What on Earth is Life About?
In the nineteenth century a nursery rhyme was written that has met with widespread empathy ever since.
“Solomon Grundy,
Born on Monday,
Christened on Tuesday,
Married on Wednesday,
Took ill on Thursday,
Worse on Friday,
Died on Saturday,
Buried on Sunday,
And this is the end of Solomon Grundy.”
How empty and pessimistic such a view of life is. But life should not be like this. It has a purpose, it is going somewhere.
Jesus’ disciples were worried. What had happened to Jesus could happen to them next. Yet rumours were flying around that he had risen from the dead. The worried group were huddled together in a locked upper room when Jesus himself suddenly appeared in the middle of the group. Jesus began to explain the significance of everything that had happened over the previous three days. He did this by teaching them what the Bible said.
“Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.” Luke 24:45-48
The Bible teaches us that life does have an eternal dimension. Jesus was keen that his disciples should understand this so that they could pass the message on to others.
“Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.” Luke 24:45
One of the most exciting aspects of my work in our church is to see people who have had no Christian background getting excited about what they read in the Bible. Paul oncedescribed the Scriptures with the following phrase,
“These are the very words of God.” Romans 3:2
Jesus recognised that the Scriptures are vital for all people to understand. His mission was to persuade his disciples who he really was, to teach them the significance of his death and to teach them how to understand the Scriptures.
Some people have complained that the Bible is such a large book that it is difficult to get to grips with. You may remember at school having to condense or précis a story. There are sections in the Bible where the Christian gospel is précised and this is one of them. In this section Jesus begins,
“This is what is written . . .” Luke 24:46
He then continues to give what is perhaps the shortest précis of the Christian message ever given, the Bible’s message is condensed into five words.
1. The Christ
‘Christ’ is a Greek word which means the same as the Hebrew word ‘Messiah’ - both mean ‘God’s chosen king’. The whole Bible is about how God will rescue his people by entering into this world as a human Messiah, the Christ. His purpose in coming was to save His people for an eternal life with him.
The Bible teaches that God will enter the world as a baby. This child would be a direct descendent of King David and would be born in ‘David’s city’, the small town of Bethlehem. This town only had about a thousand inhabitants when Jesus was born there. The old Scriptures say that he would be given the name of Moses successor, Joshua or Jesus. Both names are closely related, both mean ‘the Lord saves’. The Messiah would ‘visit His temple’, so he must have appeared before 70 AD when the Romans destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem, never to be rebuilt. This Christ would be executed by having his hands and feet ‘pierced’ but three days after his death he would rise again. Even these few prophecies, out of the 330 given in the Old Jewish Scriptures, narrow the field down to just one person. This man Jesus was God’s chosen king, the Lord God come in the flesh, the Messiah, the Saviour of the world.
2. The Christ will Suffer
“The Christ will suffer . . .” Luke 24:46
The Messiah would die by being crucified on a cross. There he would pay the price for my sin. The prophet Isaiah had foretold that this was the main reason for the Messiah’s coming.
“We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Isaiah 53:6
The Bible is clear that we have all rebelled against the rule of God in our lives. Yet the Messiah would come and die as the substitute for our rebellion against God. Because of the Messiah our relationship with the Lord God can be restored, so remedying the problems our rebellion has caused.
“Surely he took our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by god, smitten by him and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.” Isaiah 53:4-5
So the Christ came to be God’s remedy for the consequences of my sin.
3. The Christ will Rise
“The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day” Luke 24:46
This resurrection is precisely what the Old Testament Scriptures had foretold. Jesus had also repeatedly emphasised to his disciples before their final visit to Jerusalem. His resurrection proved that Jesus really is the Lord God as he had claimed but it also reminds us that he is now in heaven to welcome home all those who belong to him, who love him. The Bible teaches that there is a resurrection for all people, but all those who reject a personal relationship with Christ will face awful consequences when the final judgment comes because they have rejected the only Saviour and persist in being responsible for their own sin. Jesus the Messiah now reigns in heaven. He is the Lord God of the universe to whom we will have to give an account of our lives..
These three words summarise the Christian ‘good news’ or gospel. Jesus now tells us of the response God expects from us before describing his greatest gift?
4. Repentance
“ . . . and repentance . . . will be preached in His name . . .” Luke 24:47
Repentance means to make a change in the direction of my life, to ‘rethink’ the way I am going. Many people do not really understand this. Many think,
“I’m not really a bad person, in fact I’m better than most.”
If anyone thinks like that they have completely missed the point. We need to see ourselves as God sees us and on that basis we all fall far short of his standards. What God wants is for all of us to have a personal relationship with him through His Son. If we have such a close relationship our ambitions and behaviour will inevitably change. Without that relationship there is no salvation. Jesus warned that there would be church leaders, preachers and even miracle workers who would not be admitted to heaven because they do not have a personal relationship with him. He said,
“Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven. . . Many will say to me on that day (the Day of Judgment), ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers.” Matthew 7:21-23
The repentance that God is looking for is not a determination to live a better life or a decision do less wrong. It is much deeper than that. Repentance is to allow the Lord Jesus to become the focus or centre of my life. If he is on the throne of my life then I will be concerned above all else to live for him, to please him, because of whom he is and what he has done for me on the cross. Keeping Jesus from his rightful place in the centre of my life is what need to repent of.
I first understood what repentance meant when I was a student. I wasn’t any worse than other students, I was quite clean living, but I had never understood that it was only through having a personal relationship with Jesus that I could be saved. I was at the centre, just as ‘I’ is at the centre of ‘sIn’. After hearing a talk on repentance, I went to my room, knelt down and asked Jesus to come into the centre of my life, to be my Saviour and Lord.
5. Forgiveness
“. . . forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations . . .”
Luke 24:47
The greatest gift any person can be given is the forgiveness of my sins. The root of sin is my rebellion against the rule of God. Now, because I am forgiven I have the right of admission into the presence of God and his family. This privilege has been won for me by the Lord Jesus on that cross. Because I now belong to Jesus, his death covers all my sin. I am forgiven; my guilt has been washed away. This status is only given to those who have a personal relationship, it does not come through my trying to be good, moral or religious.
This is so important. Eternal life is not given as a reward for how we live. It is only given to those who have a relationship with Jesus. This is the message Christ’s Church must preach,
“. . . repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name . . .” Luke 24:47
There is no other means of being forgiven. As the Peter and John bravely said to the same Sanhedrin Council that had recently condemned Jesus to death,
“Salvation is found in no-one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” Acts 4:12
It is a wonderful relationship to be in, to know you are loved, forgiven and have an eternal purpose. At the end of C.S.Lewis’s ‘Chronicles of Narnia’, the unicorn Jewel says,
“I’ve come home at last. This is my real country. This is the land I’ve been looking for all my life”
To be a member of Christ’s kingdom, to have a personal relationship with him, changes everything. No more ‘Solomon Grundy’ with his hopeless fatalism, now we have a joyful future because, through Christ, we are members of his eternal kingdom, his family.
BVP
