ve mentioned.
Jesus' Glory is hidden...in
plain sight.
I
hope what I’ve preached this morning is helpful to you, as well. – The Lord bless
you all! Amen.
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