LUKE 2:22-35
THE EUCATASTROPHE OF THE EVANGELIUM
“When the time came for [the ceremonial] purification according to the Law of Moses, [Joseph and Mary] brought [Jesus] up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, ‘Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord’) and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the Law of the Lord, ‘a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.’ Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. And he came in the Spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him according to the custom of the Law, he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said,
‘Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace,
according to your word;
for my eyes have seen your salvation
that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
and for glory to your people Israel.’
“And his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him. And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, ‘Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.’” [1]
J.R.R. Tolkien, the brilliant writer who gave the world “The Hobbit,” once wrote that his goal as an author was to give his readers “the consolation of the Happy Ending.” [2] Tolkien went on to identify that consolation as taking place at the point in the story when all hope appears to have been lost, when disaster seems inevitable. At that precise moment, joy breaks through, catching the reader by surprise. In a 1964 essay, Tolkien called that instant “a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.” [3] Tolkien even coined a word for the moment when the light of deliverance breaks through the darkness of despair. He called that moment “eucatastrophe.” In coining this word, he was referring to that moment when evil fails and righteousness suddenly triumphs; at that moment the reader feels Joy—“a catch of the breath, a beat and lifting of the heart, near to (or indeed accompanied by) tears.” How brilliantly descriptive. Each of us can see precisely what he is referring to with those words. Our own experiences and our desires are in concert with what he has written.
Is the Joy of Eucatastrophe merely a literary device given to manipulate the reader's emotions? No. This same sudden glimpse of Joy, Tolkien wrote, can be found in our own world: “In the eucatastrophe we see in a brief vision … a far-off gleam or echo of evangelium in the real world.” Evangelium is Latin for “Good News,” the message of Jesus Christ.
“The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man's history,” Tolkien explained. “The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation. This story begins in joy and ends in joy. It has pre-eminently the ‘inner consistency of reality.’ There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true, and none which so many skeptical men have accepted as true on its own merits.” [4] Amen.
THE EVANGELIUM — The Good News of Christ is the account of how God intervened in history to rescue fallen mankind. Paul has written in the Letter to the Christians gathered in Rome, “We know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” [ROMANS 8:22-23]. The Apostle is saying that we who have believed are not merely hoping that what we have believed is true; he is saying that we have absolute confidence born of something more than mere hope.
The outline of the Word may be summarised in three words—Ruin, Redemption, Restoration. The biblical account begins with the statement, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” [GENESIS 1:1]. Shortly after this initial account of God’s creative work, Moses summarises creation week, writing, “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them” [GENESIS 2:1]. When Nehemiah had led the people to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, he dedicated the work of the people. Central to that dedication was the prayer which Nehemiah offered up to the Lord GOD. As the people stood to praise the Lord, Nehemiah opened his prayer by testifying, “You are the LORD, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you” [NEHEMIAH 9:6].
As the leaders of the first congregation of the Lord pray after facing the early persecution that would continually be brought against followers of the Christ, they begin their prayer by confessing, “Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit,
‘Why did the Gentiles rage,
and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers were gathered together,
against the Lord and against his Anointed’—
for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus” [ACTS 4:24-30].
The testimony of the first missionaries was that the Lord was Creator; and because He is Creator, they believed that He alone is worthy of worship. You may recall how the Lyaconians of Lystra were intent on deifying Barnabas and Paul. However, the missionaries put an end to that effort when they tore their garments and rushed into the crowd, crying out, “Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men, of like nature with you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. In past generations he allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways. Yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness” [ACTS 14:15-17].
In our day, with our worship of “science” coupled with our tendency to hang onto the words of singers and actresses as though they were oracles much as the Pythium known from Greek history as the Delphi Oracle, we find it easy to ignore the truth of the Creator. We can’t believe that the Lord God brought the entire universe into being. If we even seek a god, we want a god that is distant, a god that doesn’t interfere with us as we rush about our busy and important lives. And yet, in those quiet moments when we allow ourselves to think, a thought gnaws unbidden at our minds compelling us to acknowledge that there is something more than our momentary dash toward an eventful end we imagine to be an extinguishment of our being.
Somehow, we hope that we are wrong, but we seldom allow ourselves to move beyond this dark thought. Oh, we tell ourselves that our loved ones are singing in God’s choir somewhere beyond our ken. Every singer that dies, regardless of how godless his or her life may have been, is now supposed to be singing in God’s choir. But we don’t live as though there is a God to whom we must answer. So, we live with this strange condition of hopeful hopelessness.
You see, it is all well and good to think that we can account for our existence and for the existence of all that is through an appeal to blind chance. If time and chance has brought everything into existence, then we really aren’t responsible to anyone or to anything. If who I am can be defined by a fortuitous combination of proteins and nucleic acids and other chemicals in a gemish that just happened, then I can grab all the gusto I can because when I’m dead I’ll be dead all over. In biblical language, I can adopt the philosophy that says, “There is nothing good for a man under the sun except to eat and to drink and to be merry” [ECCLESIASTES 8:15 NASB 95]. However, if there is a Creator, if there is a God to whom I owe my being, then I am responsible to know that God and to honour that God by serving Him.
THE DARK BACKDROP OF LIFE AS WE KNOW IT — Whenever a jeweller wishes to display a beautiful diamond, you will notice that the precious stone is displayed against a dark backdrop. The jeweller does this so that the beauty of the stone can be clearly seen. The perfections of the gem are most readily seen when displayed against the dark background. In a similar manner, the beauty of Christ’s sacrifice is most readily seen when displayed against the brokenness of this fallen world. In fact, it is fair to say that without the awareness of the fallen condition of our world, the sacrifice of Christ the Lord makes no sense. The beauty of God’s love is displayed against the dark backdrop of our sinful condition.
Earlier, I stated that the outline of the Word is Ruin, Redemption, Restoration. Our Creator made a perfect world, and the apex of His creation was man. The Creation account informs us, “God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’
“So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.”
[GENESIS 1:26-27]
God didn’t merely make the man and the woman and then leave them alone to sort through the complexities of a new world—God gave them authority over all that was. This was not a mere moral or intellectual superiority over all the other creatures God had created—the man and the woman were superior in every aspect of their being. The Creator provided for all their needs, equipping them to be rulers over His creation. They were enabled with intellect far superior to anything we know today. Physically, they had no limitations such as we experience today. Adam must have been an astonishing physical specimen; and Eve must have enjoyed a symmetry that would be the envy of anyone—man or woman. I mean, when God had finished His creative work, He reviewed all that He had made, including the man and the woman, and declared that His work was very good [GENESIS 1:31a].
The Creation account continues, “God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’ And God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.’ And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” [GENESIS 1:28-31a]. Creation was very good.
Adam and his wife were given a world that can only be described as a paradise—a true paradise and not some sort of artificial entity that exists only for a moment before we are forced back into the real world. The man and the woman reigned over a perfect world; they were the apex of God’s creative work. And in this perfect environment, man soon ensured that all that God had done would be stained as the perfect environment would be despoiled.
That we today consider the world to be such a pleasant place speaks volumes of just how wonderful the work is that the Creator has performed. If this world, fallen as it is and subject to decay and ruin, is as wonderful as it is, what must it have been before sin entered into the world! How wonderful and how beautiful must creation have been when God completed His work and before our first parents fell! I sincerely question whether any of us can actually imagine what our world was before sin crashed down on it to despoil God’s perfect work.
“There was once a paradise.” That statement seems as if it speaks of a dream vaguely remembered after we have awakened. This place that was a paradise was not merely beautiful in one season, it was beautiful always, beautiful beyond comprehension. There were no days that were too cold, nor were there ever days that were scorching; the climate was perfect, for this was, after all, paradise. There were no violent storms, no blizzards, no snow squalls, no thunderstorms, no hail storms, no tornadoes, in fact, no rain had ever fallen from the skies. Rather, a mist rose from the ground each morning to give moisture to the plants and to ensure the streams were always gently flowing to provide water for all the creatures that lived on the earth. And the creatures were unlike anything we have ever known. Though some were giants, they were not terrifying. No frightening beast stalked the deer or the sheep; death was an unknown concept. The trees grew, never decaying, never crashing down because the roots had rotted. It was paradise, and we can only imagine what life must have been like in such an environment.
How stark is the Apostle’s assessment of the change that violently intruded on the paradise God had made. Paul writes, “Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” [ROMANS 5:12]. The statement is jarring, thrust into our faces in such a manner that it causes us involuntarily to recoil in horror at the suddenness of it all. I doubt that any of us can actually grasp how stunning the change must have been for our first parents when the Fall came.
The account is given to us in the first book of the Word of God. Here is the account as Moses recorded it. “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made.
“He said to the woman, ‘Did God actually say, “You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?”’ And the woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.”’ But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths” [GENESIS 3:1-7].
The account is incredibly brief, yet it tells how everything was changed in a moment of time. Faster than the blink of an eye, everything was turned around. There had been paradise, and suddenly there was chaos. There had been life, and suddenly there was death. There didn’t need to be a violent storm for Adam and Eve to know that things had changed—they knew in their own hearts that paradise had been lost, and it would not be reclaimed by any mortal. Before they ever saw the first dead animal or the first decayed tree, the sinning couple knew that what had been was gone, never to be recovered in this life.
What must they have thought the first time they saw a lion kill an impala? It had to have been shocking for them; but more shocking still must have been the knowledge that their choice had unleashed death on the innocent. They were the reason for what they now witnessed, and they knew in their hearts that what would henceforth be the new reality was because of their choice. Eve might dissemble, arguing that she had been tricked, hoodwinked, victimised, deceived, but she was guilty of rebellion against the command of the Creator. Wicked as was Eve’s rebellion, greater still was the rebellion of Adam, for he had chosen to rebel. He couldn’t even claim that he had been deceived. Adam willingly embraced the rebellion.
Though the Creator knew what had been done, He didn’t immediately strike them dead. Oh, they deserved to die, and to be sure, death would come upon the sinning duo, just as it would come to all who followed them; however, they needed to recognise and acknowledge what they had done. Therefore, Moses continued the account of their rebellion by writing of the aftermath. “They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ And he said, ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.’ He said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?’ The man said, ‘The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.’ Then the LORD God said to the woman, ‘What is this that you have done?’ The woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me, and I ate’” [GENESIS 3:8-13].
Adam and Eve did not drop dead on the spot, but they did nevertheless die. The easy intimacy they had known with the Creator was gone. Immediately, they knew they were naked. They had always been naked, but their nakedness had never been an issue before. There was no shame if there was no sin. However, now there was sin, and they knew they were naked. They wanted to cover their nakedness, and they had nothing with which to cover their rebellion. They possessed knowledge that was far superior to anything we know today, so they recognised that they needed to act quickly. Gathering some fig leaves, they stitched together the leaves, tying them about their waist. Now they had loin cloths to cover their nakedness.
Have you ever seen a fig tree? Have you ever handled the leaves of a fig tree? The leaves are rough, scratchy, abrasive. The clothing they fashioned would have been anything but comfortable. Each movement of their bodies would remind them of their violation of the will of the Creator. Then, they heard Him coming toward them. What could they do, except hide. Perhaps He would walk right past and never see them.
Wait, was that His voice calling out, “Adam, where are you?” And it was close. He must be looking right at them. If they turned their heads, they would be looking Him right in His eyes. What to do? Adam turned, and casting his eyes downward he murmured, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.”
His response only made matters worse, for the Creator asked, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” It would be downhill from this point. Adam was trapped, and his actions demonstrated that he understood that he was caught. His own actions and his own words trapped him. Rather than confess that he had violated the command of the Creator, he deflected.
The LORD didn’t have to ask what they had done, but they needed to confess that they had disobeyed God. Even as they confessed their sin, they attempted to deflect responsibility. Adam blamed God. Okay, he didn’t come right out and say that God was responsible, but he certainly wasn’t shy about saying that if God hadn’t given him a wife he would not have sinned. Focus on what Adam said: “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.”
“You gave me that woman! If she hadn’t been here this never would have happened. It’s Your fault, God.” Nothing much has changed in the intervening eons. Confronted by God, we still make excuses for our sin, blaming others and ultimately attempting to lay the blame on God. The homosexual can’t help who he is because God made him that way. Really? The manipulative woman can’t help herself because God made her that way. Really? We always take the matter back to God, claiming that He is responsible for who we are. Really?
And Eve wasn’t any different from Adam. Asked what she had done, she pointed elsewhere, saying, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” “I’m just a woman! I’m the victim here. There was a serpent in the Garden. I didn’t put him there.” It was an adventure in making excuses. We have continued playing this game ever since. We learned it from our first parents.
And that is how we got where we are. God drove our first parents from the Garden and placed cherubim armed with a flaming sword to guard the approach to the Garden. What was lost could never be reclaimed either by our first parents or by those who would follow. The path to Paradise would be forever blocked and no one could ever again regain it. God continued by pronouncing a curse on our first parents. Eve would bear children in pain, and she would struggle for supremacy over her husband, though longing for him to be her guardian. Adam would be compelled to toil, so that even the work he enjoyed would become a labour in time. The earth would be cursed in such a way that it would require toil for it to produce a living.
The entire creation was ruined. Now, we need but pause to consider the creation about us to realise, “We know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now” [ROMANS 8:22]. Every blizzard, every tornado, every hurricane reminds us that our world is fallen. Every drought reminds us that the perfect world that once was is forever gone. Every violent act against the innocent reminds us that all mankind is under the sentence of death that contaminates this fallen world. And it is all because our first parents chose rebellion over obedience. Now, even the best of mankind is tainted, and sin rules over us.
That is indeed a dark compilation of the condition in which mankind lives that the Apostle presents when he writes, “It is written:
‘None is righteous, no, not one;
no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one.’
‘Their throat is an open grave;
they use their tongues to deceive.’
‘The venom of asps is under their lips.’
‘Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.’
‘Their feet are swift to shed blood;
in their paths are ruin and misery,
and the way of peace they have not known.’
‘There is no fear of God before their eyes.’”
[ROMANS 3:10-18]
When contrasted to the condition that we know to be right and true, the condition of our society is dismal. The truth compels us to confess that there is always a snake in paradise. We imagine that we have found an ideal situation, but we must always deal with other humans. Have you noticed that even your friends leave you disappointed on occasions. Well, if it helps, know that you disappoint them as much as they disappoint you. We are flawed; we are broken. It may pain us to admit this truth, but it still holds, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” [ROMANS 3:23].
THE JOY OF CHRIST’S CONQUEST — “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed” [LUKE 2:34b-35]. What a stunning prophecy was given by the old man! How would Joseph, and especially how would Mary, receive what the old man said? Before we face the trials that life will throw at us, none of us can understand what the challenges we must face will entail. Obviously, we don’t know how we will respond because we don’t know what challenges we will face. Just so, Mary and Joseph had no way of understanding what the presence of this child would mean for them. But they were now warned that the presence of this child would bring them pain—great pain! It was true enough that the pain they would know would be tempered by the joy of knowing that the child would bless many and that His presence would transform the world, but the very presence of this child would bring piercing pain to them; and especially would Mary, His mother, know deep sorrow.
We seldom know what we are saying when we talk about potential trials that will accompany salvation. We are somewhat like the Sons of Thunder. You will recall how their mother pushed them into seeking positions of authority in the Kingdom of God. Here’s the account as Mark relates it. “James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came up to him and said to him, ‘Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.’ And he said to them, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ And they said to him, ‘Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.’ Jesus said to them, ‘You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?’ And they said to him, ‘We are able.’ And Jesus said to them, ‘The cup that I drink you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized, but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.’ And when the ten heard it, they began to be indignant at James and John. And Jesus called them to him and said to them, ‘You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many’” [MARK 10:35-45].
These are humble men. They don’t really want much from Jesus. Just listen to them! “Lord, we don’t really want much. We just want to be numbers one and two in Your Kingdom.” They aren’t saying which of them should be number one and which of them should be number two. Why, they are content to let Jesus make that decision. Neither are we told that whoever was number two would actually be content being second fiddle. However, don’t you see a lot of us in these men? We humbly accept Jesus as Lord, especially if we can be a top-ranked someone in the Kingdom of Heaven. Let’s admit the truth, we don’t have any problem thinking highly of ourselves. If anything, we suffer from an inflated opinion of our own prowess in the Faith.
And yet, something marvellous has transformed the dreary mundane into an unexplainable vibrancy. That something was the conquest of death. Jesus, the Son of God, gave His life as a sacrifice for fallen humanity. He was certified as dead before being hastily buried in a borrowed tomb. Then, after lying in that dark tomb for three days and three nights, the Saviour was raised to life. Jesus burst the bonds of death, coming forth in a demonstration of His glorious power; He conquered death, hell, and the grave. In His resurrection from the dead, Jesus has given assurance that He is truly the Son of God and that the life which He alone can give is promised to each person who willingly receives Him as Master over life.
Here is the description of His resurrection as provided by one Gospel writer. “After the Sabbath [following the crucifixion], toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. See, I have told you.’ So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. And behold, Jesus met them and said, ‘Greetings!’ And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me’” [MATTHEW 28:1-10].
After rising from the dead, Jesus was seen by those disciples who had walked with Him. As He prepared to ascend into the glory, He gathered with His disciples on a hilltop outside of Jerusalem. We read of what happened on that hilltop that day as Doctor Luke has written, “When [the disciples] had come together, they asked [Jesus], ‘Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?’ He said to them, ‘It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.’ And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven’” [ACTS 1:6-11]
What we witness through Luke’s account of the ascension of the Living Saviour is the fulfilment of the message delivered when Jesus spoke to the Pharisees on one occasion. Recall that Jesus spoke of His relationship to His flock. In the Gospel John has written we are told, “Jesus again said to [the Pharisees who were offended in Him], ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father’” [JOHN 10:7-18].
Jesus, the Son of God, lay down His life so that His followers would be spared death and judgement. How revealing is the revelation we are provided in the early verses of the Letter to Hebrew Christians where it is written, “We see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone” [HEBREWS 2:9].
In 1 JOHN 3:16-24 we are encouraged by the teaching of the Word that informs us as readers of the Word, “By this we know love, that [Jesus] laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
“By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.”
John, the Apostle of Love, expressed his deepest desire for all who would read that first letter he had penned. In that missive, John urges all who follow the Saviour to walk in confidence of all that Christ has secured for His redeemed people. Recall that John has written, “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.
“If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life—to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. There is sin that leads to death; I do not say that one should pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death.
“We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him.
“We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.
“And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols” [1 JOHN 5:13-21].
There is true confidence for the follower of Christ. In the death of Christ the Lord freedom and security are found for all who are born from above and into the Kingdom of God. And the promise of freedom and security is offered to you, if you are but willing to receive this Risen Saviour as Master over your life. Though Jesus our Saviour was crucified in weakness, He was raised in power that you may have life and the forgiveness of sin.
The Word of God calls you, God Himself promising, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Master, believing in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. One believes with the heart and is made right; and openly confessing, that one is saved.” Amen.
[1] Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2016. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
[2] J. R. R. Tolkien, “On Fairy Stories,” https://coolcalvary.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/on-fairy-stories1.pdf, accessed 4 October 2021
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
