ARE YOU A SECRET OR PUBLIC DISCIPLE?

MARK 15:42-43

There are two questions I wish to answer about Joseph of Arimathea: "What caused Joseph to be a secret disciple?", and "What cured him?"

The one beautiful deed that shines out on the darkest day earth had ever known is this deed of Joseph of Arimathea. The story of Joseph of Arimathea is told in all four gospels. Joseph was a wealthy man who came from Arimathea in Judea. He was a good and righteous man who managed to be both a member of the Council (the Sanhedrin) and a secret supporter of Jesus - which is why he did not join in the Council's actions against Jesus. After the death of Jesus, Joseph asked Pilate for permission to take Jesus' body and bury it properly. Permission was granted and the body was taken down. Joseph, helped by Nicodemus, wrapped the body in cloth with the addition of myrrh and aloes.

They buried Jesus in an unused tomb that Joseph may have intended for himself, where it was protected by a heavy stone rolled against the opening.

Matthew 27:57-60: "When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who was also a disciple of Jesus. He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus; then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. So Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock. He then rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb and went away."  

JOHN 19:38–4238 "Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders. With Pilate's permission, he came and took the body away."

All around us there are men and women who are "secret disciples" of Jesus. What caused Joseph to be a secret disciple? His discretion stemmed from several factors, including fear, wealth, and his position of authority. Joseph had much to lose if he opening supported Jesus - ostracism, loss of status, or even physical danger. Wealth often ties individuals to societal norms and expectations. His social standing would be at rick. He could lose his financial security and his lifestyle. That was too high a price for this man who was attracted towards Jesus, but afraid to let anyone find out about it. 

But despite his secrecy in following Jesus, he stepped out of the shadows to perform a compassionate and honorable act. This act, though risky, revealed Joseph's deep respect and commitment to Jesus. This story highlights the challenges faced by those today who, despite their faith, navigate societal pressures and personal risks that might be involved. 

Are you open about your faith in your daily life, especially when it comes to your workplace or perhaps some of your unbelieving friends? Are you afraid of being ridiculed or losing respect? We live in a world where authenticity is often sacrificed for conformity. Some yield to public opinion rather than having the moral courage of their personal convictions. Inauthentic lives. 

For your own sake and the joys involved, leave secret discipleship and follow Him publicly - in the marketplace, in the workplace, with your friends - let your light so shine before men that they would see God. For the sake of others, it is needful that you follow Christ publicly.

At the beginning of the Reformation - Martin of Basle came to knowledge of the Truth but was afraid. He wrote on a leaf of parchment paper: "O most merciful Christ, I know that I can be saved only by the merit of thy blood. Holy Jesus, I acknowledge thy sufferings for me. I love thee! I love thee!" 

Then he removed a stone from the wall of his chamber and hid the parchment there. It was found over 100 year later, about the same time that Martin Luther found Truth and said: "My Lord has confessed me before men; I will not shrink from confessing Him before Kings."  The world knows what followed, and even today revere the name of Martin Luther; who knows or cares about Martin of Basle?

THE YOU-NITY OF THE GOSPEL (preached in Stanton, KY 1/25/1959)

ISAIAH 59:1-4

It has been said that the Gospel message has lost a great deal of its impact because of the fear preacher's have to preach and say "you" instead of "they." My friends, I do want you to like me. I do want to be accepted by the folk in this church. But my greatest desire is that you come to a right relationship with God. And an awareness concerning the reality of sin that is present in your life.

God's message is directed to you. The great tragedy in the church today is that there are so many who have no awareness of sin. You might say, "I'm a good guy." God says, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Again, there is none that doeth good, no, not one!"
You say, "I'll find some other way to enter heaven." Jesus says, "I am the Way, Truth, and the Life; no one can come to the Father except through me." You say, "I'll follow my own truth." God says, "All a person’s ways seem right to him, but the Lord weighs motives." That verse appears in Proverbs 16, but also in the Old Testament book of Judges, in several places. It was describing the "spirit of the age" in which Judges was written. It was speaking to what was a highly individualistic and self-centered society. Their entire basis for basic morality and sense of right and wrong was centered, not on God, who gave them His law - the 10 Commandments - but also rules for living; it was centered on what they wanted and on what they desired. Their entire philosophy of life was not centered in God, but in an individualistic framework. Is that true even today?

Is there a sense of failure before God in your heart? Let's look at what His Word says: "Your iniquities (perversity) has made a separation between you and God." Jeremiah 17:9 reads: The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can understand it? But God knows it; He "searches the heart and tests the mind." When in your life, or collectively in society, the basis for love and hate, right and wrong, good and bad is based upon everyone doing "what is right in his own eyes," there is chaos, dysfunction, turmoil.  It may sound counterintuitive to some, this high standard of God's governance in our lives, or in our society, because after all, we are a democracy, we have freedoms and rights.  Nevertheless, God says he designed us to live under His governance.

Can you really rely on your own senses to diagnose your ills. Psalm 14:1 says, "The fool says in his heart, there is no God." Is your religion make-believe? The sin in your life has prevented you from coming to Christ or from serving Him with your whole heart.  Many of you could say these words found in I Thessalonians 2:18 to God: "Wherefore we would have come unto you...but Satan hindered us." Satan. Called by many names:The Great Dragon, the Devil, Lucifer, The Deceiver, Prince of Darkness. We find out what will ultimately happen to Satan in Revelations 12:9: "And the great dragon was cast out — that serpent of old called the Devil and Satan, who deceiveth the whole world."

It's your soul - poor, miserable, perverse, sinful, wicked - of value to you perhaps, but what of God? Listen! God loves you - He gave His Son for you - the Holy Spirit pleads with you.

But you, along with your sings, can go to hell straight over the cross. How much does your soul mean to you? Enough to give it to Christ? Your whole heart and soul? Enough to let God have more than just the scraps (Sunday morning attendance) in your life? 

A famous 18th century atheist and philosopher, best known for his skepticism of religion and empiricism, cried loud on his death bed “I am in flames!” It is said his “desperation was a horrible scene." Another famous infidel as he was dying said: "Don't tell me there is no God, for I am in His awful presence. I am lost - lost without hope!"

BUILD YOUR LIFE ON THE ROCK

Psalm 37:25
"I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor His seed begging bread."

Martin Luther King, Jr. at Clayborn Temple, in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 3, 1968, the evening before his assassination said: "I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go the the mountain. And I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land...so I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. "

Benjamin Disraeli was much more pessimistic: "Youth is a blunder; manhood a struggle; old age a regret."

Cicero said: "Old age is the crown of life: the final act in the play of life."

Life is like a journey across the ocean. There are some whose fortune it is to hardly leave the shore. Others make it to mid-ocean where they perish because of some disaster -- either caused by an external force, or by themselves. There are others who weather the journey, through storms and high seas, until they see the shore of the intended destination beginning to loam on the horizon. Into a lovely and commodious harbor they sail with flags unfurled. Lining the shore are those familiar ones who completed their journey at earlier times. The journey is not optional - each must make it. How one fares during the journey and how one arrives is a matter of one's own determination. Many are those who spend their time on the SHIP OF FOOLS as depicted by the artist Hieronymous Bosch depicting a group of individuals aboard a small boat. Amidst various activities that suggest indulgence and moral lapse, the occupants appear oblivious to their direction or purpose.

When we are younger we have an excess of answers. The problem is that we usually do not know what the questions are. Jeremiah 12:5 says, "If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble in safe country, how will you manage in the thickets by the Jordan?" We complain a lot about trivial things; how will we do with great, important issues?

I have noticed a twinkle in the eyes of some of the elderly ladies in this church, faithful ladies in the winter of their life.  I have an idea that they know that each of us must walk through some life experiences just as they have done, and were they to give their testimony I'm sure they would be most positive. But that is their testimony - not yours or mine. To me these ladies convey the impression that they are wonderful and marvelous proofs of the presence, mercy, and grace of our Lord, for I have witnessed a sweet calmness in each of them, probably born during times of adversity.

Have you listened to them when they speak? Their voices never raised, words carefully measured, no rush to speak but reserving time to do a bit of thinking along the way. When one goes to serve one of these ladies, you will invariably come away with a feeling that is they who have done the ministry. It is rather humbling. Now you will begin to notice, especially when they are all together here in the church.

What will you do in times of extreme need? Tragic loss? Shattered dreams? Tested faith? The end of relationships? The death of a child? Disappointment in people you trusted? Loved ones who leave God out of their lives? Profound financial hardship? A wavering and persistent doubt within the church one loves? Accepting the reality of what "is" instead of what one "hoped for?"

The dewy-eyed and excited faith of young people is inspiring. However, it must be grounded solidly upon The Rock, for the winds and storms will surely come. What will be the course and conduct of your life? If Jesus is the rock, what is the sand? Well, as Jesus defines it, it means building your life on anything other than his words. He warns that there are a thousand ways you can build your house - your life - apart from the Word of God; a thousand ways to conduct your life that seem satisfying and fulfilling - but yet not built upon the Rock.

G.K. Chesterton, an English writer and theologian said this: "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried." In today's world, we seem to hear much about radical individualism which espouses the belief that every person has the right to set the conditions under which they live their own life.  It is a challenge to live up to Christian ideals in a world largely dominated by individualistic pursuits.  Proverbs 21:2 says, ""Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart." Christian teachings, the "old, old story of Jesus and His love," offer a solid foundation for life.  They are all too often set aside because they demand rigorous adherence and even personal sacrifice, which are at odds with this radical individualism. 

Jesus warns us that there are countless ways to construct our lives away from the teachings of God - a life built on shifting sand. We can choose paths that may seem "right in our own eyes" and offer satisfaction, fulfillment, and stability, especially when we are young and not yet fully tested by the storms of life which invariably come. However, He urges us to build our life upon the solid foundation of the Rock of our Salvation, that is Jesus Christ, ensuring we stand firm against all life's trials and tribulations. The young person who is taught that by their family, Sunday School teachers, from the pulpit, and through other believers that God brings into their lives, and continues to build on that solid foundation, will have stability and resilience when the storms of life come, when the temptations of sin surround them; they will be able to remain standing against trials and tribulations. Then one day, if God gives them long life, they will be as these faithful wise women in our church, and have that twinkle in their eye and a bearing of sweet calmness, and be received into heaven's glory with the words, "Well done, good and faithful servant."

Matthew 7:24-29

"Everyone, then, who hears these words of mine and does them, will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on the house. But it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them, will be like the foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it. And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes."

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God endures forever. Amen.

OUR BURNING BUSHES (Psalm 19:1-6; Exodus 3:1-6; Romans 1:18-23)

There is a word from the Lord for everyone. There is even a word from the Lord for the unspoken for whom "every day with Jesus [isn't] sweeter than the day before," those who are scarred by what political commentator Walter Lippmann once called "the acids of modernity," describing trends that have had a significant impact on the Christian faith and whose sensory apparatus is semi-numbed by the routine sights and sounds of the day after day after day routine - unbroken by even a glimpse of the tip of an angel's wing or a whispered monosyllable from the Holy One. It is a word being spoken in Exodus 3, the initial encounter between God and Moses which reflects a remarkable mixture of ordinary elements of human experience and the extraordinary.

God comes to Moses in a setting compounded of a mixture of ordinary elements of human experience and the extraordinary. What happened happened on a humdrum, everything-as-usual sort of day.  The story is described:  One day while Moses was taking care of the sheep and goats of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Michan, he led the flock across the desert and came to Sinai, a holy mountain.

And that was it; no twenty-four hour prayer vigils. No crystal cathedrals and massive choirs. No cultic pomp-and-circumstance. Just a plain old ordinary day and a man doing what he'd been doing every day for forty years. It was another in a long line of dusty, sandy, rocky, days watching over someone else's sheep and goats, like yesterday and the day before that - months on end. Continuity is the picture with more than a little monotony.  It wasn't a day brightened with happiness or rapture. It was just the moderately pleasant, wholly bearable and tolerable, lukewarm days of a middle-aged man with no particular pains, no special cares, without any specific worries or despair... That's when IT happened! Moses lifted up his eyes from the grind of another day and saw a bush - not a special bush, just one of thousands desert bushes common to the area - except this bush was burning and was not being consumed by the flames.  So Moses, being reasonably curious said, "I will turn aside and see this great sight; why, the bush isn't even burnt." The Lord was watching and when he saw Moses turn aside, He called to Moses from out of the burning bush, 'Moses; Moses!" That's when he told Moses he was sending him on a "mission impossible", to go to Pharaoh in Egypt and demand he let the Israelite slaves go free. Moses had fled from Egypt in fear for his life. He had been hiding out from Pharaoh, met his wife, had some kids, and was working for his father-in-law, and now God wanted to sent him back!

We all hide from so many things.  We hide because we don't want to have to change. We don't want to leave our comfort zones.  We hide because we fear rejection, or failure,  or we don't want the responsibility. We hide because we've become apathetic and comfortable. But we can't really hide from God who sees all and knows all. One day it'll happen. It might be for you the elderly neighbor from across the street who waves and smiles from the driveway. Or you meet a stranger and exchange cordial words. Or you see a homeless man clutching his soggy bag and he weaves along in the rain. Or you write one more check, sell one more widget, sweep the kitchen floor one more time. You hear a bird singing happily, or you sit at dinner with your family like you do every evening sharing a meal, asking about the day. A friend dies and you grieve. The news tell you more than you want to know about drug cartels and drug deaths, the latest news from some country in South America, news about the Presidential campaign. Bushes - common elements of our daily human existence. Bush after bush dot the landscape of our lives. Then one day, another ordinary day, when we are reading a book or playing with the baby, or talking on the phone to a friend - we do something extraordinary. We wonder about the "bush" and we draw closer, close enough to see what had always been right in front of us but somehow we never saw it. What had always been present for our hearing, but we never heard. A bush, but it's on fire and yet not consumed, and from it we hear our name being called - and the "common things are made holy and a glory on them laid."

Was the Apostle Paul (among others) correct when he insisted so vigorously that, "Since the creation of the world, God's invisible nature, namely God's eternal power and deity, has been clearly visible in the things that have been made?"  Is it possible that our problem is primarily one of perception? "He sees many things," said God's prophet Isaiah, "but does not observe them; his ears are open, but he does not hear." Should this be the case, it is a serious if not fatal flaw, for as the saying goes, "What you see is what you get." Isn't it true that we mostly see what we want to see. And isn't it truer still that we see only what we have been taught exists for our sight" That's the way it is with us; our perception is as much a matter of sociology as it is physiology. More often than not we see only what our class and clan sees and tells us is present for our sight and worthy of it. We see what our teachers have taught us to see, and little more than that. We do what everyone else around us does. "There are none so blind...," "We see through a glass darkly." We see only that which lines up with our belief system and personal priorities- be they right or wrong. We turn a blind eye so easily. "For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened." 

When I was young, I would see a hawk soaring and soaring and soaring on it's great wings spread over the earth and sky, and I was enthralled. Or a solitary red cardinal on a snowy branch would capture my whole attention. Beauty flowed and flashed and filled the world and my own soul to overflowing. Then I became older and properly educated and socialized - and I don't see such things. "A spade is a spade," they told me, "and you must learn to call it that." A bird is a bird is a bird. A tree is just that - a tree. And a bush that blazed up suddenly and yet was not consumed, I would not report it for fear of being taken first to an opthamologist and then to a psychiatrist whose professional mythologies contain no stories of bushes on fire with the glory of the Lord.

But within the relative safety of these walls, I admit to knowing rare times when a bush blazed and was not consumed and from within it I heard Someone calling my name. There are some who would shake their heads and mumble something about subjectivism or sentimentality. So be it. But the bush did burn. I did hear His voice as he called my name. When that happens for you, will you answer?