Falling Down Before the Throne

Carl planned a new series for us starting next week titled “Broken Vessels.” These messages will take a look at the lives of men and women throughout the Old Testament. However, I’m going to sneak ahead and look at one of the kings of Judah, one of these broken vessels, today.

Does anyone remember King Amaziah? Can you say anything remarkable about his reign as king or how he came to be king? If anyone says, “yes,” I’ll be surprised.

Amaziah was the son of Joash. Amaziah’s son was Uzziah. Here is the beginning of the record about his life from II Chronicles 25:1-2:

Amaziah was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years. His mother's name was Jehoaddin; she was from Jerusalem. He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, but not wholeheartedly.

Jesus: The Returning One

One day in a stable a baby was born;

He was the King’s Son, but came unadorned.

That special Babe would be Savior to all.

He was called Jesus and born in a stall.

He was brought to the Temple and praised by some,

Though more did not know what soon was to come.

Joseph and Mary, His father and mother,

Knew not that their Son was above every other.

Jesus was born a poor carpenter’s Son,

But whatever He did was always well done.

He went back to the Temple and got scholars mad;

They said He was crazy; He called God His Dad.

Jesus, the Risen One

Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed!

In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, C. S. Lewis makes the lion Aslan a Christ figure by having him killed and then resurrected back to life. Aslan himself says, “though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. But if she could have looked a little further back, … she would have read … a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backward.”

Is this an appropriate picture of Christ? How deep does the analogy go? Is there a “deeper magic”? What is it? Let us not waste any time and get right into reading John’s account of the resurrection.

Jesus, the Crucified One

Today we begin a 3-week series called Jesus: The One. The title for these series comes from a number of verses, including this:

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. – John 1:14

The word in Greek for “One and Only,” also translated “Only Begotten” in some translations, is monogenes. It is only used in the context of sons and daughters. Like logos, (The Word), it is a deep word, when you spend time thinking about it. In purely human terms, Jesus was not an only child; Matthew 13:55 and Mark 6:3 mention four “brothers” of Jesus: James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas. And the same verses talk about unnamed “sisters” as well. And although there is some question whether these people were Jesus’ half-brothers and sisters, His step-brothers and sisters, or even His cousins (personally I take the verses at face value and assume they were half-brothers and sisters), we can be absolutely certain that in no way were these people Jesus’ full brothers and sisters, because God and not Joseph was the true father of Jesus. In this Jesus was truly the One and Only.