Tag Archive for: kingdom of God

What is so sacred about sex? – Part 2

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This continues from part 1…..

In part one of this article, we discussed the sexual mood of our present culture and whether or not as human beings, we are the owners of our own bodies and minds. We ended on the note that if it is the case that we have been made or created by someone else for his own purposes, then surely we would have a lot more obligations than we would have if we only belonged to ourselves. But we also noted that, this is a big “IF” because some people do not believe (or at least they live as if they don’t believe) that there is any Being higher than ourselves, to whom we must be responsible. Is it reasonable to believe that an actual Being exists who is responsible for our existence and to whom we might be accountable to, regarding our sexual lives? If there is the possibility for such a Being to exist, why would he be interested in what we do with our bodies sexually?

For starters, let us be brutally honest with ourselves: everything in this world – from ourselves to the flowers to the stars to sea to animals etc – points to the fact that some sort of careful designing has gone into the creation of our world and of ourselves, doesn’t it? We often take it for granted that this physical world of ours is structured the way it is. But mathematically speaking, the probability of this world happening by a mindless random or unordered process is incredibly small. According to Astrophysicist Hugh Ross’ conservative calculation, the chance of a planet like ours existing in the universe is about 1 in a trillion billion billion (i.e. 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 or 1 in 10 raised to the power 30).

 Scientists are discovering that had even a single feature of our universe been just a little bit different, the stars, galaxies and human life would not exist. Let us briefly look at a few amazing scientific discoveries before we go on. The distance from the earth to the sun is just right. Why? Even a small change of around 2% and all life would cease. If the earth was too near the sun, water would evaporate. If it was too far from the sun, its coldness level would not support life. In fact, even the rotation speed of the earth is just right; if it was too slow, the temperature differences between day and night would be too extreme, and if it was too fast the wind speeds would be catastrophic. Furthermore, if the ratio of the electromagnetic and gravitational forces had differed by about one part in ten thousand billion billion billion billion (i.e. 1 part in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000), then stars such as the Sun, which are capable of supporting life, could not exist. Do you see any picture emerging?

The delicate balance of the elements in our universe, to use the illustration of the theoretical physicist Paul Davies, is like the accuracy level that a marksman needs in order to hit a coin twenty billion light years away on the other side of the observable universe. [A light year is the speed travelled by light in one year. And light, by the way, has the fastest travelling speed in our universe]. In fact it has been noted by some researchers that the earth is placed precisely in a part of the universe that is congenial to scientific studies in cosmology, galactic astronomy, stellar astrophysics and geophysics. That is, if our earth had been positioned in a part of the universe with too much starlight, we could not have been able to see into deep space. There are more than 3000 galaxies in the observable universe, each containing millions to trillions of stars – many being bigger than the earth.

Further, Oxford mathematician John Lennox in his book, ‘God’s undertaker: has Science buried God?’, notes that the distinguished mathematician and astronomer, Sir Fred Hoyle, admitted that his atheism was shaken profoundly when he discovered the degree of fine-tuning needed between the nuclear ground state energy levels in order for carbon to be formed either by a combination of three helium nuclei, or by a combination of nuclei of helium and beryllium. (And for the record, life cannot exist on earth without an abundant supply of carbon). Sir Hoyle’s discovery, according to Lennox, led him to remark that, “a superintellect has monkeyed with physics as well as with chemistry and biology,” and that “there are no blind forces in nature worth talking about.” Interesting isn’t it? And let us not forget the issue of the human DNA – the molecule containing coded instructions for the cells in the body. A group of scientists have recently estimated that the adult body contains about 37.2 trillion cells, each containing DNA. Each person’s complete DNA is unique; the exception being identical twins. The instructions are in what is called Genetic language and they are detailed, complex and specific. These instructions include for example, which cells should grow and when, which cells should die and when, which cells should make hair and what colour it should be.  If all this sounds too technical, then let me make it simple: the scientific discoveries are pointing in the direction where it is highly unlikely that an intelligent Being did not plan and execute the creation of this whole skilfully crafted universe, including human beings like us.

What is my point with all this information? It is this: if conditions in this universe, and the nature of our human bodies, are the way they are – so delicately precision-tuned – and if human beings like us posses the kind of intelligence we posses, even to study them, then it is very reasonable to (and unreasonable not to) suppose that a more intelligent Being, (1) is out there, (2) is the cause of our beings and (3) is interested in our lives. Now if we relate this thought to Mr. Lewis’ thoughts about moral duties (discussed in part one of this article), we can say with a fair degree of confidence that the whole of mankind must have a Landlord. Our bodies, strictly speaking, are not ours. Our Landlord is this Intelligent Being who created this world and everything in it. Religious folks simply call him, God. Since this God is the cause of our intricately designed bodies and existence, it is not mind-boggling that any “Dos and Don’ts” on how we use our bodies should come from him.

 

A Curious Worldview

 In his speech to the members of the city council of Athens, Paul the apostle of Christ tried to give them a new view of God, saying, “God, who made the world and everything in it, is Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples made by human hands.” (Acts 17:24 GNB) In a city so used to building alters and shrines for every imaginable god, this news was however unimaginable. But to the people in the city of Corinth (a city well-known for its immorality), who became believers in Jesus Christ, Paul wrote them a letter in which he explained to them the sacredness of their bodies: “…the body is not to be used for sexual immorality, but to serve the Lord, and the Lord provides for the body. God raised the Lord [i.e. Jesus] from death and will also raise us by his power. … Don’t you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and who was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourselves but to God; he bought you for a price. So use your bodies for God’s glory.” (1 Cor. 6: 13,14, 19,20 GNB). Dr Ravi Zacharias, a Christian philosopher, appropriately explains that, “the Christian walks with God, not to God. We no longer go to the temple to worship. Rather we go with our temples to worship.” The body of a believer in Christ, rather than a church building, is the holy dwelling place of God and must be treated as “holy grounds.” Thus what this person wears, or touches, or says, or looks at or reads or listens to must uphold God’s holiness.

So much for the Christian “bodies”! What bearing does this worldview have on those who do not subscribe to it? The non-Christian is a prospective temple of God. God wants to live in this person. The Christian explanation for human existence in general is that God made us and not only that, but also that he made us all for himself (Col. 1:16) and he made us in such a way that only in union with him can our greatest good be had (John 10:10). Sin does not allow this to happen. But God became man in Jesus Christ, lived uprightly among us, identified with our human weaknesses, paid for our sins in his death and rose up and wants to live in us to empower us to live as we ought to. Like C. S. Lewis once observed, God invented us in a certain sense like how a man invents an engine. And when a car is made to run of gasoline, it would not run properly on anything else. In this same sense God made the “human machine,” as Lewis puts it, to run on himself.

The fuel we need in order to function the way he designed us is God himself and the food we need to keep our souls spiritually alive is God himself. We cannot expect to function properly on our own terms. Sexual fulfillment (a major hunger of our generation) with its proper joy, peace and security does not come through the pulling down of God’s boundaries. Without God at the centre of a sexual relationship, our much desired real and secure intimacy which we often believe can be found in sexual intercourse will prove elusive. Any person, Christian or not, who tries to outsmart God on this front will soon find that the last laugh is always God’s, not ours; restlessness, emptiness, meaninglessness, broken trust, guilt and shame will ultimately come resting at our door steps. There is definitely pleasure in sin but it is fleeting. Kenyan Christian Apologist, John Njoroge, insightfully says that, “Trying to meet our real needs without God is like trying to satisfy our thirst with salty water: the more we drink, the thirstier we become.  This is a sure path to various sorts of addictions.”

Even in our limited wisdom, we realize that playing our cherished game of football without any rules does not make it really enjoyable. So we have created rules, in all their imperfections. Even with the rules in place, some people hurt others and get hurt themselves; they offend and get offended during the course of the game. Can you imagine the unbridled chaos that would exist if there were no clear rules? In the same way, we are living in an increasing sexually chaotic culture today because we are desperately throwing off God’s moral restraints: husbands and wives are sleeping with people other than their spouses, young unmarried boys and girls are “training” themselves in the act of sex yet ironically the idea of marriage is appearing uncomfortable to them because of its widely acknowledged moral limitations. God has provided a framework within which sex can be properly enjoyed physically, emotionally and spiritually, and it is not outside marriage.

 In God’s scheme of things, according to Christian teachings, you do not need to be experienced in sex before marriage. This is because you have the whole of your married life to get to know your spouse’s body (God’s gift to you) as your bodies lock and your spirits mesh in sexual intercourse before God. With each encounter you get to know the body of your spouse even better to the glory of God. And here is the rich wisdom of the Christian faith (which may seem foolish on the face of it): Any person who genuinely relies on Jesus Christ before his marriage and also during his marriage will be given the grace and spiritual strength to stay the course of marriage should he find out that he has ended up with a sexually defective spouse. Tough to take in, I know, but I cannot make this truth any more appealing than it sounds right now in a time like ours. Marriage is not a selfish enterprise, where if you are not having a sexually exciting life everything else must come crushing down for everyone in it. Rather it is essentially a self-giving worship of God as you commit yourself exclusively to that one person, to love, to cherish and to seek the good of this person always.

 The Christian scriptures teach that all who trust in God will not be disappointed, ultimately. But break God’s precepts on sex (or on any other issue of life) and you can be sure that you will not only separate yourself from God and into a dark loneliness of the soul but you will also hurt yourself and others. Let us be clear: the idea that God is an unloving and unfeeling Judge up there who is simply watching down to see who has gone even slightly wrong so that he may swiftly punish him, is wrong. God wants to reconcile us back to himself. This is the Christian message to the world. God’s precepts in the Bible are intended to facilitate our happiness and not to stifle it. A parent sternly warns her child to steer clear of fire not because she wants to make the child miserable but because she wants to prevent the child from getting hurt or even dying. How can a child enjoy life when he is hurt or dead? If we separate ourselves spiritually from God (a spiritual death), through sin, how can we expect to receive God’s best? God knows the limits within which our best can be had. Stolen waters are not as sweet as we want to believe. Many people may look happy on the outside but on the inside they may be empty, restless, bitter and troubled because they have violated God in this area of sex.

Conclusion

We were made for God and if we spend ourselves in illegitimate pleasures, we will only come away broken and impoverished in our souls (and perhaps with physical scars too). No one enriches his soul by being sexually immoral. Rather we bankrupt ourselves spiritually; we feel the emptiness, restlessness of the soul, the guilt and shame of sin because we have divorced ourselves from God, who is our ultimate good. A more serious side to sexual immorality is that in the end, we must give account of our lives to the God. Some people realize this quicker than others but the important thing is that we are willing to take the necessary steps back to God through the path he has provided – faith in his Son, Jesus Christ. And to be clear, faith in Jesus Christ is not mere intellectual belief in Jesus as Lord but includes a willful commitment to live the whole of one’s life in reverence of him and his teachings. Christ offers forgiveness and rebirth even to the one who has wrecked himself or herself sexually yet is willing to repent. Are you a mess, sexually? Jesus gives hope and strength to those seeking to please God in their sexual lives.

The will of God. Credit: http://holyspiritrevolution.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/The-Will-Of-God.jpg

Finding the will of God

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If there is one thing that a lot Christians seem to be confused about, it is the question “what is the will of God?”. As a reflection of the times in which we live, this has been further honed into the individualized form “what is the will of God for me”, leading to variations such as “God will fulfill his purpose for my life” and so on and so forth. All of these then presuppose that there is a will of God for each person, and that if one lives one’s life according to God’s plan, then they will somehow discover this “will”. In fact the word “destiny” has now taken on a life of its own in some circles of Christianity to denote this concept, and pastors spend enormous amounts of preaching time trying to distill how to achieve this in their sermons.

However, we may need to pause and reflect deeper on what the New Testament actually says about the will of God before we run ahead of ourselves. This must be done in keeping with the important rule that Jesus must be the key to understanding God’s revelation of himself in scripture, it is important to first look at what Jesus himself had to say on the subject of “the will of God”.

Jesus

When Jesus came to the world, there was one thing he kept announcing – the Kingdom of God. Within the Gospels alone, there are 50 occurrences of the kingdom of God/Heaven metaphor, with Jesus continuously stressing that this kingdom that the 1st century Jews had been waiting for had somehow come through him. And so he set out what many scholars have called his “manifesto” in the Sermon on the Mount as recorded in Matt 5:1-8:1, and in Luke 6. It is important to note that Matthew’s record links everything that Jesus said from Matt 5:1 all the way to 8:1 as part of that one sermon, and any serious student of the Bible needs to pay attention to this particularity. Although our modern bibles have nice chapter and verse divisions and sometimes headings for different “sections” of this sermon, Matthew says all this was said by Jesus at one sitting.

That being the case, it is important to note the following points

  1. Jesus seemed to be behaving like Moses, receiving a new Torah on the mountain and delivering it to his people.
  2. Jesus actually changed some of the provisions in the Torah, laying out a new way for those who will follow him. Compare what Jesus said in Mt 5:38-42 with what Moses wrote in Deut 19:21.
  3. Jesus was touching on 2 very important things in 1st century Judaism – election (who are the people of God, or the “blessed”) and Torah (what should be the way of life of these people). You will find all over the psalms who the people of ancient Israel called “blessed”(e.g. Ps 1, 16,32,112,119,128). Essentially this was anyone who was a descendant of Abraham or non-descendant who worships Yahweh, and who in addition followed Yahweh’s Torah given to Moses. Jesus turned this election around and said the poor, the peacemakers, the humble, those persecuted for his sake etc. who actually follow him are the “blessed” people, and gave his own Torah as to how they must live if they want to be part of his elect people.

In concluding his speech, Jesus ends with warnings related to all the things he had said. He warned about false prophets turning them away from what he has laid out, then warned that those who “do the will of God”, which he has laid down in this discourse, are those fit for the kingdom. He finally ended by saying those who take his words seriously are those who build on the rock, while those who don’t are those who build on the sand. Not only did he undermine the sacred Torah, he elevated his own words above it by using the formula “you have heard/Moses said” and “I say”.

It is no wonder then that when he finished this sermon of his, “the crowds were amazed at his teaching (Mt 7:28)”. Unlike the Pharisees and Scribes of their time, or pastors and teachers of our time, Jesus didn’t expound the Torah. Jesus actually created new laws and invalidated old ones, behaving more like Moses or like Yahweh himself.

All of this put together should lead us to realize that those who were listening to Jesus at the time would have gotten the following picture, which many rejected because it was contrary to what they knew about Yahweh:

  1. Jesus was not just behaving like a prophet, he was also behaving like God.
  2. Jesus was changing the rules as to who was in and who was out. Being a Jew by birth (or proselyte) and following the Torah was no longer enough.
  3. The will of God was to follow this messiah called Jesus, and not to just call him “Lord, Lord”.
  4. Following this will of God was going to lead to even more suffering than they were already under, and yet that was the way that this messiah required.
  5. This will of God required them to love their enemies even to the cost of our own lives, to care for the poor, sick and disadvantaged, to seek justice for the weak and be filled with mercy, to be faithful to their spouses till death or be celibate, to speak truth without abundance of swearing, to let their prayers be not long and flowery but to the point, to do their deeds of love without public display, to put away anger against their brethren and so on. To sum all this up, this will of God simply required them to follow this messiah’s words and ways, and to make him alone receive all the glory of everything they did in their lives.

The Epistles

This will is what Paul expounds in Col 1:15-23 in such terms of cosmic glory. God’s will was that “he [Jesus] is before all things, and in him all things hold together … so that in everything he will have the supremacy … For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him” (v 17-19 NIV). And so Paul says that Jesus will present his followers holy and blameless in his sight, if they “continue securely established and steadfast in the faith, without shifting from the hope promised by the gospel that you heard”(v 23 NRSV. The NIV says “continue in YOUR faith”, which falls too close to the trap of individualism for me. Conversely, as pointed out by Ben Witherington, the NRSV also gets Heb 12:2 wrong with “perfector of our faith”, whiles the 2011 NIV gets it right with “perfector of faith”. Sigh …). Here Paul sounds the same warning as Jesus – don’t call him “Lord, Lord” and yet not follow him, but continue to be faithful to him.

We see Paul again reminding the Ephesians that they were saved, so they can serve.

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—  not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Eph 2:8-10)

Every other place where the Epistles refer to the will of God is to be understood and framed in what Jesus himself has laid down as “the will of God” – following Jesus, and serving others even at the peril of our own lives.

Conclusion

The will of God is that his followers reject the ways of this world and the world’s unwillingness to submit to Jesus in obedience. The will of God is that his kingdom of justice, peace, mercy and compassion, love and care for one another will be made known to the world through the church, Jesus’ community of followers (Eph 3:10-11). The will of God is that men may see that there is a different way that society can exist, and that to find that way is to find the Anointed One who showed that way by giving himself up for us, and to join the people who are living life that way.

There is no separate “will of God” specially created for you different from what God has already defined “before the foundation of the earth” (Eph 1:4;2 Tim 1:9;1 Pe 1:20). God has no special “purpose for your life” other than that you follow Jesus. There is no “divine destiny” for you other than following the messiah, and working for his kingdom and with his manifesto.

If Christians thought this way, they would not be so easily swayed by all the winds of deception and confusion blowing about. They would not need the multitude of conferences and “divine encounters” that are being sold to them everyday. They won’t be worried about consulting “prophets” about whether to marry Kofi or Kwame, or the other important decisions we make in life. We won’t be worried about whether a decision about our lives is “in the will of God”, simply because it will all be reduced to a simple matter of whether it will enable one to continue to be faithful in following Jesus with one’s brethren or not.

If Christians thought this way, they will be less worried about themselves, and more worried about their neighbour. Because the kingdom of God is about what you are doing for others as Jesus did, not how you are grabbing for yourself. And what was it that Jesus said about neighbours?

I have come to worship

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Author: Akyana Britwum
I have dwelt in the midst of sin for a long while. I delighted in it and refused to part ways with the destructive lifestyle that had come to typify my way of life. Today, the 15th of May 2014 I listened to a sermon on faith by Paul Washer. He spoke on Hebrews 11. He said something about verse 15 and 16 that struck me:
Hebrews 11:15-16 “If they had been thinking with [homesick] remembrance of that country from which they were emigrants, they would have found constant opportunity to return to it. But the truth is that they were yearning for and aspiring to a better and more desirable country, that is, a heavenly [one]. For that reason God is not ashamed to be called their God [even to be surnamed their God–the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob], for He has prepared a city for them.” [Amplified]
And I realized my sin. It wasn’t the bad things that my heart had come to delight in. No. It was then fact that my heart had become content with this world, with its current ways, its wisdom, and its entertainment. I no longer longed for the kingdom Christ was bringing. The things of this world became sweet. Their attractive allure held me fast. So that even my pursuit of Him was tainted. Tainted by a quest for worldly knowledge a worldly knowledge of Him. I did not delight in Him anymore. I could only appreciate Him from a worldly stance.
So I tried to cast away my worldly sins as I saw them. Lust for the earthly things I knew were killing me. Little did I realize that I was worshiping the world’s system and it had so corrupted me that my quest for Christ became a worship of the world. In other words, every tool that I looked to for emancipation became my god. I did not look to God. I did not want to nor could I do so. I was trapped and caught up in my folly.
But today, I heard the Scripture from Hebrews 11 and I knew He was reaching out to me. So I have come to worship my King and my God. As I worshiped I struggled to let go of the vain things that charmed me most. “Certainly Lord not these”, I said. Then I saw Him on the tree crucified for the sins that I held so dear. The image of how He gave it all up so that I didn’t have to live with my sins nor face the righteous wrath of God for the sins I was unwilling to give up. 
“Lord” I prayed “I have sinned because I have not esteemed thee as I ought. But now at Thine feet I pour my love, my all, withholding nothing. Take as I am. Cleanse me, restore me. You are all I want, You are all I need. Fill me up anew.” 
And so at the mercy seat where I found myself, I lay, waiting on my God and my King. I am still lying down. I have come to worship my God.

Joy to the World

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“… the Lord is come, let earth receive the king.”

So goes the Christmas carol we were taught in nursery school. And we sung it with all our feeble hearts and fumbling lips, looking forward to the Christmas gifts our parents will be buying us – the new shoes, clothes and fancy spectacles and cap. Alas, those were the days. But do we stop to ponder deeper into the Christmas story and imbibe its significance for not only our lives, but for the world at large? Today I intend to recap the Christmas story with a bit of New Testament historical background, and draw out implications for us of the birth of this Jesus. Fair warning that this post will be long, so have patience for it, for the story of Jesus’ birth, though simple, is actually quite a multi-layered one worth pondering deeply.

The story of Christmas is rooted in the story of Israel, and we must always attempt to tell it from that perspective. So here goes. Please note my usage of certain bolded words. They will come in handy in this and other posts.

2000 years before Jesus Christ, God called a certain man called Abram from amongst his family in Ur to a place called Canaan. He changed this man’s name to Abraham and gave him a promise.

“I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; … and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Gen 12:2-3 NIV)

This promise Abraham diligently transmits to his children, who end up being exiled in Egypt for 470 years because of initial worldwide hunger and now forced into slavery. God however, miraculously leads them through Moses out of Egypt in triumphant fashion back to their own land. Now they have their land back, Torah is given to them as a way of life, and the tabernacle/temple is built for God to come and dwell in and supposedly never leave. They demand a king, and God gives them Saul and then David. God makes a promise to David.

 “When your days are over and you rest with you fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom … Your house and your kingdom shall endure before me forever, your throne shall be established forever” (2 Sam 7:12-16 NIV).

Having received this prophecy, David himself prays in Ps 72 about that son of his thus (a Messianic Psalm – one which the Jews always looked to when thinking of the promised Son of David).

“He will judge your people in righteousness, your afflicted ones with justice … He will defend the afflicted among the people and save the children of the needy; he will crush the oppressor. He will endure as long as the sun … The kings of Tarshish and distant shores will bring tribute to him … All kings will bow down to him … All nations will be blessed through him, and they will call him blessed” (Ps 72:2-17)

From the above, one can see what this promised king is to do; by bringing hope to the afflicted, to the hopeless and needy; by subduing all kingdoms under him; and by being the means through which God’s promise to Abraham will be fulfilled in this world.

Well unfortunately, David’s throne did not last forever, and those who came after him increasingly departed from God’s ways. Finally, despite all the warnings of prophets like Jeremiah, they are uprooted and exiled for a second time in their history – this time forcefully – by the Babylonians.

For the next 250 years, they are separated from their land and the temple. The only thing that they still had was Torah, and they began to take it quite seriously as the only means of reconnecting with their God and their lost heritage. Prophets like Daniel, Isaiah and Ezekiel remind them of God’s promises to them and their forefathers, and expand those promises by giving further prophecies concerning a certain son of David will be the one to bring their deliverance forever.

They are released from exile and allowed to go back to their land. With much joy and hard work, they build a new temple, though not as resplendent and beautiful as Solomon’s temple (The history of Jews after this second temple was built is what is referred to as “2nd Temple Judaism”). Yet, they still feel like they are in exile, for though they live on their own land, they are being ruled remotely, first by the Persians who set them free, then by Alexandria and his protégés after him including the Ptolemys from Egypt, and then the Seleucids from Syria, and finally by Rome. They had a little bit of joy when Judas Maccabeus led a revolt to overthrow the Seleucid emperor Antiochus Epiphanes (who was receiving bribes from the highest bidder to appoint them High Priest of the Jewish temple), leading to the declaration of Hanukkah as a new Jewish festival. And yet soon enough the Romans came with their crushing military might, and they were back to square one.

For the next 300 years after returning from exile in Babylon, the question plaguing the people of Israel is when God will honor his promises of blessings to their fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? When is he going to send that son of David to fulfill that promise of a kingdom that will last forever? What were they doing wrong that God was taking so long? In the meantime, while they waited for God to come and save them, their lifestyles were also being challenged by introduction of Greek culture which had dominated the world since Alexander’s conquests in a process called Hellenization (just like American culture is dominating our world today). This they felt was an affront to their Jewish ways of life, enshrined in Torah. To most Jews, Hellenization was a serious threat, and probably one of the reasons why God had not yet sent his salvation because of all these and other sins of the nation Israel.

No wonder then that most Jews believed in the message of one of the dominant groups of their time, the Pharisees. The Pharisees insisted that the faithful keeping of Torah will cause God to finally bring salvation to Israel. This is why the Pharisees were so worried about the keeping of Torah and guarding against Hellenization – unlike what Reformed theology has taught us since the 17th century; it was not that they felt keeping Torah will guarantee their ticket to heaven or make them personally “righteous”. It was about keeping it so God will look with mercy upon them and send his salvation to the nation Israel, and also that the individuals that kept Torah will then be mercifully received into the coming kingdom. No, they were not busy thinking of how to go to heaven as individuals, they were busy debating the nitty-gritty of how heaven may come to earth. One other question that was asked back then is “how will our forefathers who have waited for so long for this coming kingdom benefit from it?” The answer was resurrection; that all faithful Israel will resurrect with the coming of the Son of David to also partake of this wonderful kingdom.

Of course there were those who were more interested in keeping the status quo, and one of such groups was the Sadducees. They were the priests who run the temple with the head of their council being the High Priest. Israel was supposed to be ruled by 2 authorities – a king and a high priest. In times where their conquerors didn’t appoint a king, they gave all political power to the high priest and his council. And so, they were the real power brokers of their time, and were less interested in the faithful keeping of Torah etc., but more interested in just making sure the sacrifices went on as usual, the tithes were received as usual (so they could benefit from it, unsurprisingly) and the bribes were paid as usual to convince a Seleucid or Roman governor to appoint them/keep them as high priest for all its benefits. Obviously you can understand why your average Jew was fonder of a Pharisee than a Sadducee, as a careful reading of the Gospels will show. And as usual you can see the similarities between them and today’s dominant Christian “clergy”. Interestingly because of their past evils of causing the death of others who challenged their power, the Sadducees did not believe in resurrection.

Then there was the third stream, who felt that God was not going to come down from heaven with his own sword to come and remove the Romans. Just as Judas Maccabeus was successful with removing at one time the Seleucids by the use of violence, they must arm themselves and fight the oppressor. At least they respected the Pharisees, but the Sadducees they loathed and there were many murders of Sadducees, Roman soldiers stationed in Jerusalem and generally caused much violence. They were the Boko Haram of their time we may say. There were many such groups, with different names. From Zealots, to Sicarii they flourished in the dark. Barabbas was one of them (he wasn’t just a thief/rioter but more of a coup maker), as was the disciple Simon the Zealot (incorrectly interpreted as Simon the Canaanite in some bibles), who may/may not have recanted his violence to follow Jesus.

 

The Birth of Jesus

Enter the birth of Jesus Christ. Mary is confronted by an angel with the following news

“But the angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end’” (Lk 1:30-33 NIV)

Mary being a proper Jew will know immediately how significant this message was. God was fulfilling his promises to exiled Israel; the king of the world was coming. He will wipe away all their sins of unfaithfulness to God, and he will restore Israel to the status of the capital of the world, and the Jews will be the “chilling brothers” in that kingdom. And the poor and broken hearted will find joy at last. The weight of being the carrier of this wonderful child was definitely heavy on her and she expresses it in Lk 1:46-56. This was joy to the world indeed.

Being a proper Jew, King Herod hearing about the son of God/David being born is an immediate challenge to him. Not because he will simply provide forgiveness of sins and carry us all to heaven as our modern gospel preachers from DL Moody to Billy Graham have over-simplified it to a fault for us, but because his coming signals an end to the reign of every king and every kingdom, even more so to a Jewish king. No wonder he will have all babies less than 3 years old in Bethlehem killed. This is indeed joy to the world, but not to him.

Even more dramatic is the fact that whoever is the son of God/David or the Messiah is actually supposed to be greater than any world power. Therefore Jesus being proclaimed the son of David simply means that Jesus is Lord, not the Roman Emperor, something which was scandalous at the time and has severe implications for all political power today. The reason Jews call Jesus “Lord” is not because he is merely their “Lord and Personal savior” – another questionable phrase in Christendom – but because he is the supreme emperor of both the visible and invisible world. He is Lord over both the Ghanaian and the American president, and just like any political figure, he demands our obedience in totality. Devout loyalty to any political institution is pure idolatry.

And yet his ways are different. He refuses to keep his Kingdom limited to the Jews only, contrary to the wishes of the Pharisees. He refuses to Lord it over his people, contrary to the Sadducees and their modern day descendants. And he refuses to establish his kingdom by violence, seriously disappointing the Zealots. He is king, yet on his own terms and through his own means of love and self-sacrifice.

 

Conclusion

And so, just as the world gets excited that Prince William’s wife is pregnant and about to give birth, Christmas is the time to remember when the king of the world left his throne in heaven, and was born into this fallen world; to walk amongst men and experience their suffering, and yet to bring them out of the deception of this world into one of love and care for one another and for care for his creation.

Chrismas is time when those of us who believe in him must make sure we practicalize his mission – to bring hope to the hopeless, joy to the broken-hearted and declare his kingship over all kings. As he stated clearly in Lk 4:18, his kingdom has already began and his good news is to the poor, to the brokenhearted, to the captives, to the blind and to the bruised. To the mentally oppressed, who can only resort to taking out guns and shooting 26 people and themselves, we must realize we have good news to spread; we have a king to declare and a kingdom to both express today and work towards in future. To the proud and haughty, we must remind that there is a king who calls them to do their part in bringing peace; justice and constant social and economic improvement (note I didn’t say equality). For the king of the world demands it, and he waits patiently to exert his judgment in due cause, when both the quick and the dead are brought before him.

JOY TO THE WORLD INDEED, FOR THE LORD IS COME.