GCI in Ghana, which has about 700 members, is conducting a year-long celebration of its 40th anniversary. The celebration includes the recently held launch celebration and an upcoming youth camp.
Gabriel Ojih
At the launch celebration, hundreds of members thanked God, sang and danced to gospel songs. Gabriel Ojih, associate pastor of GCI’s Dallas North, USA congregation and former GCI leader in Ghana, was the featured speaker. He exhorted those present to depend on the Holy Spirit to lead them., and urged the represented congregations to be submissive to the Word of God and to patiently seek God’s grace. According to Gabriel, the church should grow in love and share that love with society through charity and unity.
Anniversary cloth unveiled
Unveiling the official cloth for the anniversary, Pastor Solomon Ayitey, a founding member of GCI in Ghana, noted that the cloth signifies the unity and bond within the church. He urged members to stay united in seeking to emulate the life of Christ.
In an interview with a local newspaper, Pastor Emmanuel Okai spoke about the two schools that GCI operates in Kutunse and Atwima-Koforidua.
“Don’t Cry for Jesus” was one of the most memorable sermons I have ever heard. It was given by Dr. Lewis Smedes (pictured below) at a Fuller Seminary chapel service. I was there as a student during Holy Week in hopes of being better prepared to fully appreciate Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. My prayers were answered in an obvious way that day. I heard a message that has stuck with me ever since.
What was Professor Smedes getting at that struck me as being so profoundly right? He wanted us to see as clearly and precisely as possible that Jesus was no victim and that he didn’t want us to pity him or feel sorry for him. I thought at the time, “What? How can we not feel sorry for him after all he went through for us?” As Smedes developed the message I saw what he meant and how true it was.
Lewis Smedes, 1921-2002
Professor Smedes had us consider two things: first, the actual way the story of Jesus is told to us by the New Testament writers and second, a comparison of Jesus with the Greek tragic heroes like the demigod Achilles.
Let me first briefly recount for you the upshot of that comparison. The Greek gods, as great as they were, suffered often because of their own immoral activities and those involving the other gods. But their greatest sufferings were tragic because they were due to circumstances beyond their own control. These gods were born with their various strengths and weaknesses. No one of them “had it all.” They were always born into situations not of their own making and often involving jealousies, revenge plots and grabs for power between various other gods.
These tragic heroes were always victims of their circumstances as the inevitable wheel of fate at some point turned against them. But it was their vulnerabilities that would inevitably lead to their most tragic suffering and defeat, like Achilles’ lamentable heel. Were it not for the fact that despite all his armor, Achilles’ heel was exposed and that his goddess mother was prevented by his unwitting mortal father from completing the daily rituals that would have made Achilles immortal, Paris’ arrow would never have found its fatal target. In some versions of the myth, the god Apollo, for his own reasons, intervened and guided that arrow to pierce Achilles just at that one and only tiny unprotected point. How can you not feel sorry for Achilles? The unfairness of it all. Through no fault of his own, the greatest of all Greek warriors was brought down.
Though we certainly don’t think of Jesus as a Greek tragic hero, I realized upon further reflection that his cross is often described in tragic terms. Jesus is often portrayed as a victim of circumstances that go all the way back to the fall of humanity. Jesus is sent to be our Savior because humanity has rebelled and needs to be reconciled and regenerated if we are to share in God’s eternal and triune fellowship and communion and for God’s original intention at creation to be realized.
In the New Testament we find Jesus, the Son of God, living at a time when the Jewish nation is occupied by the pagan Romans. Among his own people, the Pharisees and Sadducees, the religious leaders, are involved in their own disputes with each other. Yet they manage to form an alliance to plot Jesus’ arrest and execution. Closer to him, there is a traitor among his own disciples, Judas, who betrays him—with a kiss, no less. Jesus is betrayed first into the hands of the court of the high priests and then into the hands of Pilate, who is himself caught between the rival forces of the Emperor and the potentially riotous crowds.
Finally, Jesus suffers the brutally cruel treatment of the Roman soldiers who strip, mock and whip him, then lead him to Golgotha where he is put to death on the machinery of Roman execution, a cross.
Given these tragic circumstances surrounding Jesus’ sacrifice, why should we not consider Jesus a tragic victim? Not because he didn’t pay an unimaginably high price for us and our salvation. Not because he didn’t actually suffer and die. But simply because he was no victim of those circumstances and because he had no fatal flaw!
The cost of our salvation was foreseen and anticipated before the foundations of the earth were even laid. God was not taken by surprise at the Fall nor by our subsequent need for costly deliverance. But our God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, counted the cost (as it were) from all eternity and agreed they were ready and willing to gladly pay the price for our deliverance from evil and for our reconciliation. So the plan for creation was carried out knowing full well the price to be paid to put things right, for God’s righteousness to be done.
Jesus knew why he had come and what his saving work would cost. His mission was freely chosen. He was freely sent and freely given by the Father out of their joint abounding love for the world. Jesus repeatedly told his disciples what he would have to go through, even though they could not imagine his being so completely rejected by their religious leaders and political authorities that it would lead to his death. Jesus was anything but unaware, naive, about the path he would have to take to make all things new.
Jesus tells us that, like a good shepherd, when danger comes to his sheep, he lays his life down—and also takes it up (John 10:17). Jesus freely, voluntarily, not only gives up his life but also receives it back. When Pilate thinks he has to remind Jesus that he has the power of life and death over him, Jesus has to remind Pilate that he has no power except what has been allowed him by God, his Father (John 19:10-11).
Ecce Homo (Behold the Man) by Antonio Ciseri c. 1880
In the garden, when one of his disciples takes it upon himself to defend Jesus with a sword, Jesus reminds them that all of his Father’s angelic hosts are available to protect him at any moment if he were to call on them (Matthew 26:53). Jesus is no victim of fate, of circumstances, or of powers greater than himself. He is in charge. He goes forth to Jerusalem only when his hour has come—not sooner, not later.
Jesus’ suffering is not the result of any large or small flaw in him. Far from it. There is not even a fleeting shadow of personal weakness evident in his confident exercise of divine omnipotence as he fulfills his redemptive mission. Rather it is by means of his strength and authority operating in full concert with his Father that he arrives at the right moment to exert saving power over sin, evil and death itself. His act of self-giving is a work of deliberate might based on the strength of his holy love.
Jesus is no tragic hero, but the willing, omnipotent, Lord and Savior.
Perhaps most astonishing are Jesus’ words spoken on the way to Golgotha, even as he bore the heavy weight of the cross-beam of his own crucifixion. Beholding the women standing by, no doubt exceedingly distraught and anguished, welling up from the depths of his compassion, Jesus found the strength to tell them something they and we need to know: “Daughters of Jerusalem, don’t weep for me” (Luke 23:28).
Jesus does not want us to pity him as a hapless victim who suffers because it couldn’t be avoided, because it was inevitable, destined by forces he could not resist. He is not looking for our pity—he trod that road, the Via Dolorosa as it is called, on purpose, by divine design. He intentionally took that journey and nothing, not even torture at the violent hands of human wickedness, could stop him. We may weep for ourselves, if we must, that is, be sorrowful for our sins. But Jesus didn’t come looking to gather our tears. Rather his costly love calls for giving him our thanks, our praise, our gratitude, our love, our absolute trust and loyalty—indeed our very lives in eternal worship.
Jesus not only freely but also gladly gave his life that we might have resurrected life in him. So the author of Hebrews sums it up: “For the joy set before him, he endured the cross” (Hebrews 12:2).
For joy? Yes, for joy. But how can that be? In short, because Jesus was no fool. The price he paid was worth it and he knew it. He has no regrets! He did not enjoy the suffering. Not at all. It was excruciating. But he rejoiced in what he with the Father and Spirit would accomplish by means of his extravagant self-sacrifice. Jesus was no victim but the victor. The surety of his victory gave him a great joy that saw him through his agonies. Crucifixion would lead by the grace and power of God to resurrection and a new heaven and earth.
Jesus was no reluctant Savior but the conquering Servant-King of all creation.
That’s the good news that Professor Smedes preached and from that moment on, I saw that I could no longer think, preach or teach as if Jesus was a victim that we should feel sorry for.
All those illustrations of the cross that I had heard in both liberal and conservative Christian contexts that made it seem that Jesus was a victim, I had to forswear. These made Jesus out to be anything and everything—from a mother rabbit frozen in a blizzard to save her little bunny child, to an innocent toddler run over by a train or ground up in the gears of a drawbridge—all this occurring while his helpless father looks on in horror from a distance. Somehow caught off-guard and facing a horrible dilemma, this father-victim had to choose between his son and humanity. And so he pulls the lever that seals their respective fates. In these illustrations both the Son and the Father are depicted as victims of circumstances and of their own limitations that call for our pity. As tragic characters they match, if not exceed, the sorry state memorialized in the myth of Achilles.
Perhaps more theological than these misguided analogies are certain interpretations of the cross that pit the Father against the Son. The Father is sometimes said to be taking his wrath out on the Son—punishing him to satisfy his righteousness. In this case, the tragedy occurs between the Father and the Son (some, who have rejected the idea of the cross altogether, have gone so far as to claim that if so, the Father is the victimizer and the Son the victim!). Or the Son is depicted as having to overcome the resistance of the Father to being merciful and forgiving by appealing to his own suffering to gain the Father’s pity and so get him to relent of his wrath. From these perspectives, the wills, attitudes and aims of the Father and the Son are at odds and can be resolved only by the Son’s suffering. How tragic! “Only that it wasn’t so!” we reply out of pity.
Sometimes we imagine a modern adversarial court scene where the Father is represented as the judge who wants to condemn the guilty party, and Jesus is the defense lawyer hoping to help the defendant avoid the penalty required by the law. Fortunately, Jesus figures out a way to keep us from the punishment we deserve. It’s a plan that the Father can’t argue with since it doesn’t seem to involve any violation of the law. Finding no grounds for objection, the Father-Judge has to concede: Jesus wins the court case for us.
But the biblical revelation shows us the Triune God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit who are of one mind, one purpose, united in being and in act all for the one and same end, our salvation. The Father sends the Son in the power of the Spirit. The Son freely comes and serves out of love for the Father and with joy in the Spirit. The Holy Spirit empowers the Son to overcome temptation and undo evil itself in order to set free the captives, open the eyes of the blind, set at liberty those who are oppressed and bring in the Lord’s promised Jubilee (Luke 4:18-19).
At the cross, no exception is made. Our sin is judged and condemned in Jesus. The wrath of God aims to burn away evil and the sin in us that has corrupted our very natures. Dying in him we are separated and rescued from the evil in us for eternal life. We are given a share in Christ’s restored and sanctified humanity. God’s wrath serves his mercy. His righteousness serves his love. There is no tension between the attributes of God nor between the Father and the Son. There is no tragic relationship at the heart of the gospel. At the cross the Son “through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished [without flaw] to God” (Hebrews 9:14). Our salvation is the united work of the whole Triune God, our Savior—Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
At the foot of the cross, Christ doesn’t call us to join him in a great pity-party: the Father feeling sorry for the Son, the Son feeling sorry for the Father, Jesus feeling sorry for us and we feeling oh so sorry for him. For Jesus was no tragic victim. Rather, we gather at the foot of the cross to worship in unspeakable awe, with adoration, thanksgiving, praise and prayer for the costly victory of Christ. By his joyful and freely given life, he righteously restored us to fellowship and eternal communion with God our Triune Redeemer.
Thisletter is the second in a two-part series that addresses the importance and meaning of Holy Week, which this year begins on Sunday, April 13 and extends through Sunday, April 20. Last time we looked at Palm Sunday and its message concerning Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem. This time we’ll explore Easter Sunday and its message concerning Jesus’ resurrection. I hope you are finding this series helpful as you prepare for the Holy Week celebrations that so powerfully proclaim the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Details about Easter are often debated, including its chronology and even whether it should be celebrated or not, given the pagan origins of some of its traditions. Long-time GCI members will remember that we used to have a booklet on that subject.
Most of us now realize that celebrating Jesus’ resurrection is not pagan. But we need to go further, understanding that Easter proclaims the very heart of the gospel by celebrating the most significant event in all of human history—a “game changer” for everyone who has ever lived—an event that makes all the difference in our lives now and for all eternity.
Unfortunately, Easter celebrations often present a truncated gospel—one about a transaction related to personal satisfaction and individual fulfillment. Such presentations say, in effect, “You do your part and God will do his—accept Jesus and obey him, and in return God will reward you in the here and now and grant you entrance into heaven in the afterlife.”
This sounds like a good deal, but it is really? It is true that God takes away our sin and in exchange gives us the righteousness of Christ so that we may inherit eternal life. But this is not a transaction—it is not a “deal” at all. The gospel is not about an exchange of goods and services between consenting parties. Marketing the gospel as though it is about a transaction leaves people with a very wrong impression. This approach puts the focus on us—on whether or not we desire to “buy in” to the transaction, or can afford to do so, or think it’s worth the cost. The focus of this transactional gospel is on our decision, our action. But the gospel proclaimed in Easter is not fundamentally about us, it’s about Jesus—about who he is and what he has done on our behalf.
Together with the other Holy Week celebrations, Easter points us to the “fulcrum” of human history—events that redirected all history to a different end, placing all humanity and the whole of creation on a new pathway. Everything changed with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ!
Easter is far more than a metaphor of new life, pictured by eggs, rabbits and new spring clothing. Jesus’ bodily resurrection was far more than the culmination of his earthly ministry. Through the events of Easter Sunday, a new era began and a new phase in the ongoing ministry of Jesus commenced. Jesus now invites those who have acknowledged him as their Savior to join him in that ministry, which is announcing to all humanity the good news of the new life that is theirs in Christ. Notice the apostle Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians:
So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
As God’s co-workers we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain. For he says, “In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.” I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation (2 Corinthians 5:16-6:2).
God’s plan from the beginning to re-create humanity and all the cosmos reached its climax in Jesus’ bodily resurrection. This event of the past reshaped all of time, including our present and our future. Today we are living in “Easter time”—a time that calls us as followers of Jesus to live on mission, a life of great meaning and purpose.
It is my prayer that you and all those you serve in your congregation will have a joyous and deeply meaningful Holy Week this year.
Your brother in Christ,
PS: In this issue of Weekly Update, we’ve included a Holy Week meditation by Gary Deddo entitled, “Don’t Cry for Jesus.” I think you’ll find it spiritually enriching as you meditate on the profound meaning of our Lord and Savior’s death and resurrection.
Journey with the Master (JWM) is a series of weekend intensives offered by GCI in the US through Generations Ministries (GenMin). The program provides “space” for young adults and older teens to explore these important questions:
Who is God? Why the big deal about Father, Son and Holy Spirit? What role does the Trinity play in my everyday life?
What is the Lord up to in my personal life? My family life? The life of my local church?
How do I actively discern and participate in the move of the Holy Spirit?
What is calling and what is my calling?
What are my spiritual gifts? How do I bring these divine gifts to bear in the local church?
What are my typical ways of communicating with other people? How might I more fully show love through my communication?
GenMin has offered JWM for several years and has seen tremendous growth in the participants. There is something transformative about “unplugging” for a weekend, in the company of peers and older mentors, to listen to what the Holy Spirit is saying. Because JWM is offered over the course of three weekends (generally spaced 4-6 months apart), each session builds on the previous one. However, participants aren’t lost if they can only show up for one or two weekends.
GenMin coordinator Anthony Mullins is planning to conduct JWM later this year in Seattle, New York City and possibly Southern California. If you or someone you know is interested in participating, email Anthony at Anthony.Mullins@gci.org and see further details on the GenMin website.
We are saddened to learn of the death of Margaret Loter, mother of Dana Loter who leads the pastoral team serving the GCI congregation in Davenport, Iowa. Margaret was a longtime GCI member. Her funeral will be this Friday.
Looking for good quality, low cost training materials to use in equipping the pastors and ministry leaders in your congregation? Check out the “Building Church Leaders” training packs currently being offered at no cost by Leadership Journal at http://www.buildingchurchleaders.com/store/freesamples.html.
Mike Horchak, senior pastor of GCI churches in New Orleans and Hammond, Louisiana, always has loved the outdoors. As a child, Mike spent a lot of time fishing, camping, ice-skating, sledding and bike riding in and around his home in Detroit, Michigan. “From age 11-14 I was a boy scout, attending summer and winter camps and completing a mile swim by age 13. By age 14 I had saved enough to buy a 10-speed bike. Over the next two years I took many long bike rides, the longest being 70 miles in one day. On one occasion I motor-paced behind a large truck, getting up to 38 mph for about a mile (OK if you don’t mind eating gravel!). Today I love deer hunting—a hobby I began in my 30s.”
In 1963, Mike started attending GCI at age 13. “My father had been exploring religion and came upon the Radio Church of God. He began attending, taking with him my brothers and me. My Catholic mother was not interested at first, but started attending later.” Sabbath-keeping created problems for Mike and his brothers, who all were involved in school activities on Friday evenings and Saturdays. “I played drums in the band and ran track—I dropped out of both when we began observing the Sabbath. Initially, I attended church with my parents because I had to, but as time went on, my own relationship with God began to develop. I stepped out in faith and as I did so, the Lord came through in remarkable, unmistakable ways.”
After graduating from high school, Mike attended junior college for a year while working in restaurants. “I love to cook, and seriously considered becoming a chef.”
Mike applied and was accepted to Ambassador College in 1969. “I met my wife Pam while at Ambassador in Pasadena. I had always wanted to marry a girl from the South and she caught my eye early in my freshman year. I was attracted to her sweet and bubbly personality. I won her heart. We graduated on Friday, June 1 and married on Sunday, June 3, 1973. We lived in California for two years then moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which is Pam’s hometown. We lived there for the next nine years and I worked for a company that constructed and repaired utilities for municipalities. I helped in the local church speaking and visiting as my schedule permitted.”
Mike and Pam have been married for 40 years. “We have two children: Jeff is single, and a television sportscaster. His passion is sports so he has an ideal job. Our daughter Holly is a newlywed, just married three months ago. She and her husband, Deron Grafton, love children—he is an adapted physical education teacher for special needs children. Holly is employed as a nanny for a baby boy.”
Mike was ordained an elder in 1982. “In 1984, Mr. Tkach Sr. asked if I would go full time in pastoral ministry. After prayer and discussion with Pam, we decided to accept. We were sent to Memphis where I assisted Rowlen Tucker and then Mark Cardona until 1988 when I was sent to be the senior pastor in Clarksburg, West Virginia. I pastored there until 1994 when I was transferred to New Orleans. I have been pastoring in New Orleans ever since and pastoring also in Hammond, Louisiana since 1996.”
Mike sees being a pastor as a “wonderful opportunity to love, serve and share in the lives of many people. To see the grace of Christ when people accept and believe and live in the love of Jesus is so wonderful! To experience people changing to live for Christ and begin to make a difference in the lives of others is most rewarding. My wife has also been a great blessing in my ministry. She has a passion for Jesus and has used her lovely singing voice to bring many into God’s presence in our worship services.”
When asked about his most memorable moments as a pastor, Mike referred to Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. “A majority of the families in our New Orleans congregation lost most of their physical possessions, including homes. The horrible devastation birthed a remarkable opportunity for ministry. I had the privilege of organizing work parties for missionaries in and out of our denomination and experiencing the miracles that occur when spirit-led Christians come together in love and unity to serve those in great need. I will always be grateful to have had a small part in restoring a city that needed love and hope in the aftermath of that great disaster.”
Speaking of GCI, Mike refers to, “the wonder and blessing of seeing God bring us (both young and old) through an amazing spiritual journey as he has furthered the work of the gospel, now leading us into growth through church planting. It’s a wonderful joy!”
When Mike talks about his passion, he talks about hunting and fishing, “experiencing the beauty of the creation God shares with us.” But his greatest passion is “knowing Jesus and making him known by helping others understand how much God loves them and has included them in his life forever.”
Asked when he feels closest to God, Mike said: “When I am able to spend time with my wife, children and others that I love. This gives me a feeling of closeness to God because the special people in my life are a great blessing from him. The triune God models the great importance of relationship with him and others. “I also feel drawn to God when I spend quiet time with him in the woods hunting or on a body of water fishing. Being surrounded by the beauty of his creation reinforces the reality that our awesome God is worthy of our worship.”
This update is from Hector Barrero, GCI mission developer in Central and South America.
Last month, I visited our congregation in Ezeiza, Argentina. Upon arrival I learned that Ruben Soto Castro, a long-time member of the church there, had died. So my visit began with Ruben’s funeral on Saturday, which had been planned as the first day of a seminar.
On Sunday, amidst the sadness, I conducted a seminar on the topic of spiritual disciplines, using material from Richard Foster’s book Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth.
On Monday, pastor Julio Fernandez and I spent much of the day discussing the subjects presented during the International Conference held last summer in Orlando, Florida. Julio was anxious to receive this update. We focused much of our time on discussing the presentations from Gerrit Dawson on the meaning of Jesus’ continuing incarnation.
Early in its history, the Christian church, desiring to worship Jesus by focusing on the great saving events of his death and resurrection, formed a tradition of celebrating in the spring what became known as “Holy Week.” My Weekly Update letters this week and next anticipate this important season of worship, which this year begins on April 13 with Palm Sunday and concludes on April 20 with Easter Sunday. I hope you will find these letters helpful as you prepare to lead your congregation in Holy Week celebrations.
Palm Sunday commemorates Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem amidst a huge demonstration of support by the common people. No doubt, most of them were thinking that Jesus would declare himself a Messiah in the tradition of the Maccabees, who had temporarily restored some of the Jewish nation’s glory nearly two centuries earlier. Even some of Jesus’ disciples thought that Jesus was the warrior-king who would deliver them from Roman oppression (John 12:17-18). But Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem was far from the “triumphant” entry of a conquering military general riding astride a white war horse. We know some of the details from Luke 19 and John 12.
Jesus entered Jerusalem from the humble town of Bethany, riding on a donkey. Bethany was about two miles from Jerusalem, just off the road from Jericho. There would have been some houses and trading stalls along the road leading into the city. So when the people heard he was coming, they lined the road to greet him. They threw their coats and cloaks in his path, as well as the branches of the trees.
The palm branch was a traditional symbol of Israel, so waving it was like waving the Jewish national flag. They waved palm fronds in the air shouting “Hosanna,” which in Hebrew means “God saves” and “Blessed is the king of Israel!” (John 12:13, quoting Psalm 118:25-26). This is how people in the first century greeted a visiting king—they would go out to meet him, praise him and then escort him into the city. These people were welcoming Jesus as their king.
At that time of year, since the Passover festival was only a week away, there would also have been many sightseers and pilgrims in the area. Many would have heard about Jesus the great teacher, miracle-worker and, perhaps, the one who would lead them to freedom from Roman oppression. They may have remembered Zechariah’s prophecy: “Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey” (Zechariah 9:9).
No wonder everyone greeted Jesus so enthusiastically!
Well, not everyone. The religious leaders, who had an interest in maintaining the status quo, saw him as a threat. “’See, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him!’ they said to one another” (John 12:19). The atmosphere in Jerusalem was always tense during the religious festivals. The political leaders feared the gathering crowds could result in demonstrations and protests that could easily get out of hand. The religious leaders, such as the Pharisees, feared the same since they did not want to give their Roman overlords an excuse to crack down.
Some of these words that the crowd sang and shouted in praise were also chanted in the temple during the Passover festival. But these people were praising him for the wrong reason. They thought he had come to liberate them from Rome, and thus missed the real point of these scriptures. The Messiah had come to liberate them and all of humanity, from a much greater oppression—the absolute tyranny of evil in the human heart and society and from eternal alienation from God.
It was an understandable mistake, given the situation at the time. It is a mistake many still make today. They see in Jesus someone who can help them fulfill their agenda. Today we know of some appalling examples, like the malevolent sectarian militias in Africa who attach the word “Christian” to their cause, while committing crimes against humanity. Most of us would never go to these extremes. But we all can make the mistake of that Palm Sunday crowd—using the name of Jesus to advance our personal projects and agendas, while calling it “God’s work.”
We do well to remember that Jesus said, “They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules” (Matthew 15:9). It is so easy to shift the focus away from Jesus and onto ourselves. I well remember how we in the Worldwide Church of God used to approach the spring festival with a sense of foreboding. We were admonished to “examine ourselves” to see if we were “worthy” to receive the bread and wine at our annual Lord’s Supper service (what we called “Passover”).
Maybe some still have this sense of foreboding in coming to the Lord’s table. But can you see how this shifts the focus away from Jesus and onto ourselves? It can lead us to think in terms of what we have done and cause us to focus on our attempts to either condemn or justify ourselves on that basis. But Jesus told us to partake of the Lord’s Supper in memory of what he had done for us (Luke 22:19). Through his self-giving, Jesus delivered us from the delusional prison of self-justification, freeing us both to receive and to extend God’s forgiveness.
As you prepare your congregation to celebrate Holy Week, please help them to more deeply grasp its true meaning. The apostle Paul referred to the events of this important season as having primary importance in salvation history: “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve” (1 Corinthians 15:3-5). These central events of the gospel, which began to unfold on the road into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, did not just change the history of one small nation. They altered forever the destiny of everyone who has ever lived. That is something to celebrate!
Trying to get bigger, many churches spend much time, energy, and money in the pursuit of church growth. But according to Ed Stetzer in a recent blog post at The Exchange, “The church needs to make getting small a priority. Church-health proponents are reminding pastors that the bigger the church gets, the smaller it has to get. In our research survey, two-thirds of pastors told us they believe discipleship happens most effectively either one-on-one or in a group of fewer than five.”
Journey with the Master (JWM) is a series of weekend intensives offered by GCI in the US through Generations Ministries (GenMin). The program provides “space” for young adults and older teens to explore these important questions:
