Pentecost 6
13 July 2025
Vineville Baptist Church
Macon, Georgia
Gregory Pope
CHRIST: MEETING JESUS AGAIN FOR THE FIRST TIME
(From Creation to New Creation: The Biblical Story #9)
Matthew. Mark. Luke. John
The story of Jesus the Christ: Son of David, Son of Abraham. Son of Rahab and Ruth. Son of Mary and Joseph. That’s how the New Testament begins, making sure we know that this Jesus of Nazareth, the messiah and Savior of the world, has deep Jewish roots and is intimately connected to the history of Israel and its people.
The old, old story of Jesus and his love goes all the way back to Abraham. Perhaps you’ve never heard the story of Jesus before. Or maybe you’ve been immersed in it since birth. I invite you this morning to hear the story of Jesus with fresh ears and perhaps meet Jesus again as if for the first time.
He came as a sign of God’s presence unlike any other. His name would be called Emmanuel, God-With-Us. The Word of God becoming flesh of our flesh, bone of our bone. And just as God had dwelt in tents among the Israelites in the wilderness, so God pitched his tent among us in Jesus of Nazareth.
He was born into poverty during tax season. His birth was announced not in the halls of power, but to outcast shepherds “keeping watch over the flock by night.” When those in power heard about this birth of a new king, they sought to kill him, turning him and his family into refugees fleeing for their lives. The best way to assure the death of this newborn King, Herod thought, was to have all the children in and around Bethlehem killed. “The Slaughter of the Innocents” it is dreadfully called. Mary and Joseph hear of Herod’s plan and escape to Egypt. Later Jesus and his refugee family will return to Nazareth and work in his father’s carpenter shop.
The only story of Jesus’ childhood we have is from the gospel of Luke, and it gives us a glimpse into the identity of Jesus even at a young age. The 12 year old Jesus and his parents travels to Jerusalem and on the way home Jesus gets left behind. His parents return to Jerusalem to frantically search for him. They’ve lost the Son of God! They found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers and scholars, listening to them, asking them questions. When asked by his parents what he was doing, he said to them, “Did you not know that I must be about my Father’s business?” But Luke says they did not understand.
The next time we see Jesus he’s about 30 years old. His cousin John is down at the river Jordan as a voice crying out in the wilderness with overtones from the prophet Isaiah: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. John the Baptist was preaching repentance and offering a baptism for the forgiveness of sin, when one day he sees him, off in the distance. Everyone stops. And John makes that beautiful gospel proclamation: Behold, the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world. Jesus walks down to the river and is baptized by John. As he comes up out of the water, the heavens open and the Spirit of God descends upon him like a dove, and a voice from heaven says, This is my beloved son in whom I am well-pleased.
Still dripping wet from the baptismal waters, Jesus is led by the Spirit of God into the wilderness. As the children of Israel spent forty years in the wilderness, moaning and complaining, shaping their identity as the people of God, so Jesus spends forty days in the wilderness, fasting and praying, shaping his identity as the Son of God.
What did it mean to be messiah? The accuser, sometimes called the satan or the devil, sought to fill the mind of Jesus with false identities. He tempts Jesus to be a man of political power and religious coercion, to make his ministry a religious show, to meet spiritual longings with materialistic substitutes. Jesus refuses such temptations with the wisdom of scripture and would fight such temptations the rest of his life. So what kind of Messiah would he be?
We get a hint in his first hometown sermon as he preaches from the prophet Isaiah: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor; he sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
Jesus became an advocate for the poor. He offered freedom to those long held captive by sin and oppressed by legalistic religion. He would open the eyes of the blind – the physically blind as well as the spiritually blind. He would be our saving light shining in the darkness. He would heal disease and offer God’s own forgiveness to whomever would receive it. He called disciples to follow him, and they did.
He went from town to town teaching and preaching and healing. And it almost always got him in trouble: Hanging out with the wrong people. Healing on the wrong day of the week. Playing fast and loose with God’s grace. He embraced lepers, healing them with his touch. He spoke love, healing us with his words. He expelled evil spirits. He befriended people who thought they had no friend, and now knew themselves to be God’s friends. He tried to break down barriers that separated people from one another.
Forgiveness flowed from him, from God through him, like cleansing waters, the deep healing of our souls. And when he said, “Your sins are forgiven,” you knew they were. They fell like scales from your eyes, like weights from your shoulders, like tears from your heart.
The theme of Jesus’ teaching and preaching was the kingdom of God. Not an earthly kingdom of military or political rule. Nor a heavenly kingdom in the sweet by and by. But a kingdom that would bring heaven to earth. A kingdom he said that lived within and among his community of followers: People who would live in such a way that cause lives and communities to be changed. An alternative society formed contrary to the greed and power values of culture. A society of peacemakers, those who refuse to resist evil with evil, who turn the other cheek. People who love their enemies and pray for those who hurt them. People who forgive because they have been forgiven. People who refuse to make a show of their faith in front of others, but pray in secret and give generously, not to be seen by others. They are, Jesus said, the salt of the earth, the light of the world.
In the form of parables Jesus told stories of Good Samaritans who help strangers and enemies and fit the bill for their medical costs, stories of prodigals welcomed home by a God whose grace never runs out. Jesus cared more about helping hurting people than he did about enforcing religious law. He was more concerned with redemption than punishment. It didn’t matter to Jesus who you were: thief or Pharisee, prostitute or rabbi, Jesus welcomed and accepted them all. He still does.
But the religious people of that day couldn’t handle that kind of grace. Not many Christians in our day can either. Some people just cannot welcome grace. They want a God whose justice fits their own sense of justice, where everything is earned and nothing is free, where God rules with an iron moral fist and coerces others into religious practices. Jesus taught about a God who freely loved and freely gave the gift of grace. And he had more authority than the religious folk ever dreamed of having. His authority was one of love, and it was more than the religious leaders could take.
So they begin to plot his execution. As Passover approached he entered Jerusalem on a lowly donkey. It would be like the President riding into town in a 1985 Gremlin. As he enters Jerusalem the crowds spread their garments on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them along the way. And the crowds begin to shout, Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!
Later that week, on the night before he died, Jesus gathered with his disciples for the Passover meal, a time to remember their exodus from Egypt. He took bread, blessed it, broke it, gave it to them, and said, “This is my body. As often as you eat this bread, do it in remembrance of me.” (Eat the bread). Then he took the cup and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. As often as you drink this cup, do it in remembrance of me.” (Drink)
Following the Passover meal, as Jesus prepared to die, he took three disciples with him to the garden of Gethsemane to pray. He told them how deeply grieved he was. He went off by himself and prayed, “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not as I will, but thy will be done.”
While he is praying, Judas, his own disciple and friend, for reasons not altogether clear, arrives alongside a church-and-state crowd of priests, Bible scholars, and a Roman army of 600 people with swords and clubs. With a kiss Judas betrays Jesus into their hands.
Jesus is arrested and sent to trial, accused of blasphemy and high treason, and is sentenced by Pontius Pilate to die. And die he did, crying out in Godforsakenness, nailed to a Roman cross between two thieves. From the cross he was mocked and jeered. And what did he pray? Vengeance on his enemies? No. He died the way he lived, practicing what he preached: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. From the cross he offers forgiveness of sin. He still does. In some way beyond our ability to comprehend, the tragic death of the greatest human being to ever live has the power to save the world.
Darkness and death, however, was not to be the end of the story. On the third day, God raised Jesus from the dead. Resurrection proclaims the good news that death does not have the last word. God does. And that word is life. Not only for Jesus, but for us as well. Because Christ lives, we too shall live.
Having risen from the dead, Jesus appeared to his followers, commissioned them and us to go into all the world and make disciples, baptizing and teaching them, promising to be with us all every step of the way. He told us he was going back to his Father in heaven and would one day return to take us home. And now, at his Father’s right hand in glory he intercedes to God on our behalf. And we await his return.
Until then the Risen Christ continues to meet us at the Table. Following his resurrection, in a little town called Emmaus, Jesus was made known to his followers in the breaking of bread. And for 2000 years the worshiping church has been dining with the Risen Christ at the Table where we find the grace of forgiveness, strength for the journey, the promise of his presence.
A few years later, the apostle Paul would say that when we eat the bread and drink from the cup, we proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes again. And as we await his return, his calling upon our lives remains before us: Follow me. It’s as simple and as dangerous and as life-changing as that. The question is: Will you follow? The whole biblical story has been moving toward this moment. And all of history has been changed by it. Will you allow Jesus to change you?
Jesus Christ is to be the center of our faith. The core of our faith is in a relationship with the Living Christ. Faith is not a belief system nor a code of behavior. Faith is about a trusting relationship with God through Jesus Christ, loving God and others as we follow Jesus. It’s a relationship made possible by God’s grace alone. It’s a relationship we enter by deciding to follow Jesus. We trust our lives into his hands of grace and live in the forgiveness of God, free to say no to temptation, free to become who God created you to be. The angels who sang at his birth were absolutely right: The gospel is good news of great joy for all people.
The grace of God is hunting you down even now. God wants you to know that you are loved and accepted, that there is grace to help you in your time of need, and that there is a calling on your life greater and more beautiful than you could ever imagine, a calling that will give your life meaning and purpose and fill you with hope.
Do you feel the tug of grace upon your heart? Do you hear his voice quietly speaking to you? It is a voice like no other. His is the voice – once you’ve heard it, his is the face – once you’ve seen it, you never forget. To see the compassion of God in the reflection of his eyes. To feel the Welcome of God in the warmth of his smile. To know the life-giving thrill of his voice as he invites us to dance the Great Dance. Will you take his hand?