As we look to Easter

As we look to Easter, as we journey through Lent I want us to reflect today upon the reaction of the disciples as that day drew near.

Jesus had already told the disciples that he was going to be put to death.

Mark 10:33, 34
"We are going up to Jerusalem," he said, "and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise."

How ready and willing the disciples were to follow Jesus, to trust him when things were going well. How different their reaction when things did not go as they expected, when popular acclaim turned to opposition, when Jesus was arrested and their own lives endangered.

How shallow their trust proved to be then.

People get into things often for what they can get out of it. When the benefit seemingly ends they walk with their feet and do not return. Now that benefit may be social acceptability. It may be financial gain. It may be personal or spiritual improvement.

People will readily associate themselves with prominent individuals or with a good cause as long as it is cool to do so. Church is no longer cool. It is seen as being past it’s sell by date. Not relevant, except to the old and the dying. It is no longer the socially acceptable thing to do. It is no longer seen to offer much benefit in a day when now the State seems to provide many of the benefits and the services the church once did. By its Social work, through civil marriages (even Prince Charles a possible future Governor of the Church of England has chosen to be married thus!), and now even bereavement counselling etc. And for personal and spiritual improvement it’s to life coaches and psychiatrists that people turn or to off the shelf Christianity like Alpha Courses, TV entertainment faith, like Songs of Praise or to spurious books like ‘The De Vinci Code’ or, Laurence Gardner’s ‘Lost Secrets of The Sacred Ark’ books that reduce everything back to the mystic practices of Egyptian alchemy and science.

People are happy to have things that they can dip into and just as easily dip out of. But as with Jesus followers in those final days leading up to his crucifixion, when the going gets serious or begins to cost, people don’t say for long.

It was Deitrich Bonheoffer, the German theologian who made the distinction between cheap and costly grace.

As the disciples journeyed with Jesus to the Cross they began to realise that there was to be a cost in following Jesus, a cost that they now, when things seemed no longer to be going as they had expected, were quickly becoming increasingly unwilling to pay. Luke 9:57-62

"As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go."
Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head."
He said to another man, "Follow me."
But the man replied, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father."
Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God."
Still another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-bye to my family."
Jesus replied, "No-one who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God."

First, it was Judas who had thought that Jesus as Messiah would overthrow the Romans and set himself up as King. When he realised that Jesus was not going to fulfil his agenda he betrayed him for thirty pieces of silver.

Then it was, Peter, who disowned and denied Jesus, out of fear that he too might have been arrested and put on trial too.

Like so many people Jesus’ own disciples promised so much but in reality did not deliver when away from the others, they were put to the test. How feeble and faltering our faith can prove to be. Matthew 26:31-35

"Then Jesus told them, "This very night you will all fall way on account of me, for it is written:
"I will strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.
But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee."
Peter replied, "Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will."
"I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "This very night, before the cock crows, you will disown me three times."
But Peter declared, "Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you." And all the other disciples said the same.

Yet, they all deserted Jesus in his greatest time of need not prepared to stand up for Jesus and to stand out together with him even after all that they had been through together. Matthew 26:56

"Then all the disciples deserted him and fled."

As we look to Easter reflect on this, deceit, betrayal, Jesus disowned, denied and deserted. Why, because he did not fulfil peoples expectations in the way that they wanted.

What of you and me?

What is your expectation of what Easter is about?

Do you associate with Jesus social acceptability, material benefit and personal advantage? Is that the King that you see Jesus to be? Or do you associate Jesus rather with suffering and sorrow and shame. One who was prepared to give everything up for the sake of fulfilling God’s will and making possible our salvation? Not cheap grace but costly grace.

"He died that we might be forgiven,
He died to make us good,
That we might go at last to heaven,
Saved by his precious blood"

How we need to grasp that what Jesus was about and still is about is something that is far greater than making life better for us. It was and is about as I said last week about making “all things new”. Not a quick fix but, rather, an eternal solution to the need in each and every one of our lives, a radical transformation from above, a spiritual new birth, a life determining change of direction from living for self to living for Christ. Luke 14:25-27 (The Message//Remix)

"One day when large groups of people were walking along with him, Jesus turned and told them, "Anyone who comes to me but refuses to let go of father, mother, spouse, children, brothers, sisters - yes, even one’s own self! - can’t be my disciple. Anyone who won’t shoulder his own cross and follow behind me can’t be my disciple."

What is lacking in all to many lives, in your life and mine possibly too, in the lives of many of those who would call themselves Christians, is such passion and determination and belief that Jesus is the answer, God’s answer to all our needs and the world’s needs too.

That spirit-filled commitment to Jesus is the difference as to whether we live discouraged and defeated lives or lives that overcome. Whether we in the living of those lives betray him, deny him and disown him daily by our words and action of whether we are true to Jesus, acknowledge him and honour him in all we say and do.

As J.C. Ryle says in his magnificent book simply entitled ‘Holiness’, a book that every Christian would do well to read:

"Seven times over Jesus gives to the churches (in the book of Revelation) exceeding great and precious promises. Each is different, and each full of strong consolation: but each is addressed to the overcoming Christian. It is always ‘he that overcometh’, or ‘to him that overcometh’. I ask you to take notice of this.
Every professing Christian is the soldier of Christ. He is bound by his baptism to fight Christ’s battle against sin, the world and the devil. The man that does not do this breaks his vow. He is a spiritual defaulter. He does not fulfil the engagements made for him. The man that does not do this is practically renouncing his Christianity. The very fact that he belongs to a church, attends a Christian place of worship, and calls himself a Christian, is a public declaration that he desires to be reckoned a soldier of Jesus Christ."

As we look to Easter let us ask ourselves whether or not our spiritual passion is in need of restoration. Have we allowed the world to become our agenda rather than the kingdom of God? Have we faltered and come to consider material benefits to be of more importance than the spiritual calling that is ours as a soldier of Christ to be engaged in the battle that lies before us as His Church in the world today. Have we drifted from the truth we have been taught and condoned what we should not have and compromised our faith cheaply and without cost when we ought to have been resolute and strong when put to the test.

Are you as one who overcomes or one who all too easily gives in to -
the love of pleasure
the love of ease
the fear of death
the love of money
the fear of man
the love of man’s praise?

Will you count the cost and choose truly to follow Christ, to bear the scorn, to suffer ridicule, to accept the world’s derision? To own Christ as Lord and Saviour to take his name upon your lips in prayer and live out his words in your daily walk in practise.

Do we only want Jesus for what he can do?

Or, are we prepared to give all of ourselves to Jesus that he may work out His will in us and through us no matter what the cost may be?

"In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple."

Jesus gave of his all for us, can we give any less in return if we claim to be truly his disciples?

Should not we whose Salvation have been made possible by His Passion be equally passionate in the living out of our faith for Him? Psalm 63:1-

"O God, you are my God
earnestly I seek you
my soul thirsts for you
my body longs for you
in a dry and weary land
where there is no water.

I have seen you in the sanctuary
and beheld your power and your glory.
Because your love is better than life,
My lips will glorify you.
I will praise you as long as I live,
And in your name I will lift up my hands"

Amen, let us pray.