There’s a line that Alexander Hamilton sings at various points in the hit Broadway musical that bears his name that stood out to me: “I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory.” He sings it early in the musical, in the signature song “My Shot,” where he sings,
I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory
When’s it gonna’ get me?
In my sleep, seven feet ahead of me?
If I see it comin’ do I run or do I let it be?
He sings it again in the song “Yorktown” after he receives his first military command from General George Washington and he wonders if he’ll survive the battle and make it back home to his expecting wife. And he sings it again in his final monologue at the end, in the scene of his duel with Aaron Burr, when the action slows down after Burr fires his fateful fatal shot. “I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory.”
Perhaps this line struck me so because the first time I saw the musical was the first weekend of July when it was released on Disney+. By that time, three and a half months into this pandemic, I had done more imagining of death – my own and the death of others – than I probably have my entire life. News reports of people dying in hospital ICU rooms, isolated, completely alone, without the comfort and support of family and friends and even clergy were gut-wrenching to me. Stories of people much younger than I am, more active than I am, dying within days of contracting this novel virus have been harrowing to hear.
And then, a few weeks ago, when I developed a fever that didn’t subside for several days, that got so high I would shake uncontrollably, and I had to wait a week for my COVID test results to come back because they misspelled my name – I mean, how many ways are there to spell “David”? It turns out it was an allergic reaction to some antibiotics I was on for something else, but it was still very scary. I was quarantined, isolated, and I began to contemplate my own mortality, to imagine death. I actually started getting all my electronic passwords and essential paperwork together in case Tracy needed it and to think about what I’d want her and the boys to hear from me if it started getting bad.
Now maybe this all sounds a bit too overdramatic. But maybe this has something to do with why this particular line from “Hamilton” has lodged itself in my mind: “I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory.”
But I also remember one night, in the midst of one of my feverish episodes, recalling a line from the scriptures. It’s from Paul’s letter to the Romans, chapter six, verse three: “Do you not know,” Paul asks, “that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?”
Don’t you know Graybeal – or Graybill, or Greybel, or Grable, or however you spell it – that if you’ve been baptized, you’ve already died in Christ?
Baptism, I’ve learned over the years from preaching about it and from teaching about it in confirmation class, is a symbol for a lot of things: new life, new birth, a new beginning, a washing away of sin, a fresh start, a clean slate, becoming part of a new family, the church, the body of Christ. All of this is good and right and true, of course. But it’s also a symbol of dying and rising with Christ. And maybe that’s an aspect of baptism we don’t preach about or teach about enough.
And I get it. When that blushing couple standing there at the font at the front of the church hands off their cherubic child to you to be baptized, you don’t really want to go into a dissertation on Paul’s sixth chapter in his letter to the Romans where he describes our baptism as our burial with Christ into his death so that we might also be raised with him to walk in newness of life. It wouldn’t really fit the jubilant mood of the day to talk about how in our baptisms we are united with Christ in his death so that we might be united with him in his resurrection. The parents might wear a frowny face for the photographers during that bit. And we certainly don’t want to practice full immersion for that little tiny infant, though I have heard of things like that happening.
But I do think the Apostle Paul is on to something here that’s worth our pondering, whether we’re in the midst of a pandemic or not. In this passage, Paul’s trying to tell us that sin no longer has dominion over us if we are baptized into Christ. As Will Shelton used to say when he was serving here at Keith, we don’t live there anymore; now we live in the land of grace. As Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of Romans 6:1-10 in The Message puts it,
when we went under the water, we left the old country of sin behind; when we came up out of the water, we entered into the new country of grace – a new life in a new land! That’s what baptism into the life of Jesus means. When we are lowered into the water, it is like the burial of Jesus; when we are raised up out of the water, it is like the resurrection of Jesus…If we get included in Christ’s sin-conquering death, we also get included in his life-saving resurrection. We know that when Jesus was raised from the dead it was a signal of the end of death-as-the-end. Never again will death have the last word.
So what Paul is saying here is if we have been baptized in Christ, we have already died to the ultimate power of sin over our lives, which is death. So in our baptism, we have already died to death. We have already gotten death out of the way and behind us. Can you imagine a more powerful or profound claim than that?
Frank Honeycutt is a Lutheran pastor who has given this some thought. He suggests that in addition to our celebrating our birthdays every year, we should celebrate our baptismal anniversaries as our deathdays, as a reminder that we’ve already died, that our deaths are already behind us. He describes being born on May 15, 1957 down in Chattanooga, but he writes, “I died on a hot summer Sunday, July 28 of that same year, when Pastor Jim Cadwallader poured water on my bald baby head and informed all listening at Ascension Lutheran that I was a Christian. I died that day and have been swimming around in the grace of God ever since (sometimes dog-paddling, I’ll admit.)” (“Buried with Christ,” Christian Century, July 29, 2019)
So when was your deathday? Mine was June 2, 1974 at First United Methodist Church in Marion, Virginia. Rev. Wilmer Robbins was my pastor. I don’t really remember it. After all, I was only 8 months old. But I do try to mark that day every time it rolls around in the calendar.
I don’t know if I’ll ever go so far as to call it my deathday. But maybe that day can be a reminder to me that I don’t have to imagine death so much because in my baptism it is already a memory. And so if at our baptisms we have already died to death, then maybe the question now becomes how shall we live?
The life of the Apostle Peter was one of pride and prejudice. During his time with Jesus, we see Peter wrestling with his pride. After Jesus’s resurrection and the birth and growth of the early church, we see that Peter also had to work on his prejudice.
When we last looked at Peter, he was on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Three times, Jesus had asked Peter if he loved him. And three times, Peter said yes. And three times, Jesus replied with either “Feed my lambs” or “Feed my sheep.”
But then Jesus gives Peter another warning. He says, “I tell you the truth, when you were young, you were able to do as you liked; you dressed yourself and went wherever you wanted to go. But when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and others will dress you and take you where you don’t want to go.” Apparently, Jesus pauses to let that sink in and then once again says, “Follow me.”
Peter, still wanting to have the last word in, looks over at the Beloved Disciple and asks, “What about him, Lord?” Jesus swiftly replies, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? As for you, follow me.” Once again, Peter is hearing Jesus say, “Follow me.”
A few weeks later, the Peter of Pentecost is boldly preaching to his fellow Jews from many lands. He boldly proclaims Jesus to be the risen Messiah and Lord. He reminds his audience of God’s promise to the prophet Joel that he would pour out his Spirit on all people, men and women alike. Did Peter fully understand that promise at Pentecost Sunday? Probably not. When Peter said that God would pour his Spirit on all people, he unconsciously thought all Jewish people. That was a radical idea. In the past, the Spirit of the Lord had only fallen on a select few individuals. But Peter did not realize just how radical it really was. It was like the Founding Fathers of the United States agreeing that “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The idea that a farmer was equal to a king was radical in 1776. But it took Benjamin Franklin, Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Susan B. Anthony, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr, Rosa Parks, and many, many more to push the nation to more fully embrace that idea.
In short, Peter was prejudiced. He prejudged people. If a person was not Jewish, that person was not holy. So the Holy Spirit had to work on Peter. In Act 8, we see Peter and John laying hands and praying over the Samaritans that they might receive the Holy Spirit. The Jewish people saw the Samaritans as being half-breeds. But the Samaritans had very similar beliefs to the Jewish people. To an outsider, Samaritans and Jews were both off the same branch of human family tree. So it was a big step, but not a giant leap for Peter.
The giant leap for Peter comes in Acts 10. Peter is asked to come to the house of Cornelius, a Roman centurion of the Italian Regiment. Peter had several good reasons not to visit Cornelius. Politically, Cornelius is part of the occupying Roman army in Israel. Genetically, Cornelius is a Gentile. It was not lawful for Peter to even enter his house. Peter explained to Cornelius that “You know it is against our laws for a Jewish man to enter a Gentile home like this or to associate with you. But God has shown me that I should no longer think of anyone as impure or unclean.” When Cornelius gives his testimony, Peter is moved and says, “I see very clearly that God shows no favoritism. In every nation he accepts those who fear him and do what is right. This is the message of Good News for the people of Israel—that there is peace with God through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all.” Once again that the Holy Spirit enters the scene, falling upon Cornelius and his family. Peter asks his friends, “Can anyone object to their being baptized, now that they have received the Holy Spirit just as we did?” In Acts 11, Peter is criticized by some of the Jewish Christians for his actions, but he stands firm.
In Acts 12, Peter is imprisoned and placed on death row by King Herod Agrippa I. He miraculously escapes in the middle of the night and leaves. He eventually travels to Antioch, Turkey where he continues to fellowship with both Jews and Gentiles. While in Antioch, some Jewish Christian representatives show up – almost like an inspection. In a moment of weakness, Peter stops eating with his Gentile brothers and sisters. He segregates himself from them. His backslidden behavior even has Barnabas following his example. This angers the Apostle Paul, and he calls Peter out on it. This leads to the great church council of Acts 15.
At the church council, Peter regains his courage and speaks boldly. He says, “Brothers, you all know that God chose me from among you some time ago to preach to the Gentiles so that they could hear the Good News and believe. God knows people’s hearts, and he confirmed that he accepts Gentiles by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us. He made no distinction between us and them, for he cleansed their hearts through faith. So why are you now challenging God by burdening the Gentile believers with a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors were able to bear? We believe that we are all saved the same way, by the undeserved grace of the Lord Jesus.”
As Yogi Berra would say, it was deja vu again. In a moment of weakness, Peter had denied Jesus, but a few weeks later he boldly proclaimed the risen Christ. In a moment of weakness, Peter had segregated himself from Gentile believers, but a short time later he proclaims them as fellow Christians.
The book of Acts is silent about Peter from this point on. Reading 1st Peter, we learn that Peter returned to modern day Turkey and ministered to the Jewish people there in five different provinces. Then he travels to Rome to encourage the believers there. Rome was the headquarters of a pagan empire. Peter gives Rome the nickname of Babylon – another notorious pagan empire. But he is not alone in Rome. Silas, who famously spent a rocky evening in prison with the Apostle Paul, is with him. And so is Mark, whom Peter looks upon as a son. Perhaps Peter is less critical of Mark’s past shortcomings because he is all to aware of his own.
Peter is now an old man old. He is reflecting on his long life. When we read 1st Peter, his letter written in Rome to the Jewish believers in Turkey, delivered by Silas, we hear echoes of the words of Jesus and how they related to Peter’s life.
Peter reflects on that precious moment when Jesus said, “Now I say to you that you are Peter (which means ‘rock’), and upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it.” He reflects how he naively thought that he was the rock that the church would be built on. Now he writes, “You are coming to Christ, who is the living cornerstone of God’s temple. He was rejected by people, but he was chosen by God for great honor. And you are living stones that God is building into his spiritual temple.”
Peter reflects on his pride and his condescending attitude that he used to have to his fellow disciples and how Jesus wanted him to encourage and strengthen his brothers. So he writes, “Finally, all of you should be of one mind. Sympathize with each other. Love each other as brothers and sisters. Be tenderhearted, and keep a humble attitude.”
Peter then reflects on how Jesus had commanded him to feed both his lambs and sheep. So he writes to the church leaders, “Care for the flock that God has entrusted to you. Watch over it willingly, not grudgingly—not for what you will get out of it, but because you are eager to serve God. Don’t lord it over the people assigned to your care, but lead them by your own good example. And when the Great Shepherd appears, you will receive a crown of never-ending glory and honor.”
Peter then reflects about how Jesus had warned him that Thursday night that Satan was after him and to pray and keep watch. So he writes, “Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.”
Peter’s words to the Jewish Christians in Turkey are timeless. But his timing for being in Rome could have not been worse. A terrible fire broke out in Rome, devasting large swaths of the city. The Roman citizens turned their anger against Emperor Nero. The rumor was that he had purposely started the fire to clear land to build a palace. One rumor was that Nero played the harp while the flames consumed Rome. Thus, we have the saying in our language about “fiddling, while Rome burns.” Nero needed a way to deflect attention. He needed a scapegoat. What group was small enough to be rounded up, but large enough to be known? A group despised by the average Roman? The answer: Christians. They were disliked by Jews and Pagans alike. Nero began rounding up Christians, killing them for spectators, and burning them alive in the evening to light up his gardens.
This was the tense atmosphere that faced Peter when he preached to the Roman Christians. What was Peter thinking when he looked out into that crowd of Roman believers? Did he remember how he had hesitated to even enter the house of Cornelius the Italian centurion? Now he was a pilgrim in the land of Italy accepting their hospitality. And what faith these Romans had! Peter knew Jesus personally and yet had denied even knowing him. These Roman Christians had never even met Jesus, and yet they loved him and were willing to die for him. And what could he say at a time when believers where being prosecuted, persecuted, and executed by the pagans? Perhaps the imagery of Rome being on fire was in Peter’s mind. Perhaps the thoughts of fellow Christians being burned alive for Nero’s pleasure was burned into Peter’s soul. No false promises of the health and wealth gospel. Perhaps Peter preached a solemn sermon of sincerity and hope like this:
“It is by his great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation, and we have a priceless inheritance—an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay. And through your faith, God is protecting you by his power until you receive this salvation, which is ready to be revealed on the last day for all to see. So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while. These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world. You love him even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him now, you trust him; and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy. The reward for trusting him will be the salvation of your souls.”
And then he continued with, “So then, since Christ suffered physical pain, you must arm yourselves with the same attitude he had, and be ready to suffer, too. For if you have suffered physically for Christ, you have finished with sin.” And then he concluded with one last reference to fire, “Dear friends, don’t be surprised at the fiery trials you are going through, as if something strange were happening to you. Instead, be very glad—for these trials make you partners with Christ in his suffering, so that you will have the wonderful joy of seeing his glory when it is revealed to all the world.…For the time has come for judgment, and it must begin with God’s household. And if judgment begins with us, what terrible fate awaits those who have never obeyed God’s Good News?…So if you are suffering in a manner that pleases God, keep on doing what is right, and trust your lives to the God who created you, for he will never fail you.”
Peter no longer saw second-class citizens of the kingdom of heaven. When he looked at the Roman Christians, he saw what he called “a chosen people…a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s very own possession…called out of the darkness into God’s wonderful light.” He loved them, and they loved him. Out of their great love for Peter, perhaps the Christians of Rome urged Peter to flee.
According to a beloved tradition, Peter is leaving Rome when he meets Jesus who is going to Rome. “Where are you going, Lord?” Peter asks Jesus. Jesus replies, “I am going to Rome to be crucified again.” Peter understands the meaning and returns to Rome where he is arrested by the Roman authorities. Doubtless, Emperor Nero was thrilled to have captured the Big Fisherman in his net. But Nero would have been surprised to know that Peter had written to the Jewish Christians that they “for the Lord’s sake, submit to all human authority—whether the king as head of state, or the officials he has appointed.” Regardless, Peter is sentenced to death by crucifixion as part of the persecution following the great fire. According to another tradition, Peter asks to be crucified upside down, as he is not worthy the die the same way as Jesus.
Are these traditions true? If not, they deserve to be so. In director John Ford’s classic The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, the newspaper editortells the Jimmy Stewart character, “This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” But should we print the legend?
Perhaps Peter did meet Jesus. Perhaps he had a vision of Jesus. Or perhaps, as he was reflecting on his long life, he remembered what Jesus had repeatedly said throughout their time together, and those two words kept coming back to him.
“Follow me, and I’ll make you fishers of men.”
“If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me.”
“I tell you the truth, when you were young, you were able to do as you liked; you dressed yourself and went wherever you wanted to go. But when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and others will dress you and take you where you don’t want to go. Follow me.”
“If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? As for you, follow me.”
Follow me.
At last Peter had a chance to fulfill his old promise to Jesus. He would go to prison and die for him. In doing so, he was an example of faith to the Roman Christians. As he hung on the cross, perhaps upside down, Peter realized that his life had come full circle. He started off proud, but now he was humble, “even unto death upon the cross.” Full of prejudice, he had once hesitated to risk his reputation by entering the house of a Roman. But now he had risked his life to minister to his fellow Roman believers. He had fed the lambs and sheep of the Christian faith – both Jew and Roman. The proud and prejudiced Peter had died long before. The humble and accepting Peter was about to live his life even more abundantly. He had denied himself. He had taken up his cross. He was following Jesus.
In Acts, we see Peter struggling with the idea of opening the doors of the church to Gentile believers. What groups of people do modern Christians struggle with accepting? What leads Peter to change his mind and heart concerning Gentile believers? How can we apply that lesson today?
What are we to make of Peter when he backslides and segregates himself away from Gentile believers, refusing to eat with them? Are there people in your life that you would not be comfortable sitting and dining with in public, whether at a restaurant or the company’s break area? Were your parents or grandparents forbidden to dine with other groups of people when they were growing up? Why is eating together so important?
When we read 1st Peter, we see that Peter has reflected on his long life. Why is it important that we reflect on our lives?
In 1st Peter we read warnings about fiery trials, but also words like glad, joy, and rejoice. How does Peter’s attitude toward difficult times for the believer compare to what we are often told what a believer should expect?
Imagine being Cornelius the centurion and learning that Peter had arrived in Rome, only to be executed a short time later. What thoughts would run through your mind? Can you think of any other missionaries who have died on the mission field?
We find ourselves these days in the thick of a particularly thorny election year. We are swimming – some might say drowning – in a sea of politics. One of our major national political party’s conventions is being held this week, and the other’s is next week. Politics is all around us. We can’t escape it. We can’t watch tv or check our social media without being bombarded by yet another political advertisement (probably the same one we saw no more than 10 minutes ago!)
I grew up being told that there are two things you don’t talk about in polite conversation – religion and politics. I’ve already woefully failed avoiding the first through my life’s vocation, but then there’s always politics, right?
Politics is obviously one of the subjects of the hit Broadway musical “Hamilton” which we’ve been exploring in our sermons this month for its gospel themes and messages. It’s the story of one of our country’s Founding Fathers whose face can be found on our ten-dollar bills. The story traces some of the political differences that arose in our nation’s infancy. Alexander Hamilton represents the Federalists who valued a large central government, a national bank (which Hamilton created and oversaw as Secretary of the Treasury), and a robust international market. My fellow native Virginians Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, on the other hand, represent the Democratic-Republicans who valued more localized control of a more agrarian society.
These political differences are vigorously portrayed in the two “Cabinet Battle” songs and the song “Washington On Your Side,” which Andrew reflected on last week. George Washington, in fact, foresaw some of the bitter partisan fighting and tried his best to warn against it. But the 1804 duel between Hamilton and his longtime “frenemy” Aaron Burr shows the deadly depths to which partisan political polarization can go.
This duel is probably the main thing most of us most remember about Alexander Hamilton from our high school US history classes. And certainly, when it comes to Aaron Burr, this duel is what we most remem-Burr. Their duel is portrayed in “The World Was Wide Enough,” the next-to-last song of the three-and-a-half-hour musical. Burr realizes too late after firing his own gun that Hamilton has fired his gun upward – Hamilton who has sung he’s “not throwing away my shot” actually does so in the end – and Burr cries “wait!” He watches as they carry Hamilton’s mortally wounded body away. At the end of the song, a remorseful Burr reflects,
I survived, but I paid for it
Now I’m the villain in your history
I was too young and blind to see
I should’ve known
I should’ve known the world was wide enough for both Hamilton and me
The world was wide enough for both Hamilton and me.
Perhaps this is a message that the musical’s author Lin-Manuel Miranda means for us to realize, to take to heart, from across the span of over 200 years, in our own days of deeply divisive political polarization, before it’s too late. Just like the world was wide enough for both Hamilton and Burr, for both Federalists and Democratic-Republicans back then, so too might the world still be wide enough for those who go by the name Democrat, those who go by the name Republican, those who go by the name Independent and those who just can’t wait for it all to just go on by!
In one of the books that has been a resource for us in this sermon series on “Hamilton,” the author Jeff Hamling quotes the Rev. Tim Keller, who is a popular author and founding pastor of the Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. Keller wrote in a 2018 op-ed in the New York Times, entitled “How Do Christians Fit into the Two-Party System?”
“As Christians we should never identify the Christian faith with one political party. No single party captures all the social ethics of God’s kingdom. The democrats emphasize some better. The republicans emphasize others better. To reduce the ethics of the kingdom of God to a single party is to reduce the kingdom of God. The church needs both.” (qtd. Jeff Hamling, The Gospel According to Hamilton: Seeing God in the Broadway Musical, p. 46.)
I like the way he puts that. I like the way he reminds us that neither political party completely captures what the kingdom of God is all about. Each of them may glimpse different aspects, but neither of them fully represents the portrait of the kingdom of God that Jesus paints for us in the Gospels. That’s why we need different perspectives, different viewpoints, different angles onto the same inexhaustible reality. The church is wide enough for that!
And here’s the thing. Like Burr, we should’ve known that already. How? From Jesus. According to the Gospels, the kingdom of God was the main subject of every one of Jesus’ sermons, and it is far bigger, broader and wider than any one political party or perspective. The kingdom of God transcends, goes above and beyond, our political parties and their platforms and perspectives.
Now, to be sure, the kingdom of God is a political construct. That is to say, it is represents a certain way of forming and shaping the human community, the “polis,” which is the ancient Greek word for a city-state which is where we get the word “political.” Athens, you will remember, was one of the original Greek city-states. So the kingdom of God is what the polis, what the human community, would look like if the virtues and values of God were to be realized among us. “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,” we pray as Jesus taught us, “on earth, as it is in heaven.” So whenever we pray that prayer, we are praying for the transcendent kingdom of God to come and completely transform the kingdoms of this world.
But if you were to look at how Jesus describes the kingdom of God, you would be hard-pressed to line up a whole lot of it with either of the major political party platforms. One of the areas in the scriptures where Jesus talks about the kingdom of God most explicitly is the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). But how does “give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you” (Matthew 5:42) translate exactly into economic policy and entitlement programs? How does “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44) translate into a foreign policy platform identifiable with either party? And we’re not even out of Matthew chapter 5 yet!
Jesus’ description of life in the kingdom of God in the Gospels simply doesn’t correspond very closely with what we’ll be hearing in the political conventions this week or next week. That’s not to say that some of the folks we’ll be hearing from aren’t sincere believers, and it’s most definitely not to say that Jesus wasn’t concerned – and wouldn’t want us to be concerned as well – with some of the same topics we’ll be hearing about – the sick, the poor, the hungry, the unemployed, the undocumented. But just like Jesus’ talk about the kingdom of God didn’t exactly square with what the leading religious and political parties of his day were promoting – the rigorous Pharisees, the elitist Sadducees, the escapist Essenes, the activist Zealots – neither does his kingdom-talk entirely jive with everything in either of the Democratic or Republican party platforms.
But I do find it intriguing how people from widely divergent political perspectives nonetheless admire and enjoy this musical. For example, former Democratic President Barack Obama once joked that admiring “Hamilton” was the only thing he and former Republican Vice-President Dick Cheney actually agreed on! And you can see how people from different political perspectives can find different things in the musical to appreciate. Some might point to Hamilton’s story of pulling himself up by the bootstraps. Others might point to the musical’s multiracial cast and its attentiveness to the contributions of immigrants, of whom Hamilton was one. Different people from different political perspectives like different things about the same musical! Might not the same thing be said about different people from different perspectives being drawn to the same Messiah?
One of the things I have long enjoyed and appreciated about Keith Church – ever since I was first appointed here as the associate pastor back in 2001 – is that it is big enough and wide enough to embrace and encompass members from a variety of political, theological, and even collegiate athletic perspectives (there’s been a few Georgia and Alabama and otherwise fans in the mix over the years! You know who you are!) who nevertheless are all still drawn to Jesus, who are still compelled by Jesus, who love Jesus, and who want to love him more.
Keith Church has always had folks who’ve voted in all sorts of ways and who see things all across the spectrum, and yet there they are singing in the choir together, or sitting in Sunday school class together, or serving on that ministry team together, or bagging up food for Nourish One Child together. Somehow folks here seem to be able – not to set aside these different perspectives as if they don’t really matter – but to bring those different perspectives into the conversation so that everyone is invited to listen a little bit closer, to think a little bit deeper, to try to understand a little bit better and broader, and to speak a little gentler and humbler.
This is the same thing I’ve long appreciated about the United Methodist Church, that it’s a denomination big enough and wide enough to include and incorporate different political and theological perspectives from all around the world. I remember learning years ago that the United Methodist Church claims both former President George W. Bush and former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton as both active and devoted members. I’m proud of that fact. I’m honored to be a part of a denomination like that.
So, as Burr sang, it’s vital for us to remember that the world is indeed wide enough. The church is indeed wide enough. It’s vital for us to remember that, because sometimes we, like Burr, might be tempted in the heat of the moment, in the furor of all the fuss and the fighting, to forget it, when all along we should’ve known. We should’ve known from Jesus. We should’ve known from Paul, who reminded us that our deepest and most fundamental unity is in Christ: “There is no longer Jew or Greek (racial distinctions); there is no longer slave or free (socioeconomic distinctions); there is no longer male or female (gender distinctions), for all of you are on in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28; thanks Jeff Hamling, p. 47). The Lord indeed is wide enough!
But we also could have come to know it from one of the ancient monks who lived out in the desert way back in the 6th century. His name was Dorotheos. He lived in the area of Gaza, which is nowadays a Palestinian territory between the Sinai peninsula and Israel. It’s a hotly contested, politically polarized place today. But in one of his writings Dorotheos envisioned a circle, with God in Christ occupying the center, and all of humanity scattered around the edge of the circle.
Picture a bicycle wheel where God in Christ is the axle around which it turns, and we are each a nob on the big tire. If we could all somehow make our rubbery way down one of the spokes toward the axle in the center, then whether we realize it or not, another thing is also happening at the exact same time – we’re also moving toward one another.
Even if we started out at exactly opposite sides of the circle, coming from completely different perspectives, if we are growing in our faith, if we are making our way down the spoke and moving toward Christ at the center, we’ll come to discover we’re also moving toward one another. And perhaps we’ll also realize that the wheel was big enough and wide enough for all of us, all along.
Have you ever wrestled with pride? Or with prejudice? One of the most lovable, irritating characters in the New Testament wrestled with both. His name was Simon Peter.
Simon and his brother Andrew were the sons of Jonah, a fisherman of the Sea of Galilee. Their two friends, partners, and competitors were two brothers James and John, known for their anger issues. When Jesus of Nazareth comes along, he calls both sets of brothers to be disciples – to be “fishers of men.” “Follow me” will be a theme throughout the life of Simon Peter. For some reason, he chooses three of them, Peter, James, and John, to be part of his inner circle. Sorry, Andrew. Jesus sees something in Simon and gives him a nickname – Peter, the rock.
We must not judge Peter for wrestling with pride. He was a man of such conviction and loyalty that the only way Satan could go after him was through pride. After all, Jesus did give him a personal nickname. He did walk on water, albeit briefly. And such was his confidence with Jesus, they he felt freely, perhaps too freely, to speak up and ask questions. When Jesus said that it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, Peter is the one who speaks up and asks, “Lord, who then can be saved?”. When Jesus tells the crowds that they must eat of his flesh and drink of his blood, many of them forsake Jesus. When Jesus asks the twelve if they, too, will abandon him, Peter speaks up and says “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life.” Even at the Mount of Transfiguration, Peter is the first to speak giving advice.
The highlight of Peter’s time with Jesus came when the disciples were in the Gentile city of Caesarea Philippi. Jesus asks his disciples about public opinion. “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” Survey says: John the Baptist (raised from the dead), Elijah, Jeremiah, or another prophet. Very well then. Jesus then takes it a step further, “But who do you say I am?” Simon Peter responds, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Jesus’s reply is worth quoting at length. “You are blessed, Simon son of John, because my Father in heaven has revealed this to you. You did not learn this from any human being. Now I say to you that you are Peter (which means ‘rock’), and upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it. And I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. Whatever you forbid on earth will be forbidden in heaven, and whatever you permit on earth will be permitted in heaven.”
What a compliment! And what a dangerous situation to be in. Jesus is complimenting Peter and making a pun with his name to show a difference. It would be like saying, “Reverend Andrew Lay would make a great lay speaker.” Most people would immediately see the paradox in such a statement. “A Reverend Lay” would be a clergy person, not a “lay speaker.” In the English translation, we do not quite catch the nuance of the wording, but using our trusty Strong’s Concordance, we can substitute the Greek words and better see the similarities and differences. “Now I say to you that you are Petros, and upon this petra I will build my church.” The word petra is the feminine form of the word Petros. So Peter is NOT the rock upon which Jesus would build his church. Peter’s confession is what would be the foundation of Jesus’s church. When a group of people comes together and believe that Jesus is both the Messiah promised to the Jewish people and the Son of the Living God, you have the foundations of a church. They may disagree on church structure, baptism, the Lord’s Supper, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, etc, etc. But that confession of faith is essential.
But I suspect that Peter may have misunderstood what his role would be. Just a few verses later, we read that “From then on Jesus began to tell his disciples plainly that it was necessary for him to go to Jerusalem, and that he would suffer many terrible things at the hands of the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but on the third day he would be raised from the dead.”
Once again, Peter has something to say. “But Peter took him aside and began to reprimand him for saying such things. ‘Heaven forbid, Lord,’ he said. ‘This will never happen to you!’ Jesus turned to Peter and said, ‘Get away from me, Satan! You are a dangerous trap to me. You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.’ Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me.’” Don’t let that last sentence slip by you, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me.”
Peter follows Jesus into the capital city of Jerusalem on the triumphant Palm Sunday. That Thursday night, Jesus is sharing a meal with his disciples. As the evening wears on, he begins making some startling statements. “Tonight, all of you will desert me.” Once again, Peter speaks up, “Even if everyone else deserts you, I will never desert you.” We see in this sentence both the worst and best of Peter. We see his bragging spirit and his condescending attitude to his fellow disciples, but we also see his great love for Jesus. Jesus responds with compassion and seriousness. He does not call him Peter, but Simon. It is Jesus’s subtle way of telling Peter to take this warning seriously, “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift each of you like wheat. But I have pleaded in prayer for you, Simon, that your faith should not fail. So when you have repented and turned to me again, strengthen your brothers.” Just as the Lord and Satan discussed the righteous Job, Jesus and Satan have discussed Simon Peter. Jesus is playing a spiritual chess match. He will allow Satan to go after Peter as a way of breaking his pride. But afterwards, Peter will not be condescending to his fellow disciples. He will strengthen his fellow disciples. But Peter, being Peter, argues with Jesus. “Lord, I am ready to go to prison with you, and even to die with you.” Peter is still not grasping the seriousness of the situation. Jesus warns him, “Peter, let me tell you something. Before the rooster crows tomorrow morning, you will deny three times that you even know me.”
The next 24 hours were the worst in Peter’s life. Jesus specifically tells his inner three disciples that his soul was sorrowful even unto death. They should pray, lest they yield into temptation. Peter, however, falls asleep. His spirit was willing, but his flesh was weak. When Peter is rudely awaken, he finds himself in a nightmare. The treasurer and Jesus’s friend, Judas Iscariot, has outed them to the temple authorities. Peter takes matters into his own hands. He pulls out his sword. They will fight their way out. But then he is rebuked….by Jesus. “Put away your sword, Peter. Those who live by the sword shall die by the sword.” In a strange turn of events, Jesus, the wanted criminal, takes charge of the scene of arrest. He heals the servant who was cut by Peter’s sword. He orders the temple police department to not arrest his disciples but let them go. Thus, Jesus is bound and led away. Peter follows Jesus….but from a distance. And as he follows, the seriousness of the situation begins to dawn on him. It was easy to speak about going to prison and dying for Jesus back in the Upper Room celebrating Passover. But now as Jesus is being brought to the temple, Peter is having second thoughts.
When they get to the temple, the Beloved Disciple enters in. He has security clearance. He sees Peter standing outside, and uses his security clearance to get Peter inside. As Peter enters, the gatekeeper questions him. “You’re not one of that man’s disciples, are you?” she asks. Denial one. Strike one. Peter decides to stay outside by the fire, where he can be near the action, but not too close to the action. One of them men at the fire asks, “You’re not one of his disciples, are you?” Strike two. And it almost worked. But another man there was a servant of the high priest. He was also a relative of the man whom Peter had attacked in the garden. “Didn’t I see you out there in the olive grove with Jesus?” he demands. Realizing the danger that he was in, Peter denies that even knows Jesus. Strike three. The rooster crows.
In words that break the heart, Dr. Luke writes, “At that moment the Lord turned and looked at Peter. Suddenly, the Lord’s words flashed through Peter’s mind: ‘Before the rooster crows tomorrow morning, you will deny three times that you even know me.’ And Peter left the courtyard, weeping bitterly.”
Peter was ashamed of himself. How stupid he was! He could have run and left Jerusalem. Lazarus lived in nearby Bethany. Or he could have stayed by Jesus’s side during his trial as his loyal friend. Instead, he chose a middle course that dishonored his friend and Lord. Most likely, he did attend the crucifixion from a far distance and was witness to Jesus’s suffering. It was a painful Friday and a long sad Saturday. No Easter Egg hunting that Saturday.
But everything changed Sunday morning. Some of the women followers of Jesus went to his tomb to ensure him a proper burial. It wasn’t much, but it was the least they could do for their Master. When they arrive, they found the stone rolled away, the tomb empty, and two messengers from God. The messengers tell them, “Don’t be alarmed. You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead! Look, this is where they laid his body. Now go and tell his disciples, including Peter, that Jesus is going ahead of you to Galilee. You will see him there, just as he told you before he died.”
The messengers specifically mention Peter. He was still a disciple, even after his disastrous performance on Thursday night. When the women find the disciples who were hiding, they tell them the good news. The disciples did not believe them. Women’s fantasies they thought. “However, Peter jumped up and ran to the tomb to look. Stooping, he peered in and saw the empty linen wrappings; then he went home again, wondering what had happened.” If you doubt the Resurrection, you are in good company. Even Peter did not quite know what to make of the empty tomb.
What happened next was a game changer for Peter. Interestingly, we do not have an account of it, but it is mentioned twice in passing. In his letter to the Corinthian church, the Apostle Paul mentions that the risen Jesus appeared to Peter. In his gospel, Dr. Luke writes about how two weary travelers on the road to Emmaus unexpectedly have a conversation and meal with the risen Jesus. When they realize what had just happened, they hurry back to Jerusalem to tell the tell the disciples. The disciples and other believers reply, “The Lord has really risen! He has appeared to Peter.” We do not what Jesus said to Peter, but in 1980 Christian artist Don Francisco won two Dove awards for songwriter and song of the year for his masterpiece, “He’s Alive.” The song is written from the perspective of Peter who is dealing with guilt and shame, having denied that he even knew Jesus three times. Sitting alone, he is confused by the empty tomb. Then Jesus appears and embraces him. That is when Peter realizes that Jesus is alive, and he is forgiven.
We follow this theme of forgiveness and reconciliation to the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Once again, Jesus has provided a miraculous catch for his fisherman friends. Peter, wasting no time, jumps into the water and swims ashore, where he finds Jesus cooking breakfast. There in front of the other disciples, Jesus asks Peter three times, “Do you love me?” Jesus was symbolically acknowledging Peter’s three public denials and replacing them with three public affirmations of Peter’s love. Each time, Peter responds in the positive. And each time, Jesus tells Peter to either feed his lambs or to feed his sheep.
Like fishing boats drifting away from shore, Peter’s pride was drifting away. But Jesus was not done with Peter, just yet. The next chapter in Peter’s life would deal with his prejudice, and the beautiful way that it would be conquered….by following Jesus.
When we read an overview of Peter’s life, we see that he had some very dramatic ups and downs. What have been the ups in your life? The downs? Do you think that the Christian life can be compared to a roller coaster ride? How so?
Throughout the Gospels, Peter is usually the first to speak up and say something. Is this a good habit or bad habit to have? Or does it require wisdom? Have there been times that you have spoken too quickly? Or too slowly?
A favorite saying is that pride comes before the fall. Can you remember a time when you suffered a fall because of your pride?
Have you felt that God was disappointed in you? In the Passion narratives, Jesus is not disappointed that Peter had denied him. He had warned him that it was gong to happened. But Jesus was saddened to see his friend behave in such a manner. What was an occasion where you felt that you had disappointed God? Does knowing that you cannot disappoint an all-knowing God give you comfort?
At the end of the Gospels, Jesus reaches out to Peter and gives him a second chance. Is there someone in your life who could use a second chance?
In the musical Hamilton there is “a cabinet battle,” which kind of mimics a rap battle, that takes place between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson is trying to convince President George Washington to provide aid and troops to France who is on the verge of war with England. Hamilton, on the other hand, is trying to convince Washington to refrain from jumping into another war. Washington ends up siding with Hamilton on the matter. This debate leads Jefferson to tell his nemesis Hamilton: “You’re nothing without Washington behind you.”[1]
This leads us to the next song in the musical which is entitled “Washington On Your Side.” In this song, Aaron Burr, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison begin plotting against Alexander Hamilton. They are jealous of Hamilton’s close relationship with Washington. They begin searching for opportunities to destroy Hamilton. And as they plot, they sing: “It must be nice, it must be nice to have Washington on your side.”[2]
This phrase reminds me of a passage of Scripture from Paul’s letter to the Romans. Hear these words from Romans 8:31-39:
“If God is for us, who is against us?He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us.Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written,
‘For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”[3]
This verse starts out, “If God is for us, who is against us?” Perhaps another way to say it is: “It must be nice, it must be nice to have God on your side.” The Apostle Paul is writing this letter to the Romans, reminding them that whatever they face in life, God is always by their side. Through persecution and opposition, God is always on your side. Through grief and pain, God is always on your side. No matter what circumstances you may be facing in life, God is always on your side. Even in your mistakes, doubts, and fears, God is still always on your side.
In the days in which we are living, it is more important, now than ever before, to have someone on your side. Friendship, in this age of physical distancing, is a much-needed commodity. It is important to feel like you have someone in your corner; someone you can count on; someone who has your back.
Alexander Hamilton and George Washington had a very meaningful friendship. In his book Alexander Hamilton, Ron Chernow writes, “The relationship between Washington and Hamilton was so consequential in early American history… that it is difficult to conceive of their careers apart. The two men had complementary talents, values, and opinions that survived many strains over their twenty-two years together… As a team, they were unbeatable and far more than the sum of their parts.”[4]
Hamilton served in Washington’s military “family” as his “right-hand man” during the American Revolutionary War. He served as the Secretary of the Treasury in Washington’s cabinet. Even after Washington retired from government work, Hamilton continued to work for Washington from time to time. During the height of the scandal in 1797, where Hamilton’s affair with Maria Reynolds became public, Washington sent Hamilton a wine cooler and a letter saying, “Not for any intrinsic value the things possesses, but as a token of my sincere regard and friendship to you and as a remembrance of me, I pray you to accept a wine cooler for four bottles… I pray you to present my best wishes, in which Mrs. Washington joins me, to Mrs. Hamilton and the family, and that you would be persuaded that with every sentiment of the highest regard, I remain your sincere friend and affectionate honorable servant.”[5]
Throughout his entire life, Hamilton could always count on having Washington by his side. In fact, in response to hearing about Washington’s death, Hamilton wrote, “Perhaps no friend of his has more cause to lament on personal account than myself… My imagination is gloomy, my heart sad.”[6]In another letter, Hamilton wrote, “I have been much indebted to the kindness of the general… He was an aegis very essential to me… If virtue can secure happiness in another world, he is happy.”[7]
Perhaps in the friendship of Hamilton and Washington, we can think of people in our own lives who have offered friendship like this to us. Who are the people in your life who have always been by your side, offering encouragement, support, and friendship? And how can you be a friend to someone else? How can you offer encouragement, support, and friendship to someone else today?
In the end, we know that God offers us grace and love that we do not always deserve; But throughout our life, we can see that God is always on our side. As the Apostle Paul says,“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”[8]
Thanks be to God. Amen.
[1] Miranda, Lin-Manuel, and Jeremy McCarter. Hamilton: The Revolution. Grand Central Publishing, 2016.
[2] Miranda, Lin-Manuel, and Jeremy McCarter. Hamilton: The Revolution. Grand Central Publishing, 2016.
In chapters 25 and 26 of Acts, we find the Apostle Paul in legal limbo. Festus, the newly appointed Roman governor, is not sure how the handle Paul’s case. An opportunity presents itself when King Herod Agrippa II pays a courtesy visit. Governor Festus asks King Herod Agrippa II to listen to this would-be prophet. But Agrippa is not alone. He brings with him, his sister Bernice. She is only mentioned by name three times in Scriptures, but do not let that fool you. To modern readers, Bernice is merely a trivia question in the Biblical category. But for the readers in ancient times, both Jewish and Roman, she was not trivial. For them, this scene in Acts was equivalent of watching a movie where a movie legend makes a cameo appearance. And Bernice could have easily been a movie star in today’s world with all the baggage that goes along with it.
Bernice, her brother Agrippa II, and her sister Drusilla were the children of King Herod Agrippa I, whose grandfather was King Herod the Great. Bernice was married first to a Marcus, who died sometime later. Her father Herod Agrippa I, then arranged for her to marry her uncle Herod, and then asked Emperor Claudius to make Herod king of Chalcis. (Jewish Antiquities 19.276-277). Thus, princess Bernice became Queen Bernice.
Herod Agrippa II was only seventeen when their father died unexpectedly. Therefore, Emperor Claudius placed a Roman governor in charge of Judea, while assigning Herod Agrippa II a smaller territory. Later he is placed in charge of the Temple and the high priest. (Jewish Antiquities 19.354-365, 20.15-16)
Things gets “complicated” when Governor Felix arrives in town. He falls in love with sister Drusilla, whom Josephus writes “for she did indeed exceed all other women in beauty” and persuades her to leave her husband King Azizus to marry him. (Jewish Antiquities 20.137-144). With that information, we can better understand the situation and appreciate the irony and mischief of what Paul said during one of his pretrials:
“A few days later Felix came back with wife, Drusilla, who was Jewish. Sending for Paul, they listened as he told them about faith in Christ Jesus. As he reasoned with them about righteousness and self-control and the coming day of judgement, Felix became frightened. ‘Go away for now,’ he replied. ‘When it is more convenient, I’ll call for you again.’ He also hoped that Paul would bribe him, so he sent for him quite often and talked with him. (Acts 24:24-26 NLT). Apparently, Paul was hitting a little too close to home for Felix and Drusilla.
As for Bernice, Josephus writes that she was envious of Drusilla’s beauty and treated her badly. When her husband (and uncle!) Herod dies, she becomes a widow. But then the royal rumors began that she and her brother Agrippa II were having an affair. So she persuades King Polemo to undergo some Jewish surgery and marry her. King Polemo was happy too – he wanted her money. But this marriage of convenience did not last. Bernice kept her money and left her marriage to King Polemo. In return, King Polemo left Bernice – and the Jewish faith. (Jewish Antiquities 20.143-146).
Just as Bernice was having trouble keeping husbands, Rome was finding difficulty in keeping governors in Judea. From 44-59 AD, four different governors are appointed. In 59 AD, the fifth governor, Festus is appointed. Governor Festus spends his time cleaning up the court docket left behind by the corrupt Governor Felix. Among the cases: The Jewish Authorities versus the Paul of Tarsus. Governor Festus is grappling with what to do with this tent maker. When King Herod Agrippa II and his sister Bernice arrive for a courtesy visit, Governor Festus asks them to listen to Paul’s case. (Acts 26:1-22).
Governor Festus was grateful to have King Herod Agrippa II’s input on such a strange case. When Paul is brought out in chains, he speaks to Agrippa and appeals to him. Agrippa is not sold on this new Christian faith. Afterwards, Agrippa, Bernice, and Festus discuss the matter over and agree: “This man hasn’t done anything to deserve death or imprisonment.” (Acts 26:30 NLT).
When Governor Festus dies unexpectedly in office in 62 AD, King Herod Agrippa II found himself playing mediator between the Jewish people and the Romans. First the high priest Ananus takes advantage of the situation to execute James the Just, the brother of Jesus. This upsets the citizens of Jerusalem and outrages the incoming Governor Albinus who is in route to Israel. King Herod Agrippa II moves quickly to calm the situation by replacing the high priest. (Jewish Antiquities 20.197-203).
Unfortunately, Governor Albinus and his successor Florus prove incompetent to lead the Jewish people. In response to a minor incident, Florus has 3,600 men, women, and children slaughtered or crucified. (Jewish War 2.301-308). Bernice goes to Governor Florus and begs him to change course. The arrogant Roman refuses and Queen Bernice finds her own life in danger. (Jewish War 2.309-314). As a result, the Jewish people are ready to revolt against the Romans. King Herod Agrippa II with his sister Bernice by his side speaks to the Jewish people from the rooftop of the palace. He begs them to reconsider the rash course that they are taking. He reasons with them that if General Pompey was able to conquer Judea with a small portion of the Roman army a century ago, what kind of damage would a full Roman army do to Israel? Agrippa reminds the people of the horror of war in general. (Jewish War 2.344-401).
Josephus writes that “When Agrippa had spoken thus, both he and his sister wept, and by their tears repressed a great deal of the violence of the people.” (Jewish War 2.402). Reading this, one is reminded of another person with royal blood, a descendant of King David, who wept over Jerusalem while riding on a donkey on Palm Sunday: “But as he came closer to Jerusalem and saw the city ahead, he began to weep. ‘How I wish today that you of all people would understand the way to peace. But now it is too late, and peace is hidden from your eyes. Before long your enemies will build ramparts against your walls and encircle you and close in on you from every side. They will crush you into the ground, and your children with you. Your enemies will not leave a single stone in place, because you did not recognize it when God visited you.’” (Luke 19:41-44 NLT). Jesus had vividly forewarned Jerusalem of the incoming disaster that Agrippa and Bernice saw coming.
For a short period of time, King Agrippa and Bernice were successful. But public opinion turns against Agrippa, and he is forced to leave Jerusalem. When the war came, Emperor Nero eventually sent General Vespasian to deal with Judea. But a civil war was brewing on the home front. Weary of his incompetence, the Roman armies revolted against Nero. The Senate regained its backbone and declared Nero an outlaw. In one year, Rome went through four emperors: Nero committed suicide, Galba was executed, Otho committed suicide, and Vitellius was brutally murdered.
In response to this continuing chaos, General Vespasian decided that he should go to Rome and restore law and order, and in the process become emperor. When General Vespasian decided to challenge Vitellius for the throne, he received help from his Middle Eastern friends. The Roman historian Tacitus writes that, “Presently Agrippa, summoned from Rome by private messages from his friends, while Vitellius was still unaware of his action, quickly crossed the sea and joined the cause. Queen Berenice showed equal spirit in helping Vespasian’s party: she had great youthful beauty, and commended herself to Vespasian for all his years by the splendid gifts she made him.” (History, Book II, 81.1).
In the meantime, General Vespasian placed his son Titus in charge of military operations in Judea. Titus conquered and leveled Jerusalem. In a scene that reminds one ofSpartacus and Gladiator, Josephus describes how Titus was in Caesarea Philippi celebrating his brother’s Domitian’s birthday by having gladiator games with 2,500 captured Jewish rebels as unwilling participants. (Jewish War 7.37-38). Titus, who conquered Jerusalem, was conquered by Bernice. It was even believed that earlier Titus had changed travel plans to return to Rome for a visit “because of his passionate longing to see again Queen Berenice.” (History, Book II, 2.1). The future prince of Rome had fallen in love with this beautiful Jewish princess.
Titus would return to Rome as heir apparent. Dio Cassius writes that “Bernice was at the height of her power and consequently came to Rome along with her brother Agrippa. The latter was accorded pretorial honors, while she dwelt in the Palace and cohabited with Titus. She expected to be married to him and behaved in all respects as if his wife. But when he perceived that the Romans were displeased at the situation, he sent her away” (Roman History, Book 66, 15). In his The Lives of the Caesars, the Roman historian Suetonius writes that many of the Romans feared that Titus would prove to be another Nero, another wild youth. Among his faults was “his notorious passion for queen Berenice, to whom it was even said that he promised marriage.” (Titus 7). Rome being anti-Semitic and polytheistic did not have any use for this monotheistic Jew. Other critics saw her as a modern Middle Eastern madam monarch – another Cleopatra who would split the empire.
When Vespasian died, “Berenice came to Rome again.” (Roman History, Book 66, 18). With Titus as emperor, she thought that she would now be empress. Both Bernice and the critics were surprised. “Berenice he sent from Rome at once, against her will and against his own.” (Titus 7). It is difficult to evaluate the Titus and Bernice relationship. Did Titus simply toss out Bernice for a major job promotion? Or did Titus reluctantly realize that the huge demands of running the Roman empire would require some personal sacrifice, even the woman that he loved?
Titus became a beloved emperor. Suetonius writes that “On another occasion, remembering at dinner that he done nothing for anybody all that day, he gave utterance to that memorable and praiseworthy remark: ‘Friends, I have lost a day.’” (Titus 8). He died at a young age, after only two years as emperor. Meanwhile, Queen Bernice had returned home and disappeared into history.
In today’s society, Queen Bernice would have written a tell-all book, describing her royal upbringing, her love/hate relationship with her siblings, the various marriages and affairs, and how she almost became empress of the Roman empire. It would have been a best seller. She was smart, beautiful, charming, royal, and usually politically astute. Both the Romans and Jews would have done well to listen to her wise counsel. And maybe, she would have one brief paragraph that made a fleeting reference to how she once heard a guy named Paul speak about how he met a certain Jesus, several years after he had been crucified.
Therein lies the irony. History played a surprising hand. Within a short period of time, the Jewish Temple was destroyed, and both the Herod and Vespasian dynasties died out. But 2,000 years later, the message that the Apostle Paul shared with both Herods and Caesars about the risen Christ would continue, unhindered.
Looking back, who were some of the celebrities that you admired growing up? Singers? TV personalities? Movie stars? Political figures? Royalty? People who were famous for just being famous?
Career wise, are they are still going strong? Or have they peaked? If they have peaked, do they look back on their heyday with gratitude or with bitterness?
When you reflect on the fleeting power of fame and fortune, what should we learn from it?
As much as we enjoy the talents and gifts and celebrities, who are the people who have made an everlasting change in your life? Have you told them?
It can be tough to be a younger sibling. Big brother and big sister came through first, blazed a new trail. Imagine being Michael Jordan’s little sister? Look at political dynasties like the Kennedys and Bushes with the sibling rivalries. Now imagine having Jesus for your big brother? That’s the position that James of Nazareth found himself in.
We first learn that Jesus has siblings in Mark 3. In verses 20-21, Jesus is so busy teaching the crowds that he doesn’t have time to eat. When word gets back to Nazareth, Jesus’s family decides that “he’s out of his mind” and schedule an intervention.
When we get to verse 31, the blessed, but agitated Mother Mary and Jesus’s brothers show up. It’s time for intervention. Somebody in the crowd says, “Hey Jesus, your mom and brothers are in the front yard. They wanna talk to you.” Then Jesus does a mic drop. “Jesus replied, ‘Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?’ Then he looked at those around him and said, ‘Look, these are my mother and brothers. Anyone who does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.’” (Mark 3:33-35 NLT).
I’m sure that comment went over well at the next family reunion. But we don’t learn the names of Jesus’s siblings until Mark 6. Jesus has preached a sermon in his hometown synagogue in Nazareth, and he has received mixed reviews from his congregation, neighbors, and childhood friends.
“They asked, ‘Where did he get all this wisdom and the power to perform such miracles?’ Then they scoffed, ‘He’s just a carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon. And his sisters live right here among us.’ They were deeply offended and refused to believe in him.” (Mark 6:2-3 NLT). It wasn’t a beautiful day in the neighborhood in Nazareth.
Later in John 7, we get to listen to a family dinner conversation. The fall Jewish Festival of Shelters was coming up, and the family was making plans to vacation in Jerusalem. But Jesus didn’t seem eager to go. He felt the need to keep a low profile at this time. The text reads that “Jesus’ brothers said to him, ‘Leave here and go to Judea, where your followers can see your miracles! You can’t become famous if you hide like this! If you can do such wonderful things, show yourself to the world!’ For even his brothers didn’t believe in him.”
Then at the end of Jesus’s ministry, we find Mother Mary sobbing and weeping at the foot of the cross. No brothers around. Hanging from the cross, Jesus asked the Beloved Disciple to look after his dear mother. (John 19:25-27).
So reading the Gospels, we can piece together a portrait of James. He thinks his brother is either mad or a con artist. He’s irritated that these crowds are so infatuated with him. Don’t they realize that he’s just an everyday carpenter’s son, just like he is? And yet, and yet, in the Book of Acts, we find James as the leader of the Jerusalem church, the first bishop. What happened?
The missing link in the chain, surprisingly, comes from a letter from the Apostle Paul to the Corinthian Church. Paul is explaining to these young Christians the basic foundations of the Christian faith, and he drops a few names. It’s worth quoting at length. “I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said. He was seen by Peter and then by the Twelve. After that, he was seen by more than 500 of his followers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he was seen by James and later by all the apostles. Last of all, as though I had been born at the wrong time, I also saw him.” (I Corinthians 15:3-8 NLT).
This is fascinating. Note that the church is not ready just yet to say, “He was first seen by the women at the tomb.” Sorry ladies. You’ll have to wait until the four Gospels are written to get the rest of the story. Then note that the last name mentioned was James. James, like Paul, was a skeptic, who became an apostle. He’s what historians call a hostile witness, the critic who verifies something, though it was against their basic beliefs.
James proves to be an unlikely major player in Acts. Chapters 1-5 are about Peter, 6-7 are about the deacons and Stephen, 8 is mostly about Phillip, and then Chapter 9 is the conversion of Paul. We later learn that James was one of the leaders who recognized Paul’s gift. Paul begins to steal the show from Peter who makes his final appearance in Acts 15. A clue is revealed in Acts 12:13. Peter, having miraculously escaped death row, asks the ladies in Jerusalem to “Tell James and the other brothers what happened.” Peter then leaves town. This very well may be the turning point to where James takes Peter’s place as the leader of the church in Jerusalem. And it sets up the scene for an epic clash of personalities.
In his letter to the Galatian Christians, Paul writes “In fact, James, Peter, and John, who were known as pillars of the church, recognized the gift God had given me, and they accepted Barnabas and me as their co-workers. They encouraged us to keep preaching to the Gentiles, while they continued their work with the Jews. Their only suggestion was that we keep on helping the poor, which I have always been eager to do.” (Galatians 2:9-10). So far, so good. But Paul continues.
“But when Peter came to Antioch, I had to oppose him to his face, for what he did was very wrong. When he first arrived, he ate with the Gentile believers, who were not circumcised. But afterward, when some friends of James came, Peter wouldn’t eat with the Gentiles anymore. He was afraid of criticism from these people who insisted on the necessity of circumcision. As a result, other Jewish believers followed Peter’s hypocrisy, and even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. When I saw that they were not following the truth of the gospel message, I said to Peter in front of all the others, ‘Since you, a Jew by birth, have discarded the Jewish laws and are living like a Gentile, why are you now trying to make these Gentiles follow the Jewish traditions? You and I are Jews by birth, not ‘sinners’ like the Gentiles. Yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law. And we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we might be made right with God because of our faith in Christ, not because we have obeyed the law. For no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law.’” (Galatians 2:11-16).
Apparently, Peter is in so awe of James that he segregates himself from Gentile believers when James’s buddies show up in Antioch lest they give James a bad report about him. Paul confronts Peter about this, and this leads to a major church council in Jerusalem in Acts 15. The question at hand: Should Gentile believers have to follow the law of Moses? The stakes were high. If the answer was yes, then Paul’s entire mission field would be endangered. If the answer was no, then Christianity would be without a solid scriptural root system. Peter, Paul, and Barnabas all spoke. Scripture, tradition, reason, and personal experiences were carefully weighed. After a long discussion, James stood up and made his decision: Gentiles do not need to obey the laws of Moses given to the Jews, but they should follow the laws of Noah given at the dawn of humanity – laws concerning idolatry, sexual immorality, and violence. (Genesis 9). Like a brilliant Supreme Court Chief Justice, James the Just sends down a ruling that honors legal precedent while meeting the current challenge.
Then James the Just does two things. First, he sends a letter with messengers to the Gentile churches, explaining his ruling. But he also senses that his words can be easily misconstrued. He senses a need to reassure his Jewish Christians that he has not abandoned the high moral standards of the prophets. Therefore, he writes them a letter. The great Reformer, Martin Luther, referred to James’s letter as a letter of a straw. He doubted that it should even be included in the New Testament. Luther, still sensitive to the demands and abuses of the Catholic church, found that Paul’s Galatians spoke to him about the freedom of the Christian. But in his zeal, Luther overlooked the many gems in James. Practical advice concerning personal and social holiness flows from James’s pen:
Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you. James 1:27
For example, suppose someone comes into your meeting dressed in fancy clothes and expensive jewelry, and another comes in who is poor and dressed in dirty clothes. If you give special attention and a good seat to the rich person, but you say to the poor one, “You can stand over there, or else sit on the floor”—well, doesn’t this discrimination show that your judgments are guided by evil motives? James 2:2-4
So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless. James 2:17
Dear brothers and sisters, not many of you should become teachers in the church, for we who teach will be judged more strictly. James 3:1
If you are wise and understand God’s ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom. James 3:13
Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it. James 4:2
So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come close to God, and God will come close to you. James 4:7-8
Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it. James 4:17
For listen! Hear the cries of the field workers whom you have cheated of their pay. The cries of those who harvest your fields have reached the ears of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. James 5:4
Are any of you sick? You should call for the elders of the church to come and pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord. Such a prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make you well. And if you have committed any sins, you will be forgiven. Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results James 5:14-17
These verses reveal why James was known as James the Just. He lived a holy life and sought justice for others. If an archaeologist had dug up a manuscript and proclaimed that it was written by the brother of Jesus, it would make international headlines. But there is such a manuscript, (two actually). The letter of James could easily be entitledChristian Living for Beginners. Indeed we are reminded of his big brother’s Beatitudes when we read such words as “Believers who are poor have something to boast about….God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation…hasn’t God chosen the poor in this world…[to] inherit the Kingdom…if you have been merciful, God will be merciful when he judges you…those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest or righteousness” (James 1:9,12; 2:5,13; 3:18).
We meet James one last time in Acts 21. Paul arrives in Jerusalem from his third missionary trip. He brings with him representatives of the Gentile churches who are bringing their church’s collection to provide famine relief in Jerusalem. James and the elders rejoice at the good news. But James wants Paul to do some fence mending with the Jewish believers. He asks Paul to go to the Temple and publicly perform some rituals to show that he is not an apostate Jew. Once again, James is building bridges between the Jewish and Gentile wings of the Christian Church. Unfortunately, his plan backfires. Paul’s enemies start a riot, which results in Paul being imprisoned in Caesarea, first under the corrupt Roman governor Felix, and then under Festus.
It is under Festus that life takes a dramatic turn for both Paul and James. For Paul, the dramatic moment comes when he stands trial before Festus and appeals to Caesar. So to Caesar he must go. Paul will testify before a young Emperor Nero. For James, the dramatic moment comes when Festus dies unexpectedly in office. Nero appoints Albinus to be the new Roman governor. But it takes time to travel to Judea. In this power vacuum, the high priest Ananus seizes the opportunity to remove a religious rival. The historian Josephus writes that “Convening the judges of the Sanhedrin, he brought before them a man named James, the brother of Jesus who was called the Christ, and certain others. He accused them of having transgressed the law, and condemned them to be stoned to death.” It was eerily similar to what happened to Jesus so many years earlier. Ananus, a relative of Caiaphas, had condemned James, a relative of Jesus. This time there would be no meddlesome Roman governor to deal with.
But Ananus had miscalculated badly. The citizens of Jerusalem were outraged at this kangaroo court and the execution of such a godly man. Some took their complaints to Albinus who was enroute. He was angry at this abuse of power. Others went to King Herod Agrippa II who fired Ananus and replaced him with, wait for it, a guy named Jesus. Life is full of ironies.
But one final irony awaited James. In October 2002, the Biblical Archaeology Review published the discovery of an ossuary, a stone burial box, inscribed with the words “James son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.” Ever since then, archaeologists have been trying to determine if this is the James of the New Testament. It’s a powerful reminder that James has been buried somewhere for the past 2,000 years, while his big brother only needed to borrow a tomb for the weekend.
From a bitter brother to a beloved bishop. From a mocker to a martyr. From James the brother of Jesus to James to Just. James had an incredible life journey. His life was living proof of the transformation that can occur in any our lives through an encounter with the risen Christ. In the shadows of three famous personalities – Jesus, Peter, and Paul – he was able to find his place and purpose by keeping the missions of Peter and Paul aligned for the glory of Jesus.
Have you ever felt like that you were in the shadow of a more famous sibling? Does knowing that Jesus also had his share of family tensions better able you to pray about your own family tensions? Does knowing that Jesus and James were reconciled in the most miraculous way give you hope about your own family?
Have you ever felt like you were caught in between two warring factions? Did you feel like you had to choose sides? Or did you seek a third way that would benefit all parties?
Have you lived your life in such a manner that if you were ever falsely accused of a crime that your neighbors, especially nonbelieving neighbors, would come to your defense? Has your faith been an active living faith?
Several months ago, Sarah Prince let me borrow a book that she thought I would like to read. Since I’ve been spending more time at home lately during the pandemic, I finally got around to reading it. It’s called The Hidden Brain by Shankar Vedantam. You may have heard him on National Public Radio where he is the social science correspondent. He also hosts a podcast called “The Hidden Brain.”
That’s his term for the host of influences on our actions and decisions that operate below the radar, outside of our conscious awareness and sometimes even against our expressed intentions. Our hidden brains influence whom we love, whom we hate, whom we hire, whom we fire, how we vote and how we respond when disasters strike. It can move us to extraordinary acts of self-giving, but it can also transform ordinary people into suicide bombers or a group of bystanders into an angry mob.
In short, this book has helped me make a little more sense of what we’ve been witnessing these past few months, with the arrival of the pandemic and our nation’s uneven response to it, the rising awareness of racism and the protests in response to the violence, the elevated anxiety among parents and teachers and students and administrators about the start of a new school year, and the deepening divisions among us as the presidential election looms ahead.
However, the insight that has resonated with me the most from this book is what the author shared in the last chapter. It has to do with numbers. The hidden brain, Vedantam argues, has a hard time wrapping its mind around big numbers. It can deal with smaller numbers much better than bigger numbers, particularly in situations like epidemics or natural disasters that call for a compassionate response. Bigger numbers seem to make our hidden brain “numb-er” to the needs of others (my pun, I’m afraid, not his).
He tells the fascinating story of the tremendous effort that was put into rescuing a Jack Russell terrier from an oil tanker that caught fire in the middle of the Pacific Ocean back in the spring of 2002. After twenty days adrift in the sea, the Taiwanese crew was rescued by a cruise ship, but one of the passengers thought they heard barking back on the tanker. Turns out it was the tanker captain’s puppy who ended up left behind when the cruise ship headed back out to sea. The passenger called the Hawaii Humane Society when they pulled into port in Maui. The US Coast Guard initially declined to get involved because the tanker was in international waters. But the Humane Society got the word out, and money began to pour in to rescue little Hokget, which was the terrier’s Taiwanese name.
They received donations from 39 states, the District of Columbia and four countries, and they paid a private company $48,000 to go look for the tanker. Finally, several days later, a Japanese fishing boat spotted it. Since the tanker seemed to be floating toward a US territory, the Johnson Atoll, the US Coast Guard finally agreed to get involved. Now with the rescue effort being funded by US taxpayers, the military employed a C-130 aircraft with high tech radar, which found the tanker and determined the dog was still on board and alive. After much coaxing with treats, Hokget was picked up, bathed and fed and brought back safely to Hawaii. I love that the local radio station celebrated by playing “Who Let the Dogs Out?”
Vedantam admits it’s a touching story, but it’s also a troubling one. “Eight years before Hokget was rescued,” he writes, “the same world that showed extraordinary compassion in the rescue of a dog sat on its hands as a million human beings were killed in Rwanda” (248). He goes on to remind us that shortly after Hokget’s rescue, the nightly news networks barely mentioned the rapes and murders happening in the Darfur region of Africa, offering only miniscule coverage. Why the discrepancy? Where was surge of compassion for these sufferings as arose for Hokget? Was it that we care more about our pets than other people? No. According to Vedantam, it may have to do more with the difference in numbers.
He suggests our hidden brain’s “inability to wrap our minds around large numbers is responsible for our apathy toward mass suffering” (249). He knows this is a disturbing idea, but he writes “the reason human beings seem to care so little about mass suffering and death is precisely because the suffering is happening on a mass scale. The brain is simply not very good at grasping the implications of mass suffering. Americans would be far more likely to step forward if only a few people were suffering, or a single person were in pain. Hokget did not draw our sympathies because we care more about dogs than people; she drew our sympathies because she was a single dog lost on the biggest ocean in the world” (250).
He calls this “the telescope effect.” Just like it can be overwhelming to gaze upon all of the stars in the sky on a clear night, but our concentration can be so much keener when we focus only on one celestial body, so, too, our hidden brain unconsciously “shapes our compassion into a telescope” whereby we are best able to respond with compassion when we focus on a single person or situation (250).
It seems to me that Jesus knew about the telescope effect and that he tried to teach it to his disciples, particularly in the parable about the lost sheep. As he told it in two of the four Gospels, Jesus pictures a shepherd who has 100 sheep. When one of them wanders off, wouldn’t the shepherd leave the 99 to go look for the one that went astray? In fact, he would rejoice more over finding the one that was lost than over the 99 who stayed put (Matthew 18:10-14, Luke 15:3-7). Maybe that one sheep was that shepherd’s Hokget.
Stained glass window in Keith Church Prayer Chapel
Jesus knew about the telescope effect, and I think, deep down, in the hiddenmost recesses of our own brains, we intuit it as well. It’s just that so often we can forget it, especially when our minds are bombarded by ever bigger and bigger numbers, as we have been in this pandemic.
When this all started back in March and the numbers of cases were tiny, we were quick to shut things down and do what we needed to do to keep ourselves and one another safe. But as the numbers have continued to grow, our hidden brains have had a harder and harder time wrapping themselves around them. The numbers are literally mind-boggling. And so as time goes on and the numbers keep getting bigger, even the simplest acts of compassion that would keep ourselves and others healthy and safe have seemed harder and harder to come by.
So what can we do? How can we consciously counteract the influence of our hidden brain that unconsciously diminishes our sympathies for so great a number of people who are suffering?
Here’s an idea. What if we got out our mental telescopes and asked ourselves the question, “who is my Hokget?” Who is the equivalent of that little Jack Russell terrier stranded out on a boat in the middle of the world’s biggest ocean that I would do everything within my power to rescue, to keep safe, to bring home?
Who is your Hokget? Or, still keeping the numbers small, who are your handful of Hokgets? Who among you calls forth your innate compassionate response in the midst of these difficult days? For whom would you climb any mountain, swim any sea, plumb any depth, do whatever it takes to help them get well, stay well, stay alive?
In the book of Acts, there is a doctor in the house, Dr. Luke. He was the traveling companion to the Apostle Paul. Just as the faithful Dr. Watson wrote about the exploits of his famous friend, the detective Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Luke recorded the adventures of his famous friend, the Apostle Paul.
Dr. Luke first appears in Acts 16, in the “we” section of Paul’s second missionary journey. “So we decided to leave for Macedonia at once, having concluded that God was calling us the preach to the good news there” (Acts 16:10). Interestingly they soon arrive in Philippi which had a famous medical school. This is probably Dr. Luke’s alma mater. Apparently, he stayed in Philippi to help Lydia establish the church.
Luke reappears in Acts 20, in the “we” section of Paul’s third missionary journey. They board a ship at Philippi and stopped in Ephesus. In Acts 21, they are now in Israel in the city of Caesarea. There a prophet Agabus warns Paul that he will be arrested in Jerusalem. And here we see the love that Dr. Luke had for Paul:
“When we heard this, we and the local believers all begged Paul not to go on to Jerusalem. But he said, ‘Why all this weeping? You are breaking my heart! I am ready not only to be jailed at Jerusalem but even to die for the sake of the Lord Jesus.’ When it was clear that we couldn’t persuade him, we gave up and said, ‘The Lord’s will be done.’” (Acts 21:12-14).
Just as Peter could not dissuade Jesus from going to Jerusalem, Luke could not dissuade Paul from going to Jerusalem. Paul goes to Jerusalem, is arrested, taken back to Caesarea, where he is imprisoned for two years, and kept in legal limbo. It is probably during this time that Dr. Luke makes house calls, visiting the eyewitnesses of the life and ministry of Jesus. He probably met the blessed Mother Mary who may have been in Bethany under the care of Lazarus. It would have been Mary who told Dr. Luke about that first Christmas. After all, Mary had pondered these things in her heart.
Two years later in Acts 27, Paul, his friend Aristarchus, and Dr. Luke are on their way to Rome. Irritated by the slow legal process, Paul exercised his right as a Roman citizen to appeal to Caesar. And to Caesar he shall go. Acts 27 and 28 reveal Dr. Luke’s love of the ocean, tides, and wind. But this is no cruise. A storm batters the ship, and Paul and Dr. Luke find themselves shipwrecked on the island of Malta. There Dr. Luke is amazed at Paul’s ability to lay hands on, pray, and heal the sick.
Three months later, Paul was back at sea. Paul finally arrived at Rome where he was placed under house arrest. It is here that Dr. Luke’s name finally appears in scriptures. In a letter to a church, Paul writes that “Luke, the beloved doctor, sends his greetings” (Colossians 4:14). In a letter to the family of Philemon, Paul writes “Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends you his greetings. So do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my coworkers (Philemon 23-24).
During these two years, Paul conducts his missionary work from his rental house. Dr. Luke, meanwhile, makes a record of their adventures to be used for Paul’s trial before Emperor Nero. Apparently, Paul is found not guilty, but the status of the Christian faith is still not clear.
Several years later, Paul is imprisoned in Rome for a second time. But this time, he’s not under house arrest where he can freely receive visitors. Instead, he is in a dungeon. Christianity is now outlawed. Nero has been prosecuting, persecuting, and executing Christians in the most horrendous ways. Paul will be executed. In a letter that was smuggled out, perhaps orally, perhaps in pieces, Paul poignantly pens “Timothy, please come as soon as you can….only Luke is with me…the first time I was brought before the judge, no one came with me. Everyone abandoned me” (2 Timothy 4:9,11,16). This is the third and final time that Dr. Luke is mentioned in scriptures.
It was the lonely hour for the Apostle Paul. He was in his Garden of Gethsemane. Fearful of Nero, none of the Roman Christians accompanied Paul for his preliminary hearing. In one Sherlock Holmes story, the Great Detective and the Doctor are at 221B Baker Street, planning to break in the house of a notorious blackmailer. Holmes tells Watson, “’Well, well, my dear fellow, be it so. We have shared the same room for some years, and it would be amusing if we ended by sharing the same cell.” In a similar fashion, in the end, it was the Missionary and the Doctor spending time in a cell, sharing memories.
Being a Roman citizen, the Apostle was executed by being beheaded around 65 AD. Dr. Luke could serve his patient no longer….or could he? Perhaps Dr. Luke was inspired to write a biography in memory of Paul. He started organizing his notes and recollections that he had used for Paul’s first trial. Then perhaps, Dr. Luke realized that Paul would not want a biography about him. “Don’t focus on the messenger, my good doctor, focus on the message.” Then Luke read The Good News by John Mark, while informative, wouldn’t win any literacy awards. Then he read The Good News by Matthew, which was basically an expanded edition of Mark’s Gospel from a Jewish perspective. Then he read some other “Good News” that might have been early examples of fake news. Dr. Luke realized what he needed to do to honor Paul and his mission.
Luke began work on a magisterial, multivolume treatise. For his first volume, Luke begins “Many people have set out to write accounts about the events that have been fulfilled among us. They used the eyewitness reports circulating among us from the early disciples. Having carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I also have decided to write an accurate account for you, most honorable Theophilus, so you can be certain of the truth of everything you were taught” (Luke 1:1-4).
Please note that Dr. Luke wasn’t zapped by lightning and wrote his gospel. He did his research. He gave the Holy Spirit something to work with. Also remember that Dr. Luke was a real physician. He knew where babies came from. He knew that people just don’t simply get well. He knew that dead people don’t come alive. Birth, suffering, and death were part of everyday life for this physician. And yet, Luke believed that Jesus of Nazareth was miraculously born of a virgin, healed those who had suffered for years, and really did die, and really did rise again.
Because of Luke, everyone from your pastor to Linus of Peanuts fame, reads the Christmas Story about the infant Jesus being placed in the manger and shepherds listening to the voices of angels. And it interesting to note, that while Mark mentions that the woman with the issue of blood had suffered both physically and financially by her doctors, both Matthew and Luke leave that detail out. Matthew wants to keep the story moving. Dr. Luke doesn’t want his profession to look bad. And only Dr. Luke mentions that in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus sweat was like a blood. Modern doctors confirm that during times of great stress of impending death, patients can sweat blood.
Then in his sequel, The Acts of the Apostle, he wrote about the early Christians: Peter, James, Stephen, Barnabas, Silas, Timothy, Apollos, Priscilla, Aquilla, and of course, his old friend Paul. He ended his sequel on a cliff-hanger with Paul in Rome under house arrest awaiting trial: “For the next two years, Paul lived in Rome at his own expense. He welcomed all who visited him, boldly proclaiming the Kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ. And no one tried to stop him” (Acts 28:30-21).
Was Luke planning to write a trilogy? Did he write a trilogy? Will a modern-day Indiana Jones uncover an ancient manuscript, dedicated to an excellent Theophilus? Will we read about how Paul testified before a young Emperor Nero? Will we learn if Paul ever made it to Spain? Would we learn more the Great Fire of Rome? How Nero falsely blamed the Christians? The crucifixion of Peter? The beheading of Paul? For Biblical students, this is the equivalent of watching The Empire Strikes Back, but not having a Return of the Jedi to follow it.
We may never find a second Acts. But we should be gratefully for the Acts that we have. Luke’s name only appears three times in scriptures, but thanks to him we have a history of Christianity from the births of John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth to the Apostle Paul awaiting trial. With his Gospel, we see the baby Jesus and his mother Mary, the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan. With Acts, we see the Peter of Pentecost and Paul the Tireless Traveler. With his Gospel, he honored his Lord. With his Acts, he honored his friend.
In your life, are the Dr. Luke – the person behind the scenes? The person providing comfort and friendship to those who bear both the fame and heavy responsibilities of their position? Do you do this with joy or with bitterness?
Or do you have a Dr. Luke? A faithful friend who is there for you in both good times and bad. The friend who is behind the camera, offstage, away from the spotlight. Have you told your friend how much you appreciate them?
Who is your “beloved doctor”? And who is your patient?
Last week, a friend of mine got married on Sunday evening, and then his dad died early the next morning. Doug and his fiancé – now wife – had planned a big wedding for later this year. But then his dad, who has endured pancreatic cancer for the past three years (he’s been on our prayer list at the church, Carl Seaman), entered into hospice care a few weeks ago. They began discussing the possibility of going ahead and getting married sooner in a ceremony that his dad could attend. They initially rescheduled it for this weekend, then they backed it up to last Monday, and finally back a day to last Sunday evening, outside the window of his dad’s room at the care facility. As it happened, it was just in time.
I’ve been a fan of the musical duo The Indigo Girls since my college days. My systematic theology professor from seminary happens to be the dad of one of them, and I’ve long been impressed by how theologically evocative their lyrics can be. They have a new CD that just came out in May. The last song on it is called “Sorrow and Joy.” I’ve been thinking about this song as I’ve been thinking about my friend this past week.
Normally we think of those two emotions as complete opposites, as having very little to do with each other. But as Emily Saliers puts it in words reflecting on her younger sister’s death years ago,
Sorrow and joy are not oil and water
They’re hater and lover, they inform each other
Attract and repel, make us sick, make us well
But in the end we must hold them together
But Doug didn’t really have much of a choice. He can’t help but hold them together. He experienced the heights of joy in his wedding day and then the depths of sorrow in the death of his dad the next day. It all happened in such a short time, essentially at the same time.
It was so fitting that he and his wife chose that famous musing on time from Ecclesiastes 3 for their wedding. You know how it goes: “There’s a time for this and a time for that, a time for everything under heaven.” Most of the time, the “this” and the “that” are further apart in time. For example, Tracy and I had each lost a parent before our wedding day, but that was several months to several years apart, not within the span of 12 hours.
You may know there are two Greek words for time. One is chronos, chronological time, the linear movement of time from one moment to the next. The other is kairos. When we talk about an idea whose time has come or the time is ripe, we are talking kairos time. Only rarely do the two seem to coincide. Both births and deaths tend to follow kairos rather than chronos time. Weddings may be planned on chronos time, but as my friend experienced last week, kairos can sweep in and call for adjustments.
Sorrow and joy also seem to operate more on kairos than chronos time. They rarely observe a tidy schedule. They operate on their own timetables. And they can see-saw. One moment a sense of joy and gratitude can swell up in your heart and then the very next moment be punctured by the pangs of grief.
I know Doug didn’t want the sorrow of his dad’s dying days to overshadow the joy of their wedding. But I shared with him my conviction that, ultimately, I don’t think it will. As they follow the Indigo Girls’ advice and hold these two things together, over time (chronos time that is) I really think – I hope, I pray, I trust – that they will come to discover what their pastor was talking about at their wedding about the difference between joy and happiness. Happiness can be so circumstantial, so dependent upon the situation, but joy can go so much deeper. Joy – the joy we can have in Christ – can even embrace and encompass suffering and sorrow and sadness.
I’m reminded of something Jesus said to his disciples the night before his own death. He was telling them he knew they would have sorrow. He knew they would weep and mourn and be in pain. But just like a woman in labor has pains because her time (kairos) has come, but when her child is born she rejoices, so too he tells him that soon “your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you” (John 16:22).
My prayer for my newlywed friends is that that hard-won, all-encompassing, ever-abiding joy will be a wellspring of life in their marriage that never runs dry, that no one and nothing will ever take from them.
But it’s also my prayer for you, for me, for all of us, in our own lives, amidst all the joys and sorrows that come our way, sometimes all at the same time it seems – that in the end, we are able to hold them together, for better for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, in chronos and in kairos, in sorrow and in joy.
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