Worthy adversaries
Commentary
Complacency is surely one of the many problems plaguing contemporary Christianity in the United States. Surely one -- but not the only -- cause of that complacency is the fact that Christianity remains the major religion of the North American population. A kind of vague and diluted Christianity pervades our nation, and the so-called "Judeo-Christian" ethic supposedly anchors our values. The impression many of us have is that our culture is essentially "friendly" to Christian faith and life, and therein lies the problem.
Each of our lessons for this Fourth Sunday of Easter supposes an antagonistic setting. The reason for such a setting is the simple fact that the earliest Christian proclamation of the Easter faith occurred in "unfriendly settings." The church arose in dialogue with a number of "worthy adversaries," each of which was determined to oppose the advancement of Christianity. We are a bit shocked amid the Easter season to think of these adversaries, because Easter is usually a time to rejoice in God's triumph over the opposition. The New Testament, however, will not allow us to assume that God's victory in Christ's resurrection is going to be quickly and easily accepted by all. That persistent attention to "worthy adversaries" is the course we propose to chart through the three lessons.
Acts 4:5-12
The adversaries in this case are clear. This passage comprises part of the church's first encounter with opposition to its message. Whereas the Pentecost story in chapter two of Acts suggests that everyone believed, now the narrative exposes the church's antagonists. Following immediately after Peter's speech occasioned by the healing of the lame man (the First Lesson for Easter 3), Peter and John are arrested and brought before "the priests, the captain of the temple and the Sadducees" (4:1). The message of Christ's resurrection "annoys" some of these officials (4:2-4) named in verses 5 and 6. Luke makes it sound as if the whole priestly establishment met to question Peter and John.
These religious leaders have one question for the two apostles, and a legitimate one at that. The issue is not whether the healing was real but by what "power" Peter and John effected the healing. (See Mark 3:22 and its parallels.) A wondrous act only raises the question of the source of the power, which may be either good or evil. The parallel between "by what power" and "by what name" reflects the notion that a name invoked the presence and power of another (for example, Acts 8:12; 9:27; 16:18). Indeed, Peter did invoke "the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth" to cure the lame man's condition (3:6), because "name" is synonymous with the person.
This is an opportunity for Peter to deliver another one of his speeches. The author of Acts consistently credits the boldness of the church's proclamation and witness to the presence of the Holy Spirit (for example, 6:5; 7:55; 13:52), indeed that divine presence is characteristic of Christian faith. When people come to believe, they are filled with the Spirit (for example, 10:44). The church is able to deal with its adversaries only because of God's empowerment through the Spirit, and where the church encounters conflict and opposition, the Spirit is there. However the contemporary church may meet opposition, we had better understand how the Spirit works among us.
Peter's words in this lesson include some of the recurring themes in these speeches in Acts. Peter wastes no time setting the group of leaders straight. It is by the power of "Jesus Christ of Nazareth" that they heal (vv. 8-10), who is none other than the one for whose execution these leaders are responsible (see 3:13) and the one whom God has raised from the dead. The name "Jesus Christ of Nazareth" identifies both the status of Jesus as the Messiah (Christ) and his historical character ("of Nazareth"), suggesting how the earliest church equated the historical Jesus and the risen Christ. Peter now draws on the Hebrew Scriptures to document how God chooses what humans dismiss. In Psalm 118:22 the metaphor refers to the righteous person who is shunned by others but whom God exalts, but it eventually became related to David; then the church naturally employed it to describe their Messiah (see Matthew 21:42 and 1 Peter 2:7). The "chief cornerstone" had to bear the weight of the building pressing in from two sides, and hence had to be of the strongest and best material.
Peter concludes his speech with a drastic claim: "There is salvation in no one else ..." (v. 12). Since he refers to the cure of the lame man with the word "saved" (which is translated "healed," v. 9), in this context, "salvation" means, first of all, physical healing. The author of Luke-Acts frequently uses the Greek verb translated "to save" of a physical healing (for example, Luke 8:36, 48, 50; 17:19; 18:42 and Acts 4:9 and 14:9). Clearly, however, Luke understands that the word has a broader meaning (see 13:26 and 16:17). In addition to physical healing, salvation entails rescue from mistakenly worshiping false gods. It refers to God's deliverance of us from all that is destructive to both spirit and body.
Because they fear the many who have come to follow the Christian way (v. 4), the officials let Peter and John off with only a warning, but later in the Acts story the verdict will not be so favorable (see 12:1-5). The worthy adversary in this case is the established religion of the day, suggesting that Christianity is always at odds with a "business as usual" arrangement and upsets the status quo. Today that may mean that the adversary is within the so-called Christian establishment. But we will need to pursue this course further.
1 John 3:16-24
The worthy adversary in this lesson seems to be ourselves, or at least what we are tempted to be. This reading continues the one assigned from 1 John for the Third Sunday of Easter, although the discussion has moved on to the commandment to "love one another" (3:11). The author claims that those who do not love "abide in death" (3:14) and do not "have eternal life" (3:15), using Cain as a prime example. At verse 16 the discussion attempts to speak more clearly about what it means to love one another. The first part of the reading continues the theme of 3:11-15 and tries to answer the question, how "we know love" (vv. 16-18). The question shifts focus only slightly in verses 19-22 to how "we know that we are from the truth." The conclusion of the lesson asserts Christ's commandment that we believe and the results of obedience to that command.
Christ defines love for us by his willingness to suffer death, that is, "to lay down his life for us" (v. 16). That phrase may be drawn from the Gospel of John, as the day's Gospel Lesson will demonstrate. Christ's sacrifice for us logically means that for us to love others means sacrificing ourselves for them. The author epitomizes the classic idea that the imperative ("we ought to lay down our lives for one another") is rooted in and arises from the indicative ("he laid down his life for us"). Verse 17 sounds as if it were written for our day, when the gap between the rich and the poor increases each year. It is simply inconceivable that we love others if we see their need and do not respond out of our abundance. This makes us wonder if not aiding the needy in love was a problem in the Johannine church. The love we see in Christ evokes love in both "truth and action" and not simply in "word or speech" (v. 18). The opposition between speech and action does not surprise us; it is the difference between walking the walk and only talking it. However, acting love is in some sense "truth." In the Gospel of John, "truth" often means the revelation of God in Christ, and here it refers to acting out what we learn from the revelation. To comprehend the revelation is first to see that God acts in sending the divine love for us and then to respond by acting in a similar manner for others.
In verses 19-22 the author appears to address a fear among the readers, specifically the fear that we can never approach God without feeling condemned. The text proposes two different situations. In the first "our hearts condemn" us (vv. 19-20) and in the second they do not (vv. 21-22). The author wants to help us move beyond the first to the second situation. If we love in "truth and action," however, we will find confidence that we are "from the truth." The latter expression means that we derive our own existence from the revelation of God in Christ, so that it becomes our roots. Acting in love brings us reassurance of who we are and of our allegiance with Christ. In case that assurance does not come, we need to be realistic about our feelings ("our hearts"). If we are tempted to condemn ourselves, we should remember that our perception of God is always partial and that "God is greater than our hearts." God knows us better than we know ourselves.
If we do not condemn ourselves, we are able to approach God without fear and reap the benefits of that relationship. Verses 21-22 sound as if God is good to us if we "obey" and "please" God. Unfortunately, there is no honest way of dodging this inference from the verses, yet we ought not to construct a whole theology of it. Obviously, the requests brought to God out of a life of obedience are more likely those which God can and will grant. Requests premised on an inadequate meaning for life (that is, disobedience) are most often ones that violate God's will and hence not those which God can grant. "Whatever we ask" ought to be read within the context of being the sort of people who ask for the right things!
The final part of the reading summarizes the whole of chapter 4 and articulates what it means to appropriate the love expressed in God's act in Christ. Two commandments are stated -- "believe in the name of ... Jesus Christ" and "love one another," both of which come directly from the Gospel of John (see John 14:1 and 13:34). There is nothing complicated about it, no vast scheme to understand, and no lengthy body of legislation to follow. Just believe and love. Of course, as we all know, neither of these two commands is simple or easy, but they go to the heart of what Christian faith and life are all about. According to Johannine thought, Christ commands faith (belief), and believing is obeying. The result of obedience is the relationship we have with Christ, who is with us and we with him. Yet the question of knowing this is still a pressing one. This author strives to implant a confidence -- a knowing -- in readers who have lots of uncertainties and faltering faith. We know Christ's presence in our lives through the presence of the Spirit, which Christ gives. The relationship suggested by the mutual "abiding" is accomplished through the indwelling of the divine presence in the form of the Spirit. Notice that this author never really tells us how we know the Spirit's presence, unless we revert to what verses 18-19 claim, namely, that the truth in our lives is reflected in how we act and most especially how we love.
The worthy adversary implicit in this reading is within ourselves. Our own worst enemy is the tendency to condemn ourselves, to become so convinced of our unworthiness that not even Christ's sacrifice for us changes it. Our adversary is perhaps our own inclination to reduce God to what our own hearts are and to fail to believe that "God is greater than our hearts and ... knows everything" (v. 20). If our own sense of self-condemnation is our first worthy adversary in this reading, the second is surely our tendency to separate love and action. To reduce God to our own hearts and reduce love to some sort of inner feeling or disposition, stripped of all behavior -- these are our opponents. We have seen the enemy and it is us!
John 10:11-18
The worthy adversary is both outside and within ourselves, according to this lesson from the Gospel of John. It ought to be read in the context of 10:1-10 and as a continuation of that metaphorical speech, for verses 11-18 continue to spin out the relationship between Jesus and his believers as it is comparable to that of the shepherd and sheep. Two things are most striking about this passage. The first is the repetition of the refrain "lay down my life" (vv. 11, 15b, 17, and 18) and the figure of the "hireling" or "hired hand" (vv. 12-13). Speaking generally, verses 11-13 explore the commitment of the good shepherd to the sheep; verses 14-15 the shepherd's knowledge of the sheep; verse 16 the scope of the flock of sheep; and verses 17-18 Jesus' power over his life and his commission from God.
Verses 11 and 14 are two of a number of passages in which Jesus equates himself with some other reality (see for example 6:35 and 11:25). In each case, the declaration is emphatic, that is, it means something like "I, myself, am." They are "I am" sayings that use the ego eimi form in which the use of the personal pronoun "I" makes emphatic what is already in the verb "I am." These statements are all metaphorical, since they propose an equation that is startling and provocative. Part of the provocation of these two in the reading is their relationship with the two that precede them in 10:7 and 9. The essential feature of the "good shepherd" is that he is willing to sacrifice his life for the sake of his sheep and does so voluntarily (see v. 18).
The "good shepherd" to which Jesus equates himself is not the opposite of the "bad" shepherd but of the hired hand. The employee simply does not have the kind of investment in the welfare of the sheep as the owner-shepherd does, so the hireling looks out for himself first. The sheep are threatened and are vulnerable to the "wolf," who both "snatches" and "scatters" them. Verses 14-15 seem to repeat the point of verses 3b-4 and describe the intimate relationship between the shepherd and the sheep. After restating the "I am" saying, Jesus claims that there is a mutual knowledge between shepherd and sheep. The word "know" implies more than acquaintance and suggests an intimacy typical of the way the Hebrew word (yadah) is used in the Old Testament. In the context of that intimacy, Jesus again declares that he will sacrifice his life for his sheep.
Who are the "other sheep" mentioned in verse 16? All those who will become Jesus' followers in the centuries to come, the Gentiles, or sincere believers of other religions? Most likely the fourth evangelist thought of them as the future believers, and in particular those who had become Christians between the time of Jesus' ministry and the writing of the Gospel. The point, however, is the unity of the believing community (see 17:11, 21, and 23).
In the final two verses, the speech moves out of the metaphor proper to offer a conclusion about who Jesus is. Note first of all Jesus mentions his Father in both verses, and those references form closures around the words. God loves Christ because he is willing to sacrifice his life for humans and their redemption. Now, however, the point is that Jesus has it within his power both to "lay down" and "take up" his life again. This Johannine Jesus is not a victim of hostile opponents. He is not forced to die. He does so by his own will. Furthermore, these words suggest that Jesus raises himself from the grave -- a view that is different from some New Testament perspectives on the resurrection which insist that God raised Jesus and Jesus did not raise himself. To surrender his life and then claim it again is Christ's commission from his Father.
One of the intriguing things about this passage, and the longer metaphor running from 10:1-18, is the identity of the opponents. In verses 1-10, who is the "thief," the "bandit," and the "strangers"? In our lesson who is the "hired hand" and who are the "wolves"? They are, of course, metaphorical disguises for Jesus' own worthy adversaries, but which ones? In the context of the whole of chapters 9 and 10, these figures represent the Pharisees of 9:40 and the unbelieving "Jews" of 10:19-20. In both cases, the reference is to the religious leaders, because "the Jews" obviously does not and cannot refer to the whole of the Jewish people. Who Jesus is is clarified by who his opponents are. We see Christ most clearly when we see who opposes him.
The worthy adversaries in our lessons are actually very close to us. In Acts and in John the opponents are within us corporately. That is, they are those who comprise the religious establishment those who are empowered by the religious institution and who jealously guard their power. In 1 John the adversary is within us individually in our own inclinations. In today's church in North America we may not face formidable opposition from outside the church, but we most certainly know adversaries within our own number. Anytime the status quo is valued more highly than God's call through Christ, anytime the power of those who claim leadership is held too tightly and jealously, the adversary is within us. We may need to look beyond the institution and its entrenched practices and views to hear the risen Christ beckoning us to a new faithfulness.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Acts 4:5-12
We continue in our text this morning with the events surrounding Peter's healing of the lame man at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple. Last Sunday we heard of the reaction of the Jews in Jerusalem to the healing, and we listened to Peter's address to the amazed populace. Now we are told of the reaction of the ruling Jewish authorities. They are "annoyed," says the text (v. 2). After all, here are two uneducated, common men named Peter and John (cf. v. 13), talking about the resurrection from the dead of someone called Jesus of Nazareth. Worse, they have healed a man, lame from birth (3:2), in the name of that Jesus, and as a result, thousands of the citizenry are turning to belief in Jesus. Yes, that is annoying, so much so that the leaders take Peter and John into custody overnight, and then bring them in the morning before the religious and ruling Jewish elders to be examined.
Luke, the author of Acts, is probably incorrect in stating that Annas was the high priest. Annas actually presided in A.D. 6-14, while Caiaphas held the office from A.D. 17 to 36, which marks him as the high priest after the crucifixion and resurrection. But that is of little import. The principal fact is that the apostles Peter and John have to answer to a very intimidating gathering of religious and civil big-shots.
Jesus had earlier told his disciples that such a test would come to pass. "And when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities," the Lord had said, "do not be anxious how or what you are to answer or what you are to say; for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you are to say" (Luke 12:11-12). So it is that Peter, "filled with the Holy Spirit" (v. 8), answers the intimidating gathering of leaders with "boldness" (cf. v. 13).
Once again, as he told the populace previously (ch. 3), Peter declares that the lame man has been healed by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. The very power of that name has made a cripple whole. And who is Jesus Christ of Nazareth? -- he has to be identified for the rulers. He is the one whom the rulers turned over to be crucified on a Roman cross, but whom God raised from the dead. Moreover, he is the fulfillment of the Psalmist's words in the Old Testament (Psalm 118:22). He is the stone which was rejected by the builders or leaders of the nation, but which now has become the head of the corner, the foundation stone to which everything and everyone else must be aligned.
That is a startling statement on Peter's part -- that everything must be measured and squared by Jesus Christ. But Peter makes the assertion even more forceful. "There is salvation in no one else," he declares, "for there is no other name under heaven given among human beings by which we must be saved" (v. 12). Through Jesus Christ alone is given salvation from Almighty God.
What does that mean? What is "salvation" according to Luke? If we refer to other passages in Luke's Gospel, he apparently means the power to heal and the ability to forgive sins (cf. Luke 4:18-19; 7:21-23). Jesus Christ alone has the power to make whole and to set us right once again with God by forgiving our sin against him.
That is not a very popular claim in our pluralistic society, is it? It implies that there is only one pathway to the power and forgiveness of the Father -- through faith in Jesus Christ. But there are multitudes, and indeed some among you, who believe that there are many paths to God. After all, in our country alone, we have those of many faiths -- Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, hundreds of sects in Los Angeles alone. And even the most primitive person in the jungles of New Guinea or Brazil has an inkling of some divine power beyond them. Every people has known some approach to the divine and has set up rites and rituals in some form of religion. Can we say that there is no validity whatsoever to such religious beliefs and forms? To do so seems to be much too exclusivistic and offensive.
It is not for nothing that Jesus says in the Gospel according to Luke, "Blessed is the one who takes no offense in me" (Luke 7:23), because yes, the claim for Jesus Christ alone as the way to salvation is offensive. But it all has to do, you see, with who we think God is. If God is nothing more than the numinous powers in nature, or some great Om in Nirvana, nothing more than an ethical guide or a people's ancestor, nothing more than human ideals projected upon eternity or an infinite rationality and pure form, nothing more than an ultimate demand or a subjective experience of some absolute, then yes, many peoples have discovered a way to God. But of course none of those views defines the heavenly Father that we have known in Jesus Christ, does it? Our scriptures strain through 2,000 years of history to testify to who the true God is, and in always incomplete and inadequate language finally have to exclaim, "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father" (John 1:14). We have seen the glory of true God, shining in the face of Jesus Christ.
Of course the other reason why we think there are many pathways to God is because so many of us think that there is no such thing as sin. So many of the gods and goddesses that we invent for ourselves demand nothing of us, at least not in this world. Many religions just want us to abandon this world for the timelessness of Nirvana. And tell me, what does a numinous power of nature ask that you do? It's very easy to worship the nature deities, because they do not have that demand to love your God and your neighbor with all your heart and soul and mind and strength -- person to person, the depths of your personality responding to God's Person. And when we fail that, because we so often do, how are we cleansed of our shortcomings and failures to be what we were meant to be? And how, then, are we delivered from the eternal death that our sin deserves? Only through the forgiveness of the Father made manifest for us in Jesus Christ. I often think that if we want to judge the validity of any other deities, we should ask, "How have they dealt with death?" Can they do away with the eternal darkness of the grave as has our Lord Jesus Christ? Can they preserve the unique personality that you are for a life in the company of a loving God with all his saints?
No, good Christians. In Jesus Christ alone is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. And there is no other name under heaven given by which we may be saved.
Each of our lessons for this Fourth Sunday of Easter supposes an antagonistic setting. The reason for such a setting is the simple fact that the earliest Christian proclamation of the Easter faith occurred in "unfriendly settings." The church arose in dialogue with a number of "worthy adversaries," each of which was determined to oppose the advancement of Christianity. We are a bit shocked amid the Easter season to think of these adversaries, because Easter is usually a time to rejoice in God's triumph over the opposition. The New Testament, however, will not allow us to assume that God's victory in Christ's resurrection is going to be quickly and easily accepted by all. That persistent attention to "worthy adversaries" is the course we propose to chart through the three lessons.
Acts 4:5-12
The adversaries in this case are clear. This passage comprises part of the church's first encounter with opposition to its message. Whereas the Pentecost story in chapter two of Acts suggests that everyone believed, now the narrative exposes the church's antagonists. Following immediately after Peter's speech occasioned by the healing of the lame man (the First Lesson for Easter 3), Peter and John are arrested and brought before "the priests, the captain of the temple and the Sadducees" (4:1). The message of Christ's resurrection "annoys" some of these officials (4:2-4) named in verses 5 and 6. Luke makes it sound as if the whole priestly establishment met to question Peter and John.
These religious leaders have one question for the two apostles, and a legitimate one at that. The issue is not whether the healing was real but by what "power" Peter and John effected the healing. (See Mark 3:22 and its parallels.) A wondrous act only raises the question of the source of the power, which may be either good or evil. The parallel between "by what power" and "by what name" reflects the notion that a name invoked the presence and power of another (for example, Acts 8:12; 9:27; 16:18). Indeed, Peter did invoke "the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth" to cure the lame man's condition (3:6), because "name" is synonymous with the person.
This is an opportunity for Peter to deliver another one of his speeches. The author of Acts consistently credits the boldness of the church's proclamation and witness to the presence of the Holy Spirit (for example, 6:5; 7:55; 13:52), indeed that divine presence is characteristic of Christian faith. When people come to believe, they are filled with the Spirit (for example, 10:44). The church is able to deal with its adversaries only because of God's empowerment through the Spirit, and where the church encounters conflict and opposition, the Spirit is there. However the contemporary church may meet opposition, we had better understand how the Spirit works among us.
Peter's words in this lesson include some of the recurring themes in these speeches in Acts. Peter wastes no time setting the group of leaders straight. It is by the power of "Jesus Christ of Nazareth" that they heal (vv. 8-10), who is none other than the one for whose execution these leaders are responsible (see 3:13) and the one whom God has raised from the dead. The name "Jesus Christ of Nazareth" identifies both the status of Jesus as the Messiah (Christ) and his historical character ("of Nazareth"), suggesting how the earliest church equated the historical Jesus and the risen Christ. Peter now draws on the Hebrew Scriptures to document how God chooses what humans dismiss. In Psalm 118:22 the metaphor refers to the righteous person who is shunned by others but whom God exalts, but it eventually became related to David; then the church naturally employed it to describe their Messiah (see Matthew 21:42 and 1 Peter 2:7). The "chief cornerstone" had to bear the weight of the building pressing in from two sides, and hence had to be of the strongest and best material.
Peter concludes his speech with a drastic claim: "There is salvation in no one else ..." (v. 12). Since he refers to the cure of the lame man with the word "saved" (which is translated "healed," v. 9), in this context, "salvation" means, first of all, physical healing. The author of Luke-Acts frequently uses the Greek verb translated "to save" of a physical healing (for example, Luke 8:36, 48, 50; 17:19; 18:42 and Acts 4:9 and 14:9). Clearly, however, Luke understands that the word has a broader meaning (see 13:26 and 16:17). In addition to physical healing, salvation entails rescue from mistakenly worshiping false gods. It refers to God's deliverance of us from all that is destructive to both spirit and body.
Because they fear the many who have come to follow the Christian way (v. 4), the officials let Peter and John off with only a warning, but later in the Acts story the verdict will not be so favorable (see 12:1-5). The worthy adversary in this case is the established religion of the day, suggesting that Christianity is always at odds with a "business as usual" arrangement and upsets the status quo. Today that may mean that the adversary is within the so-called Christian establishment. But we will need to pursue this course further.
1 John 3:16-24
The worthy adversary in this lesson seems to be ourselves, or at least what we are tempted to be. This reading continues the one assigned from 1 John for the Third Sunday of Easter, although the discussion has moved on to the commandment to "love one another" (3:11). The author claims that those who do not love "abide in death" (3:14) and do not "have eternal life" (3:15), using Cain as a prime example. At verse 16 the discussion attempts to speak more clearly about what it means to love one another. The first part of the reading continues the theme of 3:11-15 and tries to answer the question, how "we know love" (vv. 16-18). The question shifts focus only slightly in verses 19-22 to how "we know that we are from the truth." The conclusion of the lesson asserts Christ's commandment that we believe and the results of obedience to that command.
Christ defines love for us by his willingness to suffer death, that is, "to lay down his life for us" (v. 16). That phrase may be drawn from the Gospel of John, as the day's Gospel Lesson will demonstrate. Christ's sacrifice for us logically means that for us to love others means sacrificing ourselves for them. The author epitomizes the classic idea that the imperative ("we ought to lay down our lives for one another") is rooted in and arises from the indicative ("he laid down his life for us"). Verse 17 sounds as if it were written for our day, when the gap between the rich and the poor increases each year. It is simply inconceivable that we love others if we see their need and do not respond out of our abundance. This makes us wonder if not aiding the needy in love was a problem in the Johannine church. The love we see in Christ evokes love in both "truth and action" and not simply in "word or speech" (v. 18). The opposition between speech and action does not surprise us; it is the difference between walking the walk and only talking it. However, acting love is in some sense "truth." In the Gospel of John, "truth" often means the revelation of God in Christ, and here it refers to acting out what we learn from the revelation. To comprehend the revelation is first to see that God acts in sending the divine love for us and then to respond by acting in a similar manner for others.
In verses 19-22 the author appears to address a fear among the readers, specifically the fear that we can never approach God without feeling condemned. The text proposes two different situations. In the first "our hearts condemn" us (vv. 19-20) and in the second they do not (vv. 21-22). The author wants to help us move beyond the first to the second situation. If we love in "truth and action," however, we will find confidence that we are "from the truth." The latter expression means that we derive our own existence from the revelation of God in Christ, so that it becomes our roots. Acting in love brings us reassurance of who we are and of our allegiance with Christ. In case that assurance does not come, we need to be realistic about our feelings ("our hearts"). If we are tempted to condemn ourselves, we should remember that our perception of God is always partial and that "God is greater than our hearts." God knows us better than we know ourselves.
If we do not condemn ourselves, we are able to approach God without fear and reap the benefits of that relationship. Verses 21-22 sound as if God is good to us if we "obey" and "please" God. Unfortunately, there is no honest way of dodging this inference from the verses, yet we ought not to construct a whole theology of it. Obviously, the requests brought to God out of a life of obedience are more likely those which God can and will grant. Requests premised on an inadequate meaning for life (that is, disobedience) are most often ones that violate God's will and hence not those which God can grant. "Whatever we ask" ought to be read within the context of being the sort of people who ask for the right things!
The final part of the reading summarizes the whole of chapter 4 and articulates what it means to appropriate the love expressed in God's act in Christ. Two commandments are stated -- "believe in the name of ... Jesus Christ" and "love one another," both of which come directly from the Gospel of John (see John 14:1 and 13:34). There is nothing complicated about it, no vast scheme to understand, and no lengthy body of legislation to follow. Just believe and love. Of course, as we all know, neither of these two commands is simple or easy, but they go to the heart of what Christian faith and life are all about. According to Johannine thought, Christ commands faith (belief), and believing is obeying. The result of obedience is the relationship we have with Christ, who is with us and we with him. Yet the question of knowing this is still a pressing one. This author strives to implant a confidence -- a knowing -- in readers who have lots of uncertainties and faltering faith. We know Christ's presence in our lives through the presence of the Spirit, which Christ gives. The relationship suggested by the mutual "abiding" is accomplished through the indwelling of the divine presence in the form of the Spirit. Notice that this author never really tells us how we know the Spirit's presence, unless we revert to what verses 18-19 claim, namely, that the truth in our lives is reflected in how we act and most especially how we love.
The worthy adversary implicit in this reading is within ourselves. Our own worst enemy is the tendency to condemn ourselves, to become so convinced of our unworthiness that not even Christ's sacrifice for us changes it. Our adversary is perhaps our own inclination to reduce God to what our own hearts are and to fail to believe that "God is greater than our hearts and ... knows everything" (v. 20). If our own sense of self-condemnation is our first worthy adversary in this reading, the second is surely our tendency to separate love and action. To reduce God to our own hearts and reduce love to some sort of inner feeling or disposition, stripped of all behavior -- these are our opponents. We have seen the enemy and it is us!
John 10:11-18
The worthy adversary is both outside and within ourselves, according to this lesson from the Gospel of John. It ought to be read in the context of 10:1-10 and as a continuation of that metaphorical speech, for verses 11-18 continue to spin out the relationship between Jesus and his believers as it is comparable to that of the shepherd and sheep. Two things are most striking about this passage. The first is the repetition of the refrain "lay down my life" (vv. 11, 15b, 17, and 18) and the figure of the "hireling" or "hired hand" (vv. 12-13). Speaking generally, verses 11-13 explore the commitment of the good shepherd to the sheep; verses 14-15 the shepherd's knowledge of the sheep; verse 16 the scope of the flock of sheep; and verses 17-18 Jesus' power over his life and his commission from God.
Verses 11 and 14 are two of a number of passages in which Jesus equates himself with some other reality (see for example 6:35 and 11:25). In each case, the declaration is emphatic, that is, it means something like "I, myself, am." They are "I am" sayings that use the ego eimi form in which the use of the personal pronoun "I" makes emphatic what is already in the verb "I am." These statements are all metaphorical, since they propose an equation that is startling and provocative. Part of the provocation of these two in the reading is their relationship with the two that precede them in 10:7 and 9. The essential feature of the "good shepherd" is that he is willing to sacrifice his life for the sake of his sheep and does so voluntarily (see v. 18).
The "good shepherd" to which Jesus equates himself is not the opposite of the "bad" shepherd but of the hired hand. The employee simply does not have the kind of investment in the welfare of the sheep as the owner-shepherd does, so the hireling looks out for himself first. The sheep are threatened and are vulnerable to the "wolf," who both "snatches" and "scatters" them. Verses 14-15 seem to repeat the point of verses 3b-4 and describe the intimate relationship between the shepherd and the sheep. After restating the "I am" saying, Jesus claims that there is a mutual knowledge between shepherd and sheep. The word "know" implies more than acquaintance and suggests an intimacy typical of the way the Hebrew word (yadah) is used in the Old Testament. In the context of that intimacy, Jesus again declares that he will sacrifice his life for his sheep.
Who are the "other sheep" mentioned in verse 16? All those who will become Jesus' followers in the centuries to come, the Gentiles, or sincere believers of other religions? Most likely the fourth evangelist thought of them as the future believers, and in particular those who had become Christians between the time of Jesus' ministry and the writing of the Gospel. The point, however, is the unity of the believing community (see 17:11, 21, and 23).
In the final two verses, the speech moves out of the metaphor proper to offer a conclusion about who Jesus is. Note first of all Jesus mentions his Father in both verses, and those references form closures around the words. God loves Christ because he is willing to sacrifice his life for humans and their redemption. Now, however, the point is that Jesus has it within his power both to "lay down" and "take up" his life again. This Johannine Jesus is not a victim of hostile opponents. He is not forced to die. He does so by his own will. Furthermore, these words suggest that Jesus raises himself from the grave -- a view that is different from some New Testament perspectives on the resurrection which insist that God raised Jesus and Jesus did not raise himself. To surrender his life and then claim it again is Christ's commission from his Father.
One of the intriguing things about this passage, and the longer metaphor running from 10:1-18, is the identity of the opponents. In verses 1-10, who is the "thief," the "bandit," and the "strangers"? In our lesson who is the "hired hand" and who are the "wolves"? They are, of course, metaphorical disguises for Jesus' own worthy adversaries, but which ones? In the context of the whole of chapters 9 and 10, these figures represent the Pharisees of 9:40 and the unbelieving "Jews" of 10:19-20. In both cases, the reference is to the religious leaders, because "the Jews" obviously does not and cannot refer to the whole of the Jewish people. Who Jesus is is clarified by who his opponents are. We see Christ most clearly when we see who opposes him.
The worthy adversaries in our lessons are actually very close to us. In Acts and in John the opponents are within us corporately. That is, they are those who comprise the religious establishment those who are empowered by the religious institution and who jealously guard their power. In 1 John the adversary is within us individually in our own inclinations. In today's church in North America we may not face formidable opposition from outside the church, but we most certainly know adversaries within our own number. Anytime the status quo is valued more highly than God's call through Christ, anytime the power of those who claim leadership is held too tightly and jealously, the adversary is within us. We may need to look beyond the institution and its entrenched practices and views to hear the risen Christ beckoning us to a new faithfulness.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Acts 4:5-12
We continue in our text this morning with the events surrounding Peter's healing of the lame man at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple. Last Sunday we heard of the reaction of the Jews in Jerusalem to the healing, and we listened to Peter's address to the amazed populace. Now we are told of the reaction of the ruling Jewish authorities. They are "annoyed," says the text (v. 2). After all, here are two uneducated, common men named Peter and John (cf. v. 13), talking about the resurrection from the dead of someone called Jesus of Nazareth. Worse, they have healed a man, lame from birth (3:2), in the name of that Jesus, and as a result, thousands of the citizenry are turning to belief in Jesus. Yes, that is annoying, so much so that the leaders take Peter and John into custody overnight, and then bring them in the morning before the religious and ruling Jewish elders to be examined.
Luke, the author of Acts, is probably incorrect in stating that Annas was the high priest. Annas actually presided in A.D. 6-14, while Caiaphas held the office from A.D. 17 to 36, which marks him as the high priest after the crucifixion and resurrection. But that is of little import. The principal fact is that the apostles Peter and John have to answer to a very intimidating gathering of religious and civil big-shots.
Jesus had earlier told his disciples that such a test would come to pass. "And when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities," the Lord had said, "do not be anxious how or what you are to answer or what you are to say; for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you are to say" (Luke 12:11-12). So it is that Peter, "filled with the Holy Spirit" (v. 8), answers the intimidating gathering of leaders with "boldness" (cf. v. 13).
Once again, as he told the populace previously (ch. 3), Peter declares that the lame man has been healed by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. The very power of that name has made a cripple whole. And who is Jesus Christ of Nazareth? -- he has to be identified for the rulers. He is the one whom the rulers turned over to be crucified on a Roman cross, but whom God raised from the dead. Moreover, he is the fulfillment of the Psalmist's words in the Old Testament (Psalm 118:22). He is the stone which was rejected by the builders or leaders of the nation, but which now has become the head of the corner, the foundation stone to which everything and everyone else must be aligned.
That is a startling statement on Peter's part -- that everything must be measured and squared by Jesus Christ. But Peter makes the assertion even more forceful. "There is salvation in no one else," he declares, "for there is no other name under heaven given among human beings by which we must be saved" (v. 12). Through Jesus Christ alone is given salvation from Almighty God.
What does that mean? What is "salvation" according to Luke? If we refer to other passages in Luke's Gospel, he apparently means the power to heal and the ability to forgive sins (cf. Luke 4:18-19; 7:21-23). Jesus Christ alone has the power to make whole and to set us right once again with God by forgiving our sin against him.
That is not a very popular claim in our pluralistic society, is it? It implies that there is only one pathway to the power and forgiveness of the Father -- through faith in Jesus Christ. But there are multitudes, and indeed some among you, who believe that there are many paths to God. After all, in our country alone, we have those of many faiths -- Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, hundreds of sects in Los Angeles alone. And even the most primitive person in the jungles of New Guinea or Brazil has an inkling of some divine power beyond them. Every people has known some approach to the divine and has set up rites and rituals in some form of religion. Can we say that there is no validity whatsoever to such religious beliefs and forms? To do so seems to be much too exclusivistic and offensive.
It is not for nothing that Jesus says in the Gospel according to Luke, "Blessed is the one who takes no offense in me" (Luke 7:23), because yes, the claim for Jesus Christ alone as the way to salvation is offensive. But it all has to do, you see, with who we think God is. If God is nothing more than the numinous powers in nature, or some great Om in Nirvana, nothing more than an ethical guide or a people's ancestor, nothing more than human ideals projected upon eternity or an infinite rationality and pure form, nothing more than an ultimate demand or a subjective experience of some absolute, then yes, many peoples have discovered a way to God. But of course none of those views defines the heavenly Father that we have known in Jesus Christ, does it? Our scriptures strain through 2,000 years of history to testify to who the true God is, and in always incomplete and inadequate language finally have to exclaim, "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father" (John 1:14). We have seen the glory of true God, shining in the face of Jesus Christ.
Of course the other reason why we think there are many pathways to God is because so many of us think that there is no such thing as sin. So many of the gods and goddesses that we invent for ourselves demand nothing of us, at least not in this world. Many religions just want us to abandon this world for the timelessness of Nirvana. And tell me, what does a numinous power of nature ask that you do? It's very easy to worship the nature deities, because they do not have that demand to love your God and your neighbor with all your heart and soul and mind and strength -- person to person, the depths of your personality responding to God's Person. And when we fail that, because we so often do, how are we cleansed of our shortcomings and failures to be what we were meant to be? And how, then, are we delivered from the eternal death that our sin deserves? Only through the forgiveness of the Father made manifest for us in Jesus Christ. I often think that if we want to judge the validity of any other deities, we should ask, "How have they dealt with death?" Can they do away with the eternal darkness of the grave as has our Lord Jesus Christ? Can they preserve the unique personality that you are for a life in the company of a loving God with all his saints?
No, good Christians. In Jesus Christ alone is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. And there is no other name under heaven given by which we may be saved.
