The Gospel and The Bible (Gospel Series: Week 1)

KNU International English Church

Josh Broward

January 24, 2010

The Gospel and the Bible

(Read Forwards not Backwards!)

Gospel Series: Week 1

Isaiah 61:1-11, Matthew 11:1-6, Romans 1:13-17

When I was growing up in the 1980’s, there was a huge controversy about backmasked messages in rock music. Conservative Christian groups began accusing various famous rock bands of having secret backward messages in their music that would entice people to follow Satan, use drugs, or have illicit sex.

Ÿ Led Zeplin’s song “Stairway to Heaven” is alleged to have the backward message: “Here’s to my sweet Satan.”

Ÿ Queen was accused of including “It’s fun to smoke marijuana,” backmasked in their famous song, “Another One Bites the Dust.”

Most bands vigorously denied these claims. However, as the fury and controversy over backmasking raged in the 1970s and 1980s, some bands joined the backmasking trend with some funny messages.

Ÿ In 1979, Pink Floyd backmasked the message: “Congratulations! You’ve just found the secret message.”

Ÿ Weird Al Yankovic hid the message: “Wow, you must have an awful lot of free time on your hands.”

There are hundreds of real or alleged backmasked messages. Some of these backward messages are funny. Some are strange, and some are scary. But the simple truth is: when you play something backwards, sometimes you get an entirely different message.

Most of us here today really start reading the Bible at the end. We start with the book of Revelation and its dramatic pictures of heaven and hell. Heaven will be streets of gold and pearly gates and everyone will be filled with joy worshiping God, no tears, no pain, no sadness. Hell will be fiery furnaces and pits of sulfur and ash and eternal torment day and night. Of course, we all want to go to heaven and avoid hell. But how?

Well, we keep reading backwards. We go to the letters. We focus on a few key verses:

Ÿ 1 John 5:1 “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has become a child of God.”

Ÿ Ephesians 2:8-9 “God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.”

Ÿ 1 Corinthians 15:3b “Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said.”

Ÿ Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.”

We usually read these key verses in the context of heaven and hell, and we come to the natural conclusion that Jesus came to earth and died on the cross so that our sins could be forgiven so that we can go to heaven and not to hell. This becomes our framework for understanding the entire Bible.

Then, we keep reading backwards. We get to the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) – the stories of Jesus, and we read them through this backward trajectory. We interpret everything that Jesus said or did based on this framework.

But, honestly, we don’t really know what to do with most of Jesus’ teachings because they don’t fit our framework. Jesus’ teaching is mostly about doing the right stuff and almost nothing about sin or forgiveness.

So we focus in on the cross, and we pretty much ignore the rest of Jesus’ life and teachings. Jesus came to earth to offer a new way for people to be right with God and go to heaven – “by grace through faith.” That’s why he lived. That’s why he died.

As we move backward even farther, we keep on reading the Bible through the same framework. When we read the Old Testament prophecies, we read them like they were written to the people of Jesus’ time to convince them that he is the Messiah. The entire message of the Old Testament prophets shrinks down to one point: Jesus is the Messiah, the one who saves us from our sins.

As we read about the history of Israel, we read it as one long introduction preparing the people for Jesus. They don’t have anything really valuable to teach us. This is just the long, slow process that God had to go through to get people ready for Jesus to come so he could save us from our sins.

We read the Torah (the Law) as a long silly list of rules. This was either the foolish human attempt to try to please God through our actions, or on the other hand, God’s (somewhat cruel) method of teaching people that we can never measure up – that we can never do good enough.

We read the creation story through the same lens. We read it as giving the simple message that God created people because he wanted someone to love. God formed us simply for personal relationship with God. But we are such big losers that we ruined the whole deal. Adam and Eve had to go and eat the apple – thus letting sin into the world and into our hearts. We would just have to wait several thousand years for Jesus to come to solve that sin problem.

When we read the Bible backward, the end result is a very small message: “We sinned. Jesus died. Trust Jesus. Go to heaven – not hell. The end.” This is like taking three pieces of glass out of a huge stained glass window and saying, “Here. Look at the picture.”

The end result of this kind of reading is believing that the only thing that matters is if you are going to heaven or to hell. This life and this world don’t matter. The environment doesn’t matter. Poverty doesn’t matter. Relationships don’t matter. In the end, other people don’t really even matter, because if you yourself are in heaven, you won’t be worrying about them anyway. This is not what the Bible teaches. This is not the Gospel.

To really understand the Bible and the Gospel, we have to read it forwards. We have to start at the beginning and work our way to the end, letting each part expand and enrich the picture.

When we start at the very beginning of the Bible, we start with God. “In the beginning, God …” (Genesis 1:1). God must always be the beginning of our thinking, and before our beginning God always was. “And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters” (1:2). “Then God said, ‘Let us make human beings in our image, to be like ourselves” (1:26). The beginning is the Trinity. In the beginning, God was Community. In the beginning, God was love. In the beginning, God was Mutual Sharing and Creative Teamwork.

Out of the great, rolling, frothing Mystery of God’s internal loving relationships, our earth and our humanity was born. God created us like God – in God’s image, as God’s representatives in the world. We were to marry – to love like God. We were to multiply – to create like God. We were to rule over the earth, to tend the garden – to lead with compassionate care like God. We were to participate in God’s activity of creating and loving and tending the earth.

When Adam and Eve rebelled, things quickly went from bad to worse. Stealing some fruit moved on to jealousy. Jealousy moved on to murdering a brother. (See Genesis 3-4.) Sin and family breakdown slowly moved around the earth until it seemed like everyone everywhere was corrupt.

God decided to start over again. He made Noah like the new Adam, and he used the flood as his eraser on the sketchpad of earth. He redrew the plants and animals and everything else and gave Noah the same command he gave Adam: “Live like God in the world. Create, love, and care for the earth.” (See Genesis 6-9.)

God chose one man, one family, one nation to be the starting point. God wanted to change the whole world, but he started with one family. God made a covenant with a man named Abram (later Abraham): “Leave our native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:1-3).

God’s people would be a blessing to others instead of keeping all the blessings for themselves. God’s people would be on the move throughout the world instead of staying in one place. God’s people would become famous, but that was not the point. The point was that everyone on earth would be blessed through them.

Again and again throughout the Bible, this fundamental promise is repeated and confirmed. God has made a binding covenant with Abraham’s family to restore the earth. God cannot allow the earth to slip into ruin. God cannot allow people to destroy themselves. God will act from within – using one family, one nation, to heal the world.

Throughout Israel’s history, one theme is repeated again and again and again. N.T. Wright says, “It is the story of going away and coming back home again: of slavery and exodus, of exile and restoration.”[1] Abraham goes to Egypt and almost loses his wife before he returns. Jacob runs for his life to east, and later returns home to wrestle with God and to reconcile with his brother. Joseph is sold into slavery in Egypt, but becomes a success. Joseph’s brothers join him as successful immigrants but become slaves.

Then, God works the great Exodus – setting his people free from slavery in Egypt. God affirms his covenant promise to heal the world through the children of Abraham. He restarts the global rescue mission by rescuing the people of Israel. On their long trip home, God teaches his people how to be his people – how to be a people who will be a blessing to the world.

The people finally make it home, but home is not all they hoped for. They struggle on – trying to get a grip on their land and on what it means to be the people of One God – the only God. They continually seem to lose touch of God’s vision of connecting the entire world with God’s healing presence. They continually retreat into a smaller vision of being a great nation – or an even smaller, weaker vision of just surviving.

So God sends prophets to remind them of his vision. They call the people to account for their compromises and short cuts and selfishness. They call the people to live with justice and fairness and concern for the weak. But finally, the prophets aren’t enough to prevent another repeat of the leaving home theme. As the people continue to distrust God, they grow weaker and weaker – until they are conquered by Assyria and Babylon and taken into exile.

But God keeps sending prophets. God keeps working on his people. He has made an eternal covenant with them to use them to heal the world, and he’s not giving up.

It is in this context that we first hear the idea that God has a “gospel” or “good news” for people. We hear it first in Isaiah 52, when the prophet tells God’s people the time has come for them to leave their exile and return home. “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of the messenger who brings good news, the good news of peace and salvation, the news that the God of Israel reigns! … Let the ruins of Jerusalem break into joyful song, for the LORD has comforted his people. He has redeemed Jerusalem” (52:7, 9). So the good news is that God’s people will be brought out of exile and set free.

The second message of good news comes in Isaiah 61: “The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is upon me, for the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted and to proclaim that captives will be released and prisoners will be freed. He has sent me to tell those who mourn that the time of the LORD’s favor has come” (61:1-2).

Isaiah’s good news is that God will bring healing to the world. Beginning with his own people, God will lift up the poor, heal the brokenhearted, free the prisoners, and comfort the morning. In other passages, God’s prophets explain and expand this good news to include the healing of all the world. God will make right everything that is wrong. God will heal all that is broken.

So when Jesus came “preaching the good news of the kingdom” (Matthew 4:23), the people would have understood the “good news” in this context: healing for God’s people and healing for the world. In case they missed the point, Jesus quoted Isaiah 61 for them at the beginning of his ministry. Mark explains that “Jesus went into Galilee, where he preached God’s Good News. ‘The time promised by God has come at last!’ he announced. ‘The Kingdom of God is near! Repent of your sins and believe the Good News!’” (Mark 1:14-15).

When Jesus talked about the Good News (or the Gospel), he didn’t talk about how he would die for people’s sins so that they could be forgiven and go to heaven. That wouldn’t have made any sense at all to them. No, Jesus was working in the tradition of the prophets. Jesus was calling forward all of God’s promises. Jesus was announcing that God’s great rescue mission was happening all around them with new force.

When Jesus talked about the Good News, he said, “The Kingdom of God is at hand.” God’s way of life is right here available to us. Jesus said we should pray that our earth will become more like heaven. Jesus never said we should pray so that we can go to heaven. Jesus taught people to pray, “May your Kingdom come. May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10).

When Jesus died and was resurrected, that gave fresh life to God’s rescue mission in the world. Jesus endured the ultimate exile – into death. And he came home again! Jesus blazed the trail for all of us to survive death. Jesus blazed the trail for all of us to survive life – to live in God’s Kingdom Way now, on earth. In the midst of so many conflicting pressures, we can live the heavenly way on earth.

And God poured out his Spirit on his people to enable us to live his ways – to be a counter-cultural community living as citizens of God’s Kingdom. Through his Spirit, God is at work among us restoring us into his image as God-like creators, God-like lovers, God-like tenders of the earth, God-like friends of the friendless, God-like healers of the broken, a God-like community of love.

So the first Christian theologians – Paul and Peter and John – set to work gathering people together to live in these counter-cultural communities learning to live in Jesus’ way. They tried to understand what it means for Jesus to lead us all on the great exodus out of slavery to sin and death. (We’ll talk more about that next week.) They realized that even though this way requires so much from us – everything really – it is still built on grace every step of the way.

They also realized that it’s not about us as individuals. It’s about where God is leading us as a people. It’s about how God is incorporating us individuals into his great rescue mission of healing our world. So in the book of Revelation, when we read the Bible forward, we still see heaven and hell. But hell is the unfortunate result of rejecting God’s healing, and heaven is the beautiful climax of all God’s healing work. And heaven is inhabited by all who have been healed in and involved in God’s healing work. And we see the great homecoming, where all of God’s people are eternally committed to God and set up house with God as the Bride of the Messiah.

If we read the Bible backwards, we end up with a very small picture: “We sinned. Jesus died. Go to heaven – not hell.” These are all true and good, but they are not the whole truth. They are pieces of the full beauty God paints for us.

If we read the Bible forwards, we see a beautiful and full picture. God is deeply in love with the world. God has made an unshakable promise to heal us and our world. Amazingly, God’s unstoppable plan is to work through us to do his healing work. Amazingly, God forgives us and frees us from our sins. The Gospel is that we don’t have to keep being the same broken, messed up people we’ve always been. The Gospel is that our world doesn’t have to keep being the same broken, messed up world it’s always been. Through Jesus, we are set free to come home to God who heals us and heals the world through us. This is the Gospel. This is the Good News that has the power to change the world.

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[1] N. T. Wright, Simply Christian, (New York: Harper Collins, 2006), 75.

The Exiled King - Isaiah 62

KNU International English Church

Josh Broward

January 17, 2010

Read: Isaiah 62

Once upon a time, there was a great King, who was just and fair and humble. The motto of his Kingdom was: LOVE AND JUSTICE FOR ALL. He taught his people how to live well. The King helped his people to love each other and to help each other. He taught them that everyone is connected, that one person’s success is a victory for all of us, and that another person’s suffering is a wound in all our hearts. He taught people to live with kindness and mercy – helping the weak, befriending the lonely, hugging the children, celebrating with joy, and encouraging the good in all to flourish and grow. His Kingdom grew, and his people prospered.

However, as is often the case, some powerful people wanted more power. They didn’t like this love and justice philosophy. They believed in the survival of the fittest. They believed that everyone gets what they deserve. The strong should get stronger, and the weak … Well, who cares about them anyway.

This group of power-hunger Powerfuls led a coup d’etat. In a quiet revolt, they sent the King into exile and imposed a new government. Their motto was: FREEDOM AND HAPPINESS FOR ALL. They filled the streets with their propaganda: “Let us throw off those ancient social norms. Let us rid ourselves of the shackles of concern for others. Live free. Pursue happiness above all else. If you want it, do it. If you like it, buy it. If you can’t afford it, work for it and work some more. Anyone can have anything they want if they only work hard enough or smart enough.

Most people gladly accepted this new government and their message about life. It is not easy always being concerned about others. Often that means putting aside what we want – at least for a while. This new way of life was much easier. It was such a relief simply to be concerned about yourself. There was a time of celebrating and revelry in the streets. Wine and women moved freely.

But carnival cannot last forever – especially not a carnival set on the philosophy of survival of the fittest. Some people are simply not as strong. They are pushed out of the way with reckless disregard for where they land. Some people want to hold on to the bottle instead of passing it around. Some people want to collect all the bottles for themselves. A powerful fist or a thieving hand is glad to get the bottles moving again.

After the carnival fades, life continues with the same philosophy under more civilized circumstances. Carefree abandon in the streets transitions to legalized divorce in the courtrooms with alimony and child support payments. Fist fights transition to office manipulation with gossip and crafty maneuvers. Wild drunken revelry transitions to a trip to travel agent who can help us escape all our troubles for a weekend on the beach. Brute force transitions to the all-out pursuit of knowledge. Education = power = wealth = happiness. Everything is more civilized, but it is still the lawless party in the streets.

On the national scale, the Powerfuls begin diverting the government’s resources to benefit the businesses of the Powerfuls. The government seems to have two primary jobs: to make the rich richer and to keep everyone else under control. Oil and gas and mining become the industries of choice. Social programs, assistance to the needy, and common infrastructure are pushed lower and lower on the priority list.

The glossy image of the government’s propaganda begins to fade and crack. FREEDOM AND HAPPINESS FOR ALL has really become “freedom for some and happiness just out of reach for everyone.” Society begins to break down. Careless independence breaks apart families. As executives take what they want when they want it, businesses find their resources wasted and their morale low. As frustration mounts, hope fades into shadows. Violence increases. Body guards and security systems become a must for all who can afford them. The nation becomes an armed society – arming themselves against themselves.

Countless hours are spent solving unnecessary problems. Unlimited resources are invested in curing preventable illnesses and injuries. Vast amounts of energy are sucked up by relational conflicts and home-life drama. Creativity is clouded out by the frustrations of dysfunction. National productivity falls. Every indicator shows declines. Exports are down. GDP is down. Per capital income is down. Consumer confidence is down. The only thing going up is inflation. A national depression takes over the economy, the family, and the individual.

Other nations recognize their moment of opportunity. First, the foreign investors come. They buy up the struggling farms and businesses. Next come the foreign armies. They put to rest any resistance to foreign rule. The coup d’etat government actually welcomes them as their last chance to stay in power and to milk the nation for its remaining resources. They work out a power-sharing agreement to stay in power as long as they pass along the best of the nation’s resources, products, and people.

This once-great-nation has become a land of desolation and scorn. The destruction of the natural environment is a mirror image of the destruction of the people: forests chopped down, rivers polluted, fields turned into concrete jungles and smoking factories. They become the butt of jokes: “Where is your King now? Did he find a prettier, younger bride somewhere else? That’s your house?!! Oh, I thought it was the chicken coup!!” Nationally and individually, they were rejected and ruined.

Everyone knew that the true King was in exile. However, they didn’t know that the King had not given up on his kingdom. He still loved his people and his land. In fact, some of his last public words were amazing promises – promises that seemed a little foolish for a king being pushed into exile:

There is no other King but me. I am the only righteous King and Savior. Let all the world look to me for salvation! I am the King, the only King there is, the one and only. I promise you this in my own name. I never take back what I say. This is the absolute truth: Every knee will bend to me. Everyone is going to end up kneeling before me. Everyone is going to pledge allegiance to me: “Yes! Salvation, and goodness, and strength are in the true King!" Everyone who rejects me now will be ashamed of themselves then. Everyone who maintains faith in me will be proved right and filled with joy through me. (See Isaiah 45:21-25.)

Small groups of people here and there stayed loyal to the King. They secretly maintained communication with the King through letters and messengers. He always encouraged them to maintain his way of life. He urged resist the propaganda of the system to put their own desires first. The King encouraged them to seek out those who were squeezed and crushed by the ruling system of pleasure and greed. The King reminded them often of his motto: LOVE AND JUSTICE FOR ALL. And, the King reminded them of his promises:

At just the right time, I will come to you. On the day of salvation I will help you. I will protect you and form you and use you to help the people reconnect with me. You will be proof of my promise to them. I will use you to make things right, to restore families again. I will tell prisoners, 'Come on out. You're free!' I’ll shout to those huddled in fear, 'It's all right. It's safe now.' There will be food stands along all the roads, picnics on all the hills— nobody hungry, nobody thirsty, shade from the sun, shelter from the wind. For the Compassionate King will guide them. (See Isaiah 49:8-10.)

The King’s loyal subjects also sent messages to the King: “Come save us! Come back and rule as King again. Kick out these unjust leaders and heal our land. O King, things are really terrible here. Don’t you see our suffering? Don’t you care? Hurry! Come quickly, King! Come soon!”

The King explained that he felt their pain and that every tear and every wound cut straight to his heart. He hurt when they hurt. He cried when they cried.

However, the King also explained that he must consider the whole picture – the whole nation. If he were to return immediately, the great majority of his kingdom would be destroyed. So many people still rejected his rule that there would be outright war, which would ruin the land and the people.

Instead, the King called his loyal subjects to form a counter-movement, an underground resistance movement. He called them to live within the systems of the revolt, but to live against the revolt within its systems.

He called them to be like termites eating away at the foundations of the revolt with their counter-cultural lives. The revolt was built on the foundation of self-directed pursuit of pleasure and survival of the fittest. They could poor acid on the roots of that tree by living the King’s counter-principle: LOVE AND JUSTICE FOR ALL. By caring for the weak, by limiting their own pursuit for stuff and pleasure, by living with genuine love and being concerned about others, they could undermine the revolt against the King without ever using a weapon or going to war.

They were to prepare the way for the King to return by preparing the people for the King. “Prepare the way by preparing the hearts,” he said. By lifting up the weak and by seeking LOVE AND JUSTICE FOR ALL, they would prove that the way of the King is viable and valuable. They would be living proof against the revolt’s propaganda that the King’s way is obsolete and impossible. Through their lives, they would entice people into believing that maybe – just maybe – the King’s way is the path to the life we all really want.

So the people studied the King’s letters. They poured over them, reading them again and again, analyzing every word. They dreamed about his letters, imagined how wonderful it will be when the King finally returns. For months and years and generations, they studied the King’s letters. They sang songs celebrating the King’s goodness. They sent the King letters thanking him for his promises.

And they continued to live within the system as regular members of the system. They worked; they played; they took vacations; they stored up their resources for a rainy day. The only difference was that once a week, they got together with the King’s other followers and remembered the true King’s kingdom. Once a week, they studied, sang, and talked about the true King. They really enjoyed these meetings with the King’s followers. Those weekly gatherings made them feel special and different before they went back to their normal lives within the system.

And so the King sent more messages:

It is good that you are studying and singing and meeting. But if you love my Kingdom, you will not keep still. If your heart yearns for me, you will not be able to stay silent. If you love my Kingdom, you will call on me for help until the goodness of my way and my people shines like the dawn. You will get involved in my work until the healing work I do shines like a torch around the world. Then your reputation will change. You will never again be called the dead and dying place. You will be called the place full of joy and life. People will stop talking about how many people are leaving you, and everyone will be amazed at how many people are committing to you with joy and zeal. (See Isaiah 62:1-5.)

And the people said, “Oh, this is good. Let us study more. We must understand this more deeply. Let’s form a study group so that we can understand exactly what the King means with this message.” Some said, “Ahh, what wonderful words!” And they made a beautiful song using the King’s words to sing whenever the King’s people meet together. Others said, “This is true. This is the absolute truth. I believe it with all my heart. We must surely believe this.” And they continued to return to their normal lives as normal citizens of the ruling system - except for their weekly meetings to sing, to celebrate, and to encourage one another.

The King sent another message:

My people, the time is urgent, but you seem to be sleeping. Turn on your alarm clocks. Stop the music that lulls you to sleep. Call out to me day and night until I come to you. Do not let me forget my promises to you. This is enough of pleasant singing and celebrating. Now is the time for redemption.

Now is the time for me to fulfill my promises to you. I have made a solemn promise – a promise I will surely keep: “My people will no longer be robbed and plundered. All my people will work faithfully and earn the reward for their work. They will work and be deeply satisfied as they celebrate together with the King.”

Where are you, my partners? Why are you silent? Why are you sitting down? Why aren’t you joining me in the work? (See Isaiah 62:6-9.)

The people listened with joy to the King’s message: “Did you hear that? One day, we will be safe from our enemies. One day, we will all have our own gardens and vineyards. We must surely study this more. Let’s sing a song about the King. “Now is the time for action.” I’ll think about that all week as I go about my life in the system of the system by the system.”

The King listened to what they were saying, and he sent another message with more urgency:

That’s all good. There is nothing wrong with study or work or singing or relaxing, but now is the time to do what I have taught you. Get up! Get off the couch! Prepare the way for my coming. LOVE AND JUSTICE FOR ALL. That is not so hard to understand. Now is the time to live it. Prepare the way. Rescue the dying. Befriend the lonely. Live in quiet defiance of the system. Prepare the way. Do not stop calling me to come until you find me among you, until your land is renewed by my love and justice. Prepare the way with your subversive actions of love. Clear away people’s objections to my rule through the grace and mercy in your lives. Tell me where I am needed most, and quietly I will go there. Tell me where the people are ready for my aid, and I will meet you there. You will see revolution rise as quietly as the dawn. Call on me in the night, in the morning, in the afternoon, and I will appear among you. We will raise my flag of love and justice and my people will come to me. From the north, from the south, from the east and the west, your children will return to the King of their forefathers. They will commit to me and to their land, and together we will bring healing and new life. Call to me, and prepare the way, and I will surely come. Now is the time. Do not wait! Prepare the way and claim your destiny as the people loved by the One True King. (See Isaiah 62:10-12.)

And the people said, “What a wonderful promise! Thank you King. We will study this closely. We will sing a song about preparing the way. We will form a study group about action. Next Sunday, O King, we will surely keep talking.”

Precious - Isaiah 43:1-7

KNU International English Church

Josh Broward

January 10, 2010

A few years ago YoungMin told us a story about Tommy Walker, a Christian worship leader. When Tommy was traveling, his group regularly visited inner city ministries that were serving poor children. They would just go and hang out with the kids.

At one ministry center, there was a little girl named Jenny. She sat next to Tommy and picked up a crayon and said, “My name is Jenny. What’s your name?”

Later, on the swings, she said, “Hi! Do you remember my name?”

Tommy said, “Yeah, hi Jenny.”

Later, while they were eating some snacks, she looked at Tommy and said, “Do you remember me? What’s my name?” He said, “Yeah, you’re Jenny. Want another cookie?” Again and again throughout the day, Jenny found Tommy and asked him: “Do you remember my name? What’s my name? Do you remember my name?”

Tommy asked the local workers what was going on, “Why does she keep asking me if I remember her name?”

They said lots of people come in and out of that ministry center. Many of them don’t really bother to learn the kids’ names since they won’t be staying very long. When they come back and they don’t remember the kids’ names, the kids feel hurt. They feel like they don’t really matter, like they’re not really important. Jenny was trying to make sure that Tommy remembered her. She was trying to make sure that she mattered.

That really impacted Tommy. He thought about Jenny and all of the other kids in all of the other poor communities he had visited. He realized that there are lots of Jenny’s in the world – lots of kids nobody remembers, lots of kids who feel like they don’t matter, lots of kids for whom nobody knows their names. He realized that he couldn’t reach all of those kids. He couldn’t love them all. He couldn’t help them all. He couldn’t remember all of their names.

But he also realized that there is someone who can. He went home and wrote the song “He Knows My Name,” about the God who loves us, remembers us, and deeply values each one of us.

I have a Maker
He formed my heart
Before even time began
My life was in his hands

I have a Father
He calls me His own
He'll never leave me
No matter where I go

He knows my name
He knows my every thought
He sees each tear that falls
And He hears me when I call

Israel felt forgotten. Israel had failed. Israel was defeated and deported to a foreign land. They knew they had rejected God and brought trouble on themselves. They knew they had no right to ask for help now. They knew that God had become boiling angry at them. They felt lost and ashamed and ruined.

Then, Isaiah brings them a new message from God. Let’s read it in Isaiah 43:1-7.

This passage is Hebrew poetry. Hebrew and Greek poetry works a little differently than English poetry. English poems tend to use rhyme and rhythm to develop their artistry. One of the most well-known rhyme and rhythm English poems is very simple:

Roses are red.

Violets are blue.

Sugar is sweet,

And so are you.

This pattern has become so popular that people freely substitute new words for the last two lines:

Roses are red.

Violets are blue.

Onions stink,

And so do you.

But Hebrew poetry is different. Hebrew poetry is built on frames of thought more than on frames of sound. One of the most common tools of Hebrew and Greek poetry is shaping the thoughts like an X. This is called a chiasmus. One of the simplest examples is Jesus’ saying: “The first will be last, and the last will be first” (Matthew 20:16). First --> Last … Last --> First.

A similar structure can be used for longer texts to help “focus the reader’s attention on the center of the unit, where the central idea or turning point is situated.” (Elie Assis, "Chiasmus in Biblical Narrative.") In this case, the lines before and after the center point work like a V or a telescope to focus our attention on that center line.

This is how our text works today. Let’s start from the outside and work our way toward the center. As we follow this V to its center point, let’s listen to what God is saying to Israel but also try to hear what God is saying to us today.

Verse 1 sets the whole passage in context. Chapter 42 describes Israel’s failures and defeat. God says, “Who is as blind as my own people, my servant? Who is as deaf as my messenger? … You see and recognize what is right but refuse to act on it. You hear with your ears, but you don’t really listen. … His own people have been robbed and plundered, enslaved, imprisoned, and trapped. They are fair game for anyone and have no one to protect them, no one to take them back home” (42:19-22).

Israel doesn’t deserve God’s help, and they can’t help themselves. If salvation and redemption and healing depend on us, we’ll never make it. By ourselves, we will forever be used and abused by the beasts and bullies of the world. By ourselves, we will always bow down to selfishness, and by ourselves we will always get trapped in our own sinful ways.

But then chapter 43 shouts, “But now”! That’s how it was. That’s true. You made God your enemy. You rejected God. You walked away, and you walked right into the ditch of sin and got covered with dirt and disease. That’s true. BUT NOW!

But now, O Jacob, listen to the LORD who created you. O Israel, the one who formed you says, “Do not be afraid for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name; you are mine.”

God says, “I created you, and I will not abandon you. Do not be afraid. Do not be stuck in your traps of sin and failure and selfishness. I have bought you out of that. I know you. I know your name, and you are mine. I will not abandon you.”

Verse 7 is the other outer edge of the V.

Bring all who claim me as their God, for I have made them for my glory. It was I who created them.

God affirms again that he created us, and he explains why. God made us for his glory. God created us in his image, in his very likeness. God put his glory into us. God shines his glory through us. We are made for God’s glory to live and breathe in us. We are made for the wonder and mystery of the Almighty God to take flesh in us.

So God looks at Israel on the trash-heaps of Babylon, and he looks at us in our cycles of materialism and entertainment and overwork and striving for value. Our hearts and lives are “robbed and plundered, enslaved, imprisoned, and trapped,” and God says, “Oh no! That won’t do. Those are my people. No matter what they have done, no matter what they deserve, I have made them for more than this. I cannot allow them to destroy themselves. I cannot allow them to be ruined by others. Bring them home to me. As a matter of fact, just bring anyone and everyone who wants to come. I made them all. Let everyone come on home to the Father. Let me love all my children and heal all their wounds. Come on home. Come on home.”

Verse 2 starts to narrow the focus.

When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you.

Now this is one of the hard parts of the Bible. It’s beautiful, but it’s hard. No matter how many times the Bible says it, we don’t really want to hear it. God doesn’t say we won’t have trouble. God doesn’t say there won’t be rivers of difficulty and fires of oppression. We are going to have to pass through the water and the fire. That’s part of life. What God says is that he will be with us. What God says is that the river won’t drown us and the fire won’t burn us up. What God says is that we’re going to make it through the trouble because he is with us.

Verses 5 and 6 form the other side of this picture:

Do not be afraid, for I am with you. I will gather you and your children from east and west. I will say to the north and south, “Bring my sons and daughters back to Israel from the distant corners of the earth.”

When the floods come and the fires burn, don’t be afraid for God is with us. God is going to march into all the far off lands which have enticed away prodigal sons and daughters and trapped them in their pigsties hungry for the food they are feeding the pigs, and God will say “Come home child!” (See Luke 15:11-32.) God is going walk into all the Egypts of our world holding his people in slavery, making them build bigger storehouses for rich peoples’ grain and bigger pyramids for rich peoples’ glory, and God is going to shout out, “Let my people go!” (See Exodus 5-12.) No sin can turn God away. No injustice can hold God back. God calls to all of us, “Come home! Bring my children home!”

Now we get to the focal point of the passage: verses 3 and 4.

For I am the LORD, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I gave Egypt as a ransom for your freedom; I gave Ethiopia and Seba in your place. Others were given in exchange for you. I traded their lives for yours because you are precious to me. You are honored, and I love you.

The “ransom” part of this passage sounds really strange to us. We usually think of ransom in relation to kidnappers asking for money. But in the ancient world ransom was much more common. People who were overcome by their debts often sold themselves into slavery. Their relatives had the right of ransom to buy them out of slavery and forgive their debts. But it was costly, and only close and faithful relatives would do something like this. The people in trouble would have to be very important to them. (See Leviticus 25 and Ruth.)

I want to know what happened to Egypt and Ethiopia and Seba, but the text doesn’t tell us. In fact, history doesn’t even tell us. The Bible scholars say the story behind this text is unclear. But one point is very clear: Israel was deeply valuable to God. God paid a high price to ransom them out of their troubles. There is no price too high. There is no cost too great. God loves us deeply. God honors us. We are his masterpieces. We are his special gems. We are precious to him. God will pay any price to ransom us!

Now, as Christians, we can look back on this passage and see that God paid the highest price possible for our ransom. God himself came to earth and lived among us as Jesus. God himself died as a ransom so that we could live. God ransomed us and Egypt and Ethiopia and every people in every nation on earth. We are all God’s children, and he is calling us all home.

The movie Precious tells the story of Precious Jones who grows up in extremely difficult circumstances. She longs for people to treat her like she is special. She longs to be precious to the world, but her reality is different.

Her father began raping her when she was only seven years old. When she was 16, she was pregnant with her second child from her own father. Her mother abused her emotionally and physically. She grew up hearing again and again that she is worthless not precious.

But a teacher and a social worker get involved in Precious’s life. They begin to call her by name. They help Precious begin to believe that she really does have value as a person. They love her. They call her by name and show her the way out of her living exile and oppression. They hold her hand as she walks through the fires. They go with her through the deep waters. They teach her to be who she is: Precious.

We are like Precious. Some of us have had similar experiences – abuse by parents or relatives, rejection from our peers, poverty, loss, hopelessness, feelings of worthlessness. For the rest of us, those fears stalk our souls like animals of prey, and those fears drive us more than we know.

God speaks into the mess of our lives. God speaks into our fearful hearts. “Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name; you are mine. … You are precious to me. You are honored, and I love you. Do not be afraid, for I am with you” (43:1, 5, 6). You are precious! We are precious. We are loved. May God help us to follow his voice as he calls our names.

Messiah in the Margins (Micah 5:2-5a)

KNU International English Church
Josh Broward
December 20, 2009

Micah 5:2-5a



Have you ever felt like that? Have you ever been in one of those conversations? “It sucks to be me.” “Oh, no, it really sucks to be me.” “Well, if you think that’s bad, let me tell you how much my life sucks.” This is normal life for us. My job sucks. My apartment stinks. My husband never helps around the house. My mom drives me crazy. My bosses keep changing everything. I have a cold. My back hurts.
What is this a contest or something? Do we really want to win this game? “Yeah, it really sucks to be you! Whew, you’re life is terrible!”
“See! I told you!”
But sometimes, we really do feel pretty terrible. This week, I sat at my computer pouting, with my bottom lip sticking out like a little kid who just dropped his ice cream. Sometimes, we just feel like joining the song, “It sucks to be me!”

Israel would understand. Israel was a small fish in a big sea with sharks all around. The biggest shark of all was Assyria. Assyria was pressing down upon Israel like a lion on a mouse. It seemed to be only a matter of time before Assyria would annex Israel like it had already done to all the other nations. They would lay siege Jerusalem, and if they won, they would make the king of Israel stand in the town square. The commander of the Assyrian army would take a rod and smack Israel’s king in the face with it, maybe knock a few teeth out. When Israel looked into the future, they saw defeat and public humiliation. So, yeah, they were singing, “It sucks to be me.”

But God answers Israel in a surprising way. God says, “Your life sucks so bad because of your own bad choices.” God tells Israel, “Look, you lie, cheat, and steal. You bend the law to your own cause. You evict widows and neglect children. Your rulers are corrupt. Your priests just want money. Your prophets only tell you what you want to hear. You believe that God will protect you simply because you claim to be God’s people. You are just using religion to cover your greed. You have brought trouble upon yourselves because you reject my ways.”

Maybe God would say something similar to us. Sometimes when our lives suck, it’s because of our own bad choices, too. Maybe we are working harder than we really have to work. Maybe we are tired and grumpy all the time because we don’t sleep enough. Maybe we’re lonely because we haven’t learned how to be a friend. Maybe we are bored with our stuff because we simply have too much stuff. Maybe we are bored with our lives because we choose to do nothing meaningful with our lives. Maybe we have that hollow feeling inside because we know that there is something wrong with the world when we can have ice cream any time we want it but children die because they can’t get rice. Maybe we have brought trouble upon ourselves because we reject God’s ways.

And in our passage today, God speaks through Micah to give Israel a standard promise in a surprising way. The standard promise is the promise for the Messiah. Whenever Israel struggled, whenever Israel’s leadership failed, whenever Israel cried out for healing, God promised them a leader like David, the great king. God promised the Messiah would make everything right. The Messiah would restore justice and protect Israel from her enemies.
But there are some surprises in this passage. The Messiah will come from Bethlehem. That’s David’s hometown. It’s a country farming community. David’s father was a shepherd. David was a shepherd, one of the lowest jobs in Israel. It was long, dirty, difficult, thankless work.
The people of Israel expected a mighty king, robed in velvet and silk and gold. They wanted a king who would lead from a huge throne and make everything right right away. They wanted a Burger-King-king, “Your way right away.”
God promised a Shepherd who would enter the world from the margins. He would be a leader who was born and raised and lived in the unimportant places. He would lead gently like a shepherd not fiercely like an army general. He would live peace and teach peace, and peace would flow through him to others and on to others and on and on.
But he would not make everything right right away. Look at verse 3, “The people of Israel will be abandoned to their enemies until the woman in labor gives birth. Then at last his fellow countrymen will return from exile to their own land.” Even after God gives the promise, there will be trouble. Even after God sends the Messiah, there will be exiles and hardships.
When we read this passage now, we naturally think of Jesus. This is one of the most famous prophecies about Jesus. In Matthew chapter 2, the leading priests and teachers quoted this prophecy to say that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem.
But Jesus was born on the margins – really on the margins of the margins. Not only was he born in Bethlehem, a small farming town, but his parents couldn’t even get a place indoors. Jesus was born in an animal shelter between cattle and goats and hay and oats.
Fresh out of the womb, Jesus faced danger. Herod, the ruler of Israel, didn’t want any Messiahs taking his power, so he sent soldiers to kill all the children in Bethlehem. Jesus was chased out of his marginal position and off the map of Israel – the fugitive Messiah.
The Messiah came, but he still had to run for his life. The Messiah came, but a dictator still killed a whole village of innocent babies. The Messiah came, but mothers were still crying in the streets. The Messiah came, but he was on the margins and in the middle of the mess of life.
When Jesus grew up and began leading, he still led from the margins. He didn’t lead an overwhelming take-over campaign. He started in the Galilean countryside with fishermen and rebels and corrupt accountants. He never took a religious office or held a position of power. He didn’t change the religious system or the political system or the medical system or the economic system. If he were a CEO or president of a nation today, we would say he was a total failure.
So what did Jesus do? How is Jesus the Messiah predicted in Micah 5? How is Jesus a shepherd-ruler who gives his people peace?
Well, it’s kind of like this. If you walk down the street outside KNU, past the fire station, past the post office, right about the time you get to the hair shop or KimBap Nara, you start to smell this amazing aroma. It’s like cinnamon and sugar and butter, and it’s just floating in the air, calling to you. It’s the smell of RotiBuns baking in the RotiBoy Coffee Shop. I’ll just be walking on my way to the bank, minding my own business, doing my own thing, and that lush aroma of fresh-baked sweet breads floats out onto the sidewalks and starts talking to me, “Hey you. Yes, you. Don’t you want some of this sweet buttery goodness. You’re hungry even if you don’t realize it yet. Come on inside and have a RotiBun.” It’s like the smell awakens my hunger.
This is how Jesus works. Irish theologian Peter Rollins explains it like this:
Instead of religious discourse being a type of drink designed to satisfy our thirst for answers, Jesus made his teaching salty, evoking thirst. Instead of offering a scientific explanation that would convince, or publicizing the miracles so as to compel his listeners, Jesus engaged in a poetic discourse that spoke to the hearts of those who would listen. In a world where people believe they are not hungry, we must not offer food but rather an aroma that helps them desire the food that we cannot provide. We are a people born from a response to hints of the divine. Note only this, but we must embrace the idea that we are also called to be hints of the divine.
Jesus traveled around Israel creating the smell of peace. He healed some, taught some, and loved as much as one limited body can love. He gave bits and pieces of peace, samples of peace, like the taste test ladies in E-Mart. All around Jesus, there was this aroma of peace, a hint of something more, the smell of a deeper kind of life.
People were going their own way, doing their own thing, making money, raising kids, working the farm, selling their products, and then they ran into Jesus, and this smell of peace was overwhelming. It wasn’t the full substance of peace. It was peace from this marginal place, in this marginal place. It wasn’t a peace that made everything OK or made the Roman oppressors go away. It was peace in and among the messiness of life.
Jesus was a living embodiment of peace, and he called people to follow their spiritual noses, to follow his way of peace. Jesus gave off the smell of peace everywhere he went, giving out a few samples here and there. He invited people to recognize their hunger for peace, for wholeness, for justice, for love – and having recognized that hunger, to follow him.
This is how Jesus is the source of our peace. This is how Jesus is the Messiah. He lives peace. He exudes peace. He smells of peace. He gives samples of peace. And he invites us to follow him into the way of peace. One by one, family by family, group by group, we begin to follow the smell of our Peace-filled Messiah, and slowly we too become samples of peace. Slowly, we too begin to live peace. We too begin to smell of peace and give little tastes of peace to others.
How do we do this? How do we follow Jesus in this way of peace? In the next chapter of Micah, the people ask what God really wants from them. They say, “Should we offer him thousands of rams or ten thousand rivers of olive oil? Should we sacrifice our children to pay for our sins?” (Micah 6:7). But Micah gives a simple answer that summarizes Jesus’ way of life, Jesus’ way of peace, “No, O people, the Lord has told you what is good, and this is what he requires of you: to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).
You don’t need to give millions of dollars. You don’t need to abandon your kids to serve the church. What God wants is simple. Jesus’ way of peace is simple.
Do justice. Someone once said: “Sometimes I would like to ask God why He allows poverty, suffering, and injustice when He could do something about it.” The question came back: “Well, why don’t you ask Him?” The answer: “Because I’m afraid He would ask me the same question.” Bob Pierce founded World Vision (one of the largest relief agencies in the world), and he said something very simple yet very profound: “Don’t fail to do something just because you can’t do everything.” Do justice. Do something!
Love mercy. As James said, “Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry” (James 1:19). We can be so quick to complain and criticize others. Let’s work together to love mercy instead. Show a little mercy to your church. You may not get everything you want here. The songs or the preaching or the whatever may not be just to your tastes, but show a little mercy. Show a little mercy at work. The people in charge may not do everything the way you want, but you probably don’t want to be in charge either. Love mercy.
Walk humbly. One of the first steps of humility is slowing down. Sometimes we have to have the humility to say, “No, I just can’t do that. I don’t have time. I’m not a superman or superwoman. It’s OK if you think less of me, but I can’t do it.” When we walk through life more slowly, we are far more likely to be walking with God.

If we do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God, the world will not be radically different tomorrow, or the next day, or the next, maybe not even next year. There will still be problems and crises. There will still be people on the margins and in messes. Sometimes, we will be the messy, marginal people.
But that’s OK because Jesus, our Messiah is in the mess and in the margins. He is there baking his bread of peace, sending out the aroma of peace all over the world from the margins. And if we will follow his smell, and begin to walk in his ways of peace, more and more of our world will smell of peace. More and more of our world will become whole and healthy and well.
“And he will stand to lead his flock with the LORD’s strength, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God. Then his people will live there undisturbed, for he will be highly honored around the world. And he will be the source of peace” (Micah 5:4-5a).