Bridgewater, Massachusetts, April
20, 2003
Easter Sunday
Isaiah 45:20-25 There is no
other god or savior
Assemble yourselves and come
together. Draw near, you survivors
of the nations! They have no
knowledge--those who carry about
their wooden idols, and keep on
praying to a god that cannot save.
Declare and present your case; let
them take counsel together! Who
told this long ago? Who declared
it of old? Was it not I, the Lord?
There is no other god besides me,
a righteous God and a Savior;
there is none besides me.
Turn to me and be saved, all the
ends of the earth! For I am God,
and there is no other. By myself I
have sworn, from my mouth has gone
forth in righteousness a word that
will not return: "To me every knee
shall bow, every tongue shall
swear." They will say of me, "In
the Lord alone are righteousness
and strength." All who raged
against him will come to him and
be ashamed. And in the Lord all
the offspring of Israel will
triumph and glory.
There
is only one God and Savior
Today being Easter Sunday, I
suspect that there are some of you
in church today who are a little
out of practice in listening to
sermons . . . and that's all I'm
going to say about that. For your
sake, and for the sake of the
children who are staying here in
church with us, this Easter I am
breaking the sermon up into a
series of three bite-sized pieces.
I also suspect that many of you
have heard quite a few Easter
sermons focusing on the Lord's
resurrection--as Easter sermons
tend to do (for some reason). This
Easter, as we celebrate the Lord's
resurrection with hymns and
readings and choir anthems, our
sermon series will focus on the
Lord himself: who he is, and what
that means for us.
Though many Christians focus
primarily on the Gospels and the
letters of the Apostles in the New
Testament, it is only when we put
both the Old and the New
Testaments together that we can
see and appreciate who the Lord
Jesus Christ was and is.
God, in his respect for our human
freedom to think and believe as we
wish, does not bang us over the
head with the truth. Instead, he
sets it up for us just like an
Easter egg hunt: as we search
through the Scriptures, we find
nuggets of wisdom and kernels of
insight hidden here and there
throughout the mass of stories,
poetry, and prophecy. And like a
person who is very good at hiding
the Easter eggs, knowing that some
of us are good at searching out
the truth, while others need it
laid out before us a little more
clearly, the Lord places some of
these "eggs" of truth in plain
sight, while others are more
hidden and require extra effort.
One of the eggs of truth that is
hidden in plain sight is in our
reading from Isaiah. Here, the
Lord sets it right out before us.
He invites us to present our
case--if we have one--on any
alternatives to his own
declaration. And what is his
declaration? "There is no other
god besides me, a righteous God
and a savior; there is none
besides me. Turn to me and be
saved, all the ends of the earth!
For I am God, and there is no
other."
Could the Lord have said it more
plainly? There is only one God
and Savior. And it is critical
that we understand this if we are
to know who the risen Lord is.
John 20:24-28 Jesus appears to
Thomas
But Thomas (who was called the
Twin), one of the twelve, was not
with them when Jesus came. So the
other disciples told him, "We have
seen the Lord."
But he said to them, "Unless I see
the mark of the nails in his
hands, and put my finger in the
mark of the nails, and my hand in
his side, I will not believe."
A week later his disciples were
again in the house, and Thomas was
with them. Although the doors were
shut, Jesus came and stood among
them and said, "Peace be with
you."
Then he said to Thomas, "Put your
finger here and see my hands.
Reach out your hand and put it in
my side. And do not doubt, but
believe."
Thomas answered him, "My Lord and
my God!"
My Lord and my God
Here we have another one of those
Easter eggs hidden in plain sight.
The scene takes place after the
Lord's resurrection. Just before
this reading, the Lord has
appeared to the disciples in a
locked room, where they were
hiding for fear of the Jews. But
Thomas was not with them; and he
did not believe the rest of the
disciples when they said they had
seen the Lord. He needed to see
and touch for himself.
A week later, the Lord appeared to
the disciples again, and this time
Thomas was with them. Jesus spoke
to Thomas directly, inviting him
to touch him, overcome his doubt,
and believe. And with the risen
and glorified Jesus standing in
front of him, the formerly
doubting Thomas spoke the clearest
words in the New Testament about
who Jesus was: "My Lord and my
God!" he exclaimed.
I have read some traditional,
Trinitarian Christian commentaries
on this passage that attempt to
put this particular Easter egg
right back into hiding. They
attempt to explain it away, saying
that Thomas was getting just a
little bit too excited, and
blurted something out that we, on
calmer reflection, should realize
is a bit overstated. In their
view, God is God, and Jesus is his
son--a separate person who is
Lord, but not God.
I beg to differ.
I believe that Thomas knew exactly
what he was saying. After all, he
had been with the Lord in person
throughout the three years of
Jesus' public ministry. And he
certainly knew him better than any
fancy theologian who came along
two thousand years later. Besides,
if God in his providence allowed
Thomas's statement to remain in
the Gospel, can we really think of
it as a mistake?
I believe the Lord was hiding one
more Easter egg for us to find in
the Scriptures. He was telling us
the most vital message that Easter
has to give us. The Jesus that
stood before Thomas and the rest
of the disciples was not some
mystical second Person of a divine
Trinity, somehow together with,
but still separate from, the
Father and the Holy Spirit. This
Jesus, as Thomas said, is not only
our Lord but our God. This Jesus
is the one God who created us all.
This Jesus is God himself come
into the world--as the ancient
prophets had predicted--to share
our human struggles, sorrows, and
joys. This Jesus is our Lord and
our God--for as the prophet Isaiah
has told us, there is no Lord and
Savior but Jehovah God.
Doctrine of the Lord #21 The
Lord is God
Many people these days think of
the Lord [Jesus] as being an
ordinary human being like
themselves. They think only of his
human side, and not at the same
time of his divine side. Yet his
divine and human sides cannot be
separated. The Lord is God and
human at the same time. And in the
Lord, God and the human side are
not two, but one person--yes,
entirely one, just as the soul and
the body are one human being.
Our Divine
Human Lord
Over the centuries since Jesus
Christ walked the earth, a
multitude of Christian theologians
and preachers have struggled with
the question of who Jesus Christ
was and is. They have come to many
different conclusions, some of
them directly contradicting
others. And in the end, it is up
to each one of you to make up your
own mind what you believe.
My own belief is that after we
humans (in the West) had spent
seventeen centuries getting
completely off track and totally
missing the point, the Lord
finally gave Emanuel Swedenborg
the task of giving us the message
that will straighten out the
Christian world--if we are willing
to listen to it. Hidden in the
voluminous, and sometimes dry,
writings of Swedenborg, we have
the clearest, deepest, and most
beautiful expression of the
Christian message that exists
anywhere. And if you truly want to
understand who Jesus Christ is,
and what this means to you, I
would be happy to help you search
out the answers.
For some of you, this may seem
like a side issue. We all have
busy lives. Who has time to look
into fancy theology? And yet, what
is more important than knowing who
created us, and why, and what that
Divine Being has in mind for us?
Does it really make sense to spend
all our lives providing for our
brief time on earth--a few
decades, a century or so at
most--but have not prepared for
the life we will live forever
afterwards? And how meaningful is
even our brief life here on earth
if we cannot look to some deeper
meaning and higher calling that
simply eating, sleeping, working,
and getting what pleasure we can
out of life?
Our beliefs about God will
determine the course of our lives.
If we don't believe in God at all,
our life will be a materialistic
one, limited to the things of this
earth. If we believe in a distant
God, an angry God, a punishing
God, our life will be lived in
fear and trembling, always trying
to appease a potentially hostile
omnipotent being that we cannot
control.
Our church offers something far
more beautiful, healing, and
soul-satisfying. We believe in a
God of pure love and pure wisdom,
who created the universe and each
one of us in it to give us love
and joy. When God saw that we had
wandered so far into error, pain,
conflict, and sorrow that we would
never find our way back, the
Creator of the universe came to us
personally to show us the way back
to life and love. God came to us
as a human being, Jesus Christ,
and lived among us. And now the
Lord God Jesus Christ is ready and
waiting for each one of us to
overcome our doubts and say, "My
Lord and my God." Amen.
Original
Artwork by Greg Olson © 2003
Used with permission
Title:
Keeper of the Gate
Music:
Dawn's First Light
© 2002 Bruce DeBoer
Used with
Permission
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