This is a first for me. I have written newsletter articles, newspaper articles, magazine articles and blogs since 1987. Newsletter, newspaper and magazine articles were, for eleven years, written during the same time frame. Here in Indiana, I have written newsletter articles and blogs during the same time frame. That is a lot of words! More articles written than sermons preached. And never once have I written an article for one publication and then just reprinted it for another publication.

Until now.

Actually, I am not just repeating the article from April’s newsletter to this blog. Once a month Rena (church secretary) will send me a text saying that it is newsletter time again. This means I am to get it in gear and get an article ready for the newsletter. (She can be quite forceful and scary.) When she let me know for the April newsletter, I was involved in something else, I had two procedures coming and I had given no thought to the April newsletter. I wanted to skip the month, but as stated earlier, Rena can be scary. So, I sat down and wrote the article. I sent it to her and figured I would just move on.

But it has bugged me ever since I wrote it. It is one of those things that you don’t really think through until you talk about it or, in this case, you write about it. The more I thought about it the more I wanted to go back and add to it. It is so important! My ministry span goes from a time when you could settle an argument by quoting Scripture to now when people will just roll their eyes at the mention of the Bible. So, without further ado (whatever that means) I give you my April newsletter article, 2.0.

James A. Garfield, the 20th president of the United States, was shot at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, D.C. at 9:30 am on Saturday, July 2, 1881. He died in Elberon, New Jersey, 79 days later on September 19, 1881. The shooting occurred less than four months into his term as president. Garfield's assassin was Charles J. Guiteau, whose motive was revenge against Garfield for an imagined political debt, and getting Chester A. Arthur elevated to president. Guiteau was convicted of Garfield's murder and executed by hanging one year after the shooting. It was a busy train station and dozens of people witnessed the shooting. Garfield died from complications of the shooting.

None of the witnesses are alive today to tell the story, but we know the story because it was recorded in the media of the time and in historical records. It is an indisputable fact.

Taking the Roman calendar and correlating it to our calendar, Jesus was crucified on April 3, in the year 33 AD. He was crucified because Jewish leaders feared Him and wanted Him dead. His trial was witnessed by many people, His march through the streets with the cross on His shoulder was witnessed by hundreds and His crucifixion was witnessed by a thousand people or more. A few days later scores of people witnessed Him walking the streets of the city and then, several weeks later, many people witnessed His ascension into heaven.

None of the witnesses to these events are alive today to tell the story, but we know the story because it was recorded in the media of the time and in historical records. It is an indisputable fact.

Only a fool would dispute the details of Garfield’s death.

    Only a fool would dispute the details of Jesus’ death.

    Of course, no one could have predicted Garfield’s death. But the death of Jesus was foretold in the Old Testament. The method was foretold, where He would be buried was foretold, even His birth and the location of His birth were foretold.

    None of the witnesses to these prophesies are alive today to tell the story, but we know the story because it was recorded in the media of the time and in historical records. It is an indisputable fact.

     I pastored just 20 minutes from Garfield’s home in Ohio. His home is a museum now. He was a lay preacher and preached often at his home church in Mentor, Ohio. I have been in that church often. Never have I ever heard anyone say that Garfield’s death did not happen.

     I have been in many churches over the years. Many, sadly, are just dusty Spiritual museums now where nothing ever happens. And, sadly, I have heard several times a minister cast doubt on the life and death of Jesus. One of those museum like churches is the church Garfield used to preach in.

     So why is the death, burial and Resurrection of Jesus called into question? Many more witnesses saw the events of Jesus than saw the events of Garfield and the Roman historians were far more thorough than the American historians of 1880 and, finally, it was an event that President Garfield believed and proclaimed. So, why is it disbelieved?

     Maybe if we Christians didn’t cover our holy days with a man in a red suit and a rabbit carrying a basket of eggs it would be more widely believed. But it goes further than that.

     Why do people disbelieve? Because people still fear Him and want Him dead.     

     In the 17th century, the Jewish historian explained why the Jews no longer read Isaiah 53 in synagogue. It was causing confusion and arguments for hundreds of years. The chapter clearly deals with Messiah. Everything that happens to the Messiah in Chapter 53 happened to Jesus. The Jews, still waiting for Messiah, had to question whether or not Messiah had already come in Jesus. Finally, the rabbis decided that the best way to handle this was to forbid the reading of Chapter 53 in synagogue. Even today, the chapter is not read.

    We, however, have looked at the Chapter 53 for the last three weeks. The rejection, the brutal violence, the killing, is all there. But that isn't all of the chapter. Now we will look at the last three verses.

Isaiah 53:10-12---¹⁰ Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush Him; He has put Him to grief; when His soul makes an offering for guilt, He shall see His offspring; He shall prolong His days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.
¹¹ Out of the anguish of His soul He shall see and be satisfied; by His knowledge shall the Righteous One, My Servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and He shall bear their iniquities.
¹² Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the many, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong, because He poured out His soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet He bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.

    Verse 10 indicates it was part of God's plan. Imagine that! God loves us so much that His plan was for His Son to meet a horrible sacrificial death for us. The Messiah made this offering FOR US, willingly, with love! We are God's offspring and Messiah is our brother! And because days have been prolonged, we are bearing witness.

    Verse 11 tells us of the anguish, but He was satisfied because others were coming to Him. He was pleased when Thomas believed and He was pleased when a headstrong high school athlete dropped to his knees by a tree at a Fellowship of Christian Athletes encampment at Dennison University in 1973. He rejoiced for me. An insignificant no one.  

    Verse 12 tells us that Messiah is making intercession for you and for me. He is pleading our case.

    You can see why the Jews do not want that chapter read, but what a price to pay to maintain one's way of life.

    Over 700 years before Jesus was killed, Isaiah wrote about the horror. Messianic Jews are Jewish Christians. They believe in Jesus as Messiah, just as we do. I once had a class that was predominantly attended by Messianic Jews. On a warm, sultry Florida night, the professor asked one of the men why he had left traditional Jewish faith. The man said that in his personal reading, he read Isaiah 53 one day. He had never heard it read. Suddenly, it all became clear to him. 

    So we see in the first nine verses the horrible treatment, and then in the last three verses we see the reason why and the outcome. Remember, it is not Easter Sunday. It is Resurrection!

        Isaiah 53, which we have looked at for the last two weeks, gives the suffering of Christ in detail. Many have said over the last thousand years that it is to bloody of a story. It is bloody and vicious, but it is also true. But to me, the amazing thing is that it was written over 700 years before Jesus lived and died! However, the skeptic will say that the story of Jesus was made up to go along with Isaiah's account and all the Old Testament prophecies concerning His life and death. Such a person, however, is either poorly educated or simply chooses to ignore facts. The Romans were extreme record keepers, and the story of Jesus is written in their histories. Believing then, that the histories and the Scripture are true, let's look again at the first six verses of Isaiah 53. We have looked at these over the last two weeks, so let's revisit them to bring us up to speed.

Isaiah 53:1-6; 1.) Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 2.) For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, And as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. 3.) He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. 4.) Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted. 5.) But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him. And by His stripes we are healed. 6.) All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, everyone, to his own way. And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

        Wow! Christ went through torment for us! But there is more in the next three verses. 

⁷ He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth. ⁸ By oppression and judgment He was taken away; and as for His generation, who considered that He was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? ⁹ And they made His grave with the wicked and with a rich man in His death, although He had done no violence, and there was no deceit in His mouth.

        Isaiah was the one who told us that Jesus would be born to a virgin, and we marvel at the perfection of that prophecy. Here he also gives another exact prophecy, but it has to do with the manner in which He died. He didn't rant and rage at the unfairness of it all, He didn't curse the people who laughed at Him and spit on Him, He didn't condemn His executioners. He had a job to do, a prophecy to fulfill. How we face our death really tells of the life we led. Jesus was more than brave. And then, he was buried in a rich man's tomb. What kind of false prophecy would that be? Jesus had no control of where He was buried. The 700 year old prophecy was fulfilled on the spur of the moment. It was not faked.

        The Bible is amazing. Those who say it isn't all true and say that those who believe it without question are foolish are, themselves, foolish. The Bible delivers good stories and the Bible delivers painful stories. Simply, the Bible is truth. And next week, this truthful story is wrapped up.

                               

 

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        I know you have heard this before because I have commented on it before. But, in ancient Rome, and in all the lands they conquered, there were forty one major gods. Imagine that! Forty one gods to keep happy. Lucky for the Romans, their gods all possessed very human characteristics, so to keep them happy you merely had to keep yourself happy. And then the Romans had non-Roman gods and goddesses, adding the gods of conquered lands in order to keep the locals satisfied. One such goddesses in Western Europe was Eastre, goddesses of fertility. The Romans already had Venus to fill that position, but you really cannot have to many goddesses of fertility, especially since the worship of such goddesses involves sex. Eastre was unique in that worship for her included rabbits or hares and colored eggs, all signs of fertility. In time, when the Roman Catholic Church came into power, they retained Eastre as a symbol of springtime and the fertility of nature. In doing so, they retained the rabbit/hare connection as well as the colored eggs. By the 1500s the Roman Catholic Church had linked Eastre to the Resurrection of Jesus and began calling Resurrection Day, Easter. And we still have that grand old pagan tradition complete with rabbits/hares and colored eggs. I know people get upset with me when I point these things out, but truth is more important than feelings.

        We have drifted so far away from truth! Is it any wonder that society has followed the great lie? People like color and flash and feelings. And, really, the truth is kind of ugly.

        Isaiah 53 is the prophet Isaiah seeing the future and seeing the time of the death of Messiah. Last week we looked at the first three verses; Isaiah 53:1.) Who has believed what he has heard from us?  And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 2.) For He grew up before Him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; He had no form or majesty that we should look at Him, and no beauty that we should desire Him. 3.) He was despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces   he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

        Well, no wonder! Who wants to tell their child of a homely man who didn't look like he was important, who was filled with sorrow and grief and who was despised? So much more pleasant to have cuddly, cute little bunnies and brightly colored eggs and chocolate and all those things. And Wal-Mart has all that ready to go, including fake grass!

        The truth can be ugly, but shouldn't we express the truth? In the nine years I worked at the funeral home I was often asked to talk to the children and explain the death of grandma or grandpa or whoever. Why was I asked? Because the parents could not bear to share the truth.

        In Isaiah 53 it does not get any better. In verses 4-6 we have this; 4.) Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5.) But He was pierced for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His wounds we are healed. 6.) All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—everyone—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

        Sure, that is very harsh. Those 'griefs' and 'sorrows' from back in verse three are not His, but ours that He took on Himself. There is more to this Jesus than a baby in a manger, and even more than a Man on a cross. And verse five tells us that all His suffering was because of us.  Verse six says we were just headstrong and stubborn and did wrong things and Jesus took our sin! That means we are the guilty ones. His suffering was because of us. 

        Pretty serious stuff. When I was in junior high my father, a jack of all trades, was hired to get rid of blood stains in a house. Back in the 1930s a wife had beat her sleeping husband to death with a hammer while he slept. The blood stains on the wall had been painted over multiple times, but always showed through after a short while. We wound up removing the plaster and cutting out the wood beneath, and then replacing it all. But people had started making joes about it, saying all kinds of things about the murder house. That is the way people are. We take the things that make us uncomfortable and gloss them over.  The birth was desperation time for Mary and Joseph. The death was horror for Mary and the others. We cannot shy away from the truth. Especially not with the Bible. Colored lights do not make the confusion and fear of Mary and Joseph any less real and colored eggs do not make the death any less horrific. 

        Amazing that Isaiah saw this all clearly just over 700 years before it happened and less that 600 years later, we were celebrating Easter instead of Resurrection.                  

  

     In a water cooled, internal combustion engine, it is possible to have the oil mix with the water and coolant. The water and coolant then will get extremely hot and will burn off producing steam. Meanwhile, the oil will become diluted and thus be far less able to perform its function and will also cause rust to form in the engine and cause the engine to overheat. Now, you may read this and wonder what on earth I am rambling on about. However, this is what I think of when I hear the phrase, ‘watered down.’ That phrase was common among cooks as they ‘watered down’ the soup and barmen as they ‘watered down’ drinks. There it means to make something stretch at the expense of taste and potency. But to me, it has always meant a slow and steady destruction.

    When someone says that the Word of God is being watered down, most would likely think that it is being made more gentle and even lovely. I see ‘watering down’ the Scripture as a way of destroying its power. Even when it ‘helps’ to makes sense or eases a harshness.

    The Book of Isaiah is a good example of this thinking. For hundreds and hundreds of years it was considered a book of prophecy written by Isaiah. The ancient Jewish scholars, some of whom were contemporaries to Isaiah, all considered it prophecy written by Isaiah. Christians also considered it to be prophecy written by Isaiah and held to that for almost 2,000 years. But then it began to rankle one Jewish scholar in the later twentieth century. Some of it seemed pretty harsh and some of it, if read a certain way, indicated that someone who acted exactly like Jesus was going to be Messiah. This Jewish scholar suggested that there were two Isaiahs, who lived a couple of hundreds of years apart. Their writing styles differed and the second Isaiah was recording events historically that were once thought to be prophetic. When so called Christian theologians locked onto this in the last quarter of the twentieth century, they made three Isaiah and essentially diluted the prophetic word. They found three different styles of writing, so there had to be three Isaiahs. Now, Isaiah wrote over an extended period. He started out as a young man and lived to see peace and war and natural disasters and along the way became elderly. Personally, I have been writing regularly for forty years. If you were to go back to the beginning and read what I wrote, it would be decidedly different than now. To make it 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd Isaiah weakens it all.

    Which is the point to ‘watering down’ the Word.

    Originally, it was a very real effort to ‘water down’ Isaiah 53, because that really looks like Jesus. Of course, it is Jesus. The prophet was seeing 700 into the future. But if this is really Jesus and He is really crucified, then He is the Messiah, and Judaism cannot allow that. After all, the Ethiopian eunuch was reading Isaiah 53 when Philip used that passage to lead him to the Lord. Isaiah needed to be ‘watered down.’ This is Lent, so is a good time to look into what the prophet Isaiah said of before the ‘scholars’ got to it. We will look at this passage for a few weeks.

    Isaiah 53:1-3: 1 Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

² For He grew up before Him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; He had no form or majesty that we should look at Him, and no beauty that we should desire Him.

³ He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.

    In verse one the prophet asks who has believed in what he, Isaiah, has said. The answer is very few of the Jews really believed. They knew what the prophecies said, but to embrace them meant giving up their way of life. We can shake our heads at the foolishness of the Jews, but do we, as Christians, really embrace the Way?

    In verse two we see the Son of God growing up before the Father like a plant growing out of dry ground. Imagine. God not being able to help His Son. Not only that, but Jesus was nothing special to look at. Remember, there were no paintings or drawings from those day. The Jews didn’t do that, taking the commandment of not making any images to also mean drawings. All the pictures we see of a pleasant looking Jesus are false. We only have descriptions, and this description is not very good. He didn’t look like a king and He didn’t have amazing good looks. He was a carpenter, and probably looked the part.

    In verse three Isaiah is looking forward and he talks of Jesus being despised and rejected. People didn’t accept Him. Some sought to kill Him. And when the time came, most called to crucify Him. Why the sorrow and grief? He knew these people, HIS people, were rejecting the only way to salvation. I imagine it crossed His mind to wave His hand and save them all, but that was not part of the plan. No one wanted to reach out to Him. Even His own disciples were looking at the coming kingdom as though it were an earthly kingdom that they would rule. He was despised, and even His friends did not help him.

    It is not about colored eggs and a bunny and new clothes and all of those things. It is not about that fine ham dinner on Easter day. (Have you ever wondered about us celebrating a Jewish man with a ham dinner?) It IS about a man, a perfect man, despised and rejected, filled with sorrow and anguish. It is about what He did for us.

    Please, don’t ‘water down’ the message with all the other stuff.