Park Cities Presbyterian Church (PCA)

Gospel comfort and gospel warning

by Skip Ryan

September 16, 2001

Luke 12:1–4; 13:1–5

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“I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”  —Luke 12:1–4

“Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, ‘Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.’” —Luke 13:1–5

In the background in chapters 12 and 13 of the Book of Luke are some events, which, in their own day and in their own way, were not unlike the catastrophes we have experienced this week. To be sure, what we have experienced this week is much, much greater in terms of proportions, the numbers of people killed and injured, and the public nature of the calamity; but the degree of difference is a degree of amount, not of kind. The issues are somewhat the same, and we are not told a great deal about these issues in chapter 13.

Apparently there were some Jews from Galilee, the area in northern Israel, who were in Jerusalem for a time of worship. Pilate had them killed while they were worshiping, and he somehow mixed their blood with the blood of the sacrifices that they themselves were offering in their worship—undoubtedly a gruesome and awful display on Pilate’s part. It makes us think of the kind of racial hatred or ethnic cleansing we see in our day. Perhaps that was in Pilate’s mind. It’s a little like what happened in Fort Worth two years ago when a bad and mad person came into a church service and started shooting.

These people are saying to Jesus in chapter 13, “What do you think of this, Jesus? Tell us what you say is going on here.” Questions are put to Jesus that are not unlike the questions which you and I, perhaps even legitimately, have. How could God let this happen? Is He sovereign? Is He truly never for one moment out of control of the universe? How could God be sovereign and let what happened last Tuesday, September 11, happen? If God is sovereign, How could He let such wicked men loose to do their wickedness upon others?

Have you ever noticed that the Bible never answers your questions in quite the way you ask them? That is really surprising, but it is nevertheless a very important signal and pointer for us all. We want Jesus to answer us according to the precise definition and syntax of the questions we have posed to Him, but Jesus says something totally unexpected. Here He responds with a question that makes a point, and then a point that raises a question.

Questions that make a point

Jesus asks his questioners, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way?” He deals quickly and directly with the question. In effect, they are asking, “When bad stuff happens to people, does it mean they are bad?” Jesus dismisses it immediately. He says, “I tell you no!” It is very emphatic.

Then Jesus makes a point about an event which seems to have been well known at the time. Eighteen people had died in the collapse of the Tower of Siloam. When Jesus is asked if these people who died are more guilty than all the others on whom the tower didn’t fall, Jesus again makes the negative point, “Absolutely not!”

A positive question should be ringing in our hearts right now. What is His positive point? Jesus begins to move to the heart of our questions and our concerns by telling us how to respond to terror and tragedy both in our individual lives, in our own individual heartaches and illnesses, and in the heartaches of our common life together as a community, and even as a nation, even in the kinds of horrors like those of last Tuesday morning.

Jesus begins to move towards answers that He wants us to know even if we’re not at first raising the right questions. His answers raise questions that we should be asking. That’s what Jesus is teaching us here.

Seeing the context

Some of you have Palm Pilots. Some of you are very proud of your Palm Pilots. When it comes time to schedule a meeting, you pull it out and schedule a meeting. Some of you even have Palm Pilots that talk to other people’s Palm Pilots. I, for one, have a big old black notebook. It has the last 20 years of my life well contained in it. It has the next 20 years of my life well planned out in it, and I like my black notebook, thank you very much.

One thing about Palm Pilots that is really interesting is what someone was actually bragging to me about the other day when he was trying to convince me that I should get one. He said, “Look Skip, you’re a preacher and you want to have a Bible with you all the time, don’t you? All you have to do is whip out your Palm Pilot, boom, and there is the verse that you want to read right there. The whole Bible can be contained on your Palm Pilot.”

I like technology as much as the next fellow and, yes, I’ll probably get a Palm Pilot one of these days. But I’m not going to put the scripture on it. I’ll tell you why. The problem is that when you open your Palm Pilot to a verse, what do you see? All you see is that verse. The problem is that there’s more going on than that verse, and you need to see it in a context. When you have the Bible open in front of you and your eyes begin to move around the pages, you begin to see that there is more going on than simply that one verse. You begin to understand the meaning of that verse in a larger context, and it is that larger context about which Jesus is speaking in these two chapters of Luke that must be brought to bear upon the questions that we have about the particular nature of the tragedies themselves.

What you begin to see is, for example, if you look back at chapter 12, the editors of the NIV Bible put a heading at the start of chapter 12, “Warnings and Encouragements.” That is a good heading, because that is what these chapters are about— warnings and encouragements. We need to appreciate both. In fact, as Jesus answers the questions that He wants us to raise, He moves back and forth in these chapters from comfort to warning, from warning to comfort.

Jesus is not a very good preacher here by our standards. Preachers are told to be logical. If we want to make a point, we are supposed to make one point. “Here is the point about warning. Good, Jesus, we got that one. Now, here’s the point about encouragement. Now we get that one.”

Jesus does not teach the way we expect Him to. He moves back and forth in a way that surprises us, but you’ve got to appreciate the whole, and so I urge you to read all of chapters 12 and 13. I think you’ll find it very helpful, because what you will see is that He begins to answer the questions that we have about horror and tragedy and even terrorism with words of comfort.

The basis of our hope

Upon what do we base our understanding of what comfort is supposed to look like? There is a tremendous model that is sewn into the fabric and heart of the universe about comfort. There is a lesson and a moral about comfort that goes to the very heart of everything that we Christians believe. If you are a Christian believer, the right place to begin your understanding of the tragedies of last Tuesday is with the doctrine of the incarnation. The incarnation is what teaches us that God comes to comfort us. God comes in flesh. He moves into our world in the fleshness of humanity; He becomes like one of us in order to comfort us. So, for example, in Hebrews we read this marvelous statement about the nature of the incarnation and particularly what the nature of the comfort is: the Son of God moves towards us.

Since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared their humanity so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death; for surely it’s not angels He helps, but Abraham’s descendants. For this reason He had to be made like His brothers in every way in order that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God and that He might make atonement for all the sins of His people (Hebrews 2:14–18).

There is so much in that passage, but note this: The comfort God gives is not abstract. The comfort God gives is not at first “spiritual.” It’s very fleshly. It’s the comfort of touch; it’s the comfort of humanity; it’s the comfort of God coming in the flesh for us. It is the comfort that comes by knowing that God cares. He knows, and He weeps.

For example, John 11:33–35 tell us,

When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her, also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit, and was troubled, and said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to Him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept.

Or Luke 19:41 says,

When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and He wept over it.

Psalm 34:18 declares,

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted, and He saves those who are crushed in spirit.

And Isaiah 41:10 proclaims,

Fear not, for I am with you... Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with My victorious right hand.

Dear friends, I must be honest with you as a Christian preacher and say that these words are so much light thin air, meaning nothing, if it were not for the incarnation. It is because of the incarnation that He is with us. It is in the infleshment of Jesus as the Son of God come into our midst that He comes, that He weeps, that He cares, that He touches. Our own rightful sense of our common humanity and the care and concern we have for our fellow human beings, no matter their religion or background, comes from the heart of God. He not only cares but moves in care toward those whom He loves.

The beginning point for a response to what has happened this week is the infleshment of God in this world. Jesus’ first response is not to talk about whose sin caused Pilate’s ethnic cleansing, or whose sin caused the Tower of Siloam to fall. His first response is to talk about birds and how He cares for them. So does He not care for you?

Dorothy Sayers, the British writer, talked about the incarnation this way:

For whatever reason God chose to make man as he is, limited in suffering and subject to sorrows and death, He, God, had the honesty and the courage to take His own medicine. He can exact nothing from man that He has not exacted from Himself. He has gone through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work, and the lack of money, to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair, and death. When God played the man, He played the man.

God in Christ knows what 110 stories of crushing steel and glass feel like.

Perhaps you have heard the story about the little boy who is trying to go to sleep but is scared of a noise outside. His father goes in to comfort him and says, “Let’s pray to Jesus that you won’t be afraid.”

The little boy says, “Sure Dad, but actually, I was hoping for someone who had skin on him!”

The father wisely and rightly responds, “That’s just the point, child. The Son of God has skin on Him.”

Here’s a startling thought. Notice he said that Jesus has skin on Him. Do you know why you can pray to a God who understands all of the tragic failures, all the hurts and agonies of our sinful flesh? Because Jesus still has flesh. We are treading close to a wonderful line of mystery. It is magnificent. I want to be careful, but I do not think it is too much to say that the risen, exalted, ascended Christ who is sitting at the right hand of heaven has skin on Him right now. He knows and He cares.

The impulse to judge

I want to make this negative point very carefully, because I want to say it in a way that is clearly understood. I cannot be honest as your pastor if I do not speak to the article in yesterday’s Dallas Morning News about a preacher laying blame. Here is what he said,

The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this, because God will not be mocked, and when we destroy 40 million little innocent baby lives, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists, and the all the feminists, and all the gays and lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, the People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America, I point the finger in their face, and I say, “You helped this happen.”

He went on to say that their actions have turned God’s anger on America. Dear friends, doctrine is very important, and that preacher’s statement is very poor doctrine. It is the wrong starting place. It is not where the Son of God starts. Oh, I hold no brief for abortionists, and you know as well as I do that judgment will come one day, and then the chaff will be separated from the grain and burned. But the impulse of Christian doctrine in a situation like terrorist attacks and many deaths is not the impulse to judge; it is the impulse to come alongside. For this one preacher or any preacher to pick judgment as his doctrinal beginning point is like a surgeon grabbing an ax as his instrument when beginning an operation.

One of the names for the Holy Spirit is Paraclete. That is the origin of a word like parallel. It means to come alongside. What does the Holy Spirit do? He comes alongside.

Words of warning

Jesus gives warnings as well as comfort in these passages from Luke. In what direction does He aim His warning? Does He aim it towards all those bad people out in our society who have somehow brought God’s judgment upon us? Does He even first aim His warning at the perpetrators of the terror that was caused in Jerusalem? The answer is an emphatic no. He first aims His warning squarely at your heart and mine.

This is where Jesus introduces the question of judgment, but He does it in this most particular way. In chapter 13, He says in effect, “You want me to pronounce judgment on Pilate for his wicked and murderous acts, but Pilate is not here. Leave Pilate to Me. I’ll take care of Pilate. He’s not here, but you are here and you need to see that judgment doesn’t begin out there. Judgment begins in your hearts.”

What is so disturbing about the Dallas Morning News article is not that America will be judged. What is so disturbing is that he who says America will be judged does not candidly tell you he will be judged first. Any true Christian who understands the meaning of what God is all about in all of this must first say, “What is in my heart? What is the terrorism that is in my own heart? What is the terror of sin that has caused me to be the kind of person that I am?”

You say, “Wait a minute, Skip. I didn’t fly any jet planes into buildings this week.” Of course not. I know you didn’t, but I want you to know on the basis of the Word of God that the evil that lurks in men’s hearts is a matter of degree, not of kind. One reason that God would even permit such wicked things to happen is that men and women, believers and non-believers, would all have forced into their reckoning the question, “What is in my own heart?”

You know the line from John Donne’s famous poem, “For Whom the Bell Tolls”: “Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.” What you may not realize without the context of this line is that he is saying that when the bell rings, it is an alarm which must first be heard by you. He ends the poem this way, “If by this consideration of another’s danger, I take mine into contemplation, then I should secure myself by making my resource to God who is our only security.”

Jesus is saying, “Look at this horrible tragedy. Yes, use all the means of military and political might to do what world powers must do to cope with such awful acts. But first, contemplate the meaning of this event in your own heart. Ask God to reveal the terrorism of sin that is there.

The great English writer G. K. Chesterton was once asked by The London Times to write an article on the question, “What is the problem of the universe?” He wrote back very concisely, “I am. Sincerely, G. K. Chesterton.”

If there were a scale from zero to 100 of relative goodness for every human being, where would you put Mother Theresa? About ninety-five? Where would you put the perpetrators of Tuesday’s horrors? Let’s just say one. (You probably want to put them off the scale completely.) Where would you put yourself? Most of us would put ourselves somewhere in between. What’s the problem with the scale? The problem is that the difference between 99.99999999 and 100 is an infinite distance, and there is only One Man who has bridged that gap; there is only One Person who has ever worn flesh who has ever lived so perfectly, and therein lies your hope.

Did Jesus die for the terror in your heart? Yes, He died for your sins. But I want you to hear this my friends, He not only died for your sins, He lived for your righteousness. He lived the perfect life in the flesh that you could never live. He was the Perfect One who never did, thought or said anything, anything that dishonored the name of His Father; when He died on that cross of Calvary, He bestowed upon you not only the merit of His perfect death, but the merit of His perfect life.

Answers to His questions

Flesh. You are robed in it, and it is full of tatters unless it is the righteousness of Christ won for you. This is where we are. No, Jesus does not answer our questions just the way we ask them. He answers questions we do not ask and then makes us ask questions we did not intend to ask, but by His sovereign spirit, He brings us to the right place. We start asking the right questions: “Who am I?” “What is my sin?” “What is the terror in my own heart?”

Then He would have us pray something like this:

Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to Thy cross I cling;
Naked come to Thee for dress;
Helpless look to Thee for grace;
Foul, I to the fountain fly;
Wash me, Savior, or I die.