At Easter, Christian celebrates the resurrection of Jesus
Christ that changed history. But it was not supposed to just change history,
but to change us, to change you and me.
Years later after the resurrection, Paul met the risen Jesus Christ at the road of Damascus, and his life
was revolutionized, and one of the main theme of the New Testament. Even though we should not expect visual,
audio of with our own eyes and ears of the risen of Christ, but in our heart,
by faith, we should all be encountering the risen of Christ. It is not enough
to just believe in some general
doctrine. We have to encounter Him. And how does that happen? How does that
work? What does it mean? Peter, serves as a paradigm, a case study, of what it
means to encounter the risen Christ, because it is a very famous story of what
he did before Jesus died, and after the risen Christ met him on that beach, at
the sea of Galilee, and put his life back together after fallen apart. This is
our case study of what it means to encounter the risen Christ.
The first part of this story, you just heard and read, Jesus
says to His disciple, " you are all going to fall away". Peter says,
"They might, not me!" Jesus says, basically, "Peter, you don't
really want to say that. You are all going to fall away." And then Peter,
doubly swears, "Even I have to die with you. I will identify with you,
even if it means death. " And he publicly swears, that he would never fail
nor forsake Jesus. Of course, within hours, something else happened. The middle
part of the story that you didn't hear/read in the end of chapter 14 in Mark.
Jesus was being trial for His life, and Peter followed along covertly. And then
he said three times denying Jesus. What do we learn here? If you want to
encounter the risen Christ, there are things you must know, and they are all
here, which are:
1. You have to
believe the resurrection reality that it really happened.
It is typical to say
that this story of the resurrection is a wonderful symbol, but you can't take
it literally. They are symbols of the fact that there is always hope, and after
the dark , there is always the dawn. This is symbol, you can't take it literally. But
here is a question, if you want the resurrection of Jesus Christ to just be a feel
good factor, that is one thing. If you want the resurrection to be a life
transforming power, that is another. A feel
good factor, for me, for example, the movie Princess Bride will make you feel
better. But if you want the resurrection of Jesus Christ to be the life
transforming power, then you have to believe that it really happened. And that
is not that hard to understand the difference. Here is two people. They both
dying of cancer. One believe the resurrection story is a wonderful symbol. The
other believes that Jesus has actually rose from the dead, and thru believing
in Him we rise from the dead. Who is God? Far greater resources to face death with poise.
Johnny Erickson who is a very well known Christian author,
she says this, "I was shriveled bent
fingers, strovite muscle, narrowed knees, and no feeling from the shoulders
down. And one day, have a new body, light and bright, and clothed with
righteousness; powerful and dazzling. Can you imagine the hopes that give
someone spinal injured like me, or someone who is brain injured ...imagine the hopes that gives
someone who is manic depressive. No other religion or philosophies that promise
new bodies, hearts and minds." -- What
does it mean? Doesn't other religion promise salvation? Yes, but not this kind
of religion. There are religion that
promises you will live spiritually somehow forever, but none of them promise
"spinal cords". Not a single one.
If there are 2 social activists, one believes that the
resurrection narrative is just a nice symbol. (S)he believes that when we die,
we rot; and when the sun dies, everything will go away. Another person believes
the resurrection really happened, and there will be a new heaven and a new
earth, and that everything we do against suffering, evil, injustice and death,
eventually will be fulfilled. Every effort will be fulfilled. Which one has far
greater resources to face difficulties of this world with poise? You have to
believe that it happened! Now, how do we
get there? The answer is to have a short settled believe and the answer is any
of the big life question, e.g. who are we? where we've come from, etc. It takes
time. It's a process. Nobody comes to short believe in any major thing, frankly;
any major answer to one of those big questions without spending a quite a bit
of time thinking about it, certainly. And because we live in the western world,
where the resurrection of Jesus Christ is doubted broadly and widely and questioned. It is not going to be enough for
you to just grow up in a church, and still have the kind of deep assurance that
the resurrection really, really happened, such that it is life transforming,
empowering and helps you face anything. You are not going to have that
certainty unless you do the work, which is looking at the internal and external
evidence, looking at the objects and subjects of material....It is A LOT! We
can't go through it all here. But, this text actually gives you a starting
point. Do you know why? You can't believe that the resurrection of Jesus Christ
really happened if you believe that the Gospel accounts that Jesus Christ's
life and death and resurrection are just legends. You got to believe that this is really
eyewitness history, real historical documents. And this particular story gives
you a really wonderful starting place. It is a huge single bit of evidence that
this stuff really happened. How so? Well, let's look at the story. This story
of Peter is one of the most spectacular failure story in print. First of all,
Peter says "I am never going to fall away. I am never going to forsake
you. " Jesus is actually trying to say to Peter, "Calm down, don't
make yourself looks stupid, because you know .." and Peter says, "No
no no no.... Look, I know the rest of these people. They are not nearly as
committed to you as me. Even if they all fall away, I will NEVER fall away. If
I have to die with you, I will." So he makes that promise publicly, and
within hours he does exactly what he swears he would never do. He also does it
three times. Three times!!! Now, if you do something stupid or bad once, you can always say, "that wasn't really
me. I was upset. I was taking by surprise. I just woke up.... I wasn't
myself." But if you do it three times, that's you! It is you!! But the
most awful part is something you might not notice right off the bat.
Commentators debated this a little bit. You know that the last time Peter does
(in denying Jesus) is the third time when Peter has been around the fire with a
bunch of people, and they hear his Galilean accent, and "You are Galilean!
Aren't you with this Guy?" And this is what Peter says, "He began to
call down curses, and swore to them "I don't know this man you are talking
about" Now, what is interesting about this is that he began to curse, and
#1, it is a transitive verb. Transitive verb means that it has an object. That
means it's not just cursing, but he's cursing someone or something. #2. It is
not a reflexive verb. If he was calling it down on himself, then it is a
reflexive verb, but it is not. So who is he calling curses down on? He is
trying to deflect suspicion. He is trying to prove that he has nothing to do with
this Man. Who do you think he is calling curses down on? It looks like he is
calling curses down on Jesus himself. He is cursing him and saying no disciple
would curse his master, as trying to prove. It is the most horrendous public
betrayal possible within hours on the promise that wouldn't do such of thing.
And when the rooster crows, and Jesus has said that before dawn the next day,
you are going to do this, and Peter remembers it, and he completely breaks
down. And it was just devastated. He realizes what he's done. The magnitude of
it, the immensity of it, comes down and crushes him. Now, that is a very compelling story. For a
moment before going on with it, I want you to see what the scholars say that
this actual ly proofs that this is an eyewitness account, not a legend. Many
scholars has written about this that this couldn't been made up. Many people
say that there are compellation of oral tradition that were kind of worked. But
the Christian leaders were trying to promote their movement, to get power, and
to consolidate their power so that they create these stories that made them
look good. Peter, the CEO of the Christian movement, one of the main leaders, according
to one of the great Christian scholars, Richard B., "you would never, in a
million years, put this story in if you are making it up.". And here is
the reason why. As I was telling the story, we kind of feel bad for Peter, but
you don't feel bad enough for Peter. Here is the reason why. We live in an
individualistic, relativistic culture, where public confession, such as "I
really blew it" and everybody weeps, but then you go on. Some of you know
what it is like to live in a shame and honor culture, where it is not a place
for forgiveness happens. You betray your people, you speak something like what
Peter did to your master, you go down to your grave in shame! There is no
remedy for it! And Richard B. says that there is absolutely no way that the
Christian who put together the New Testament and the Gospel would have offered
this to the world if this didn't happen. Because it would discredit the whole
movement and Christian leadership. How, in the world, can someone like that be
your leader? That is why, Richard B. says that there is no way that someone
could make this up. The only possible explanation for being in the Bible is
that it happened. But who's the eyewitness account? And Richard B. goes on to
say this, "No one in the early church, other than Peter himself, would
have dared to highlight the weakness and the failure of the most revered and
significant leader of the Christian movement with the kinder Mark narratives
does. This must have come from Peter. No one else would have dared to put it in
there." Read the rest of the book of Mark, you will see there is never
anything recounted except Peter is there. Why? Because Peter, is the eyewitness
account. He was there. He was there. He saw it. And this stuff is not made up.
It really happens.
2. You also have to
understand the resurrection accomplishment.
Just to believe that it happens, e.g. some kind of magic
trick, isn't going to change your life. You have to understand how the
resurrection saves you. It is a relationship of what Jesus did on the cross. If
you stand back and read all of Mark 14, you see a literally artist at work. The
artistry of Chapter 14 is remarkable , b/c Mark is showing us that Peter and
Jesus in parallel course, both are being questioned at the same time. And both
of them have their lives in stake. Because Jesus is being tried very publicly
by all the powers of the society; Peter is just being tried very privately by
the fire by female domestic. Jesus responds courageously, witnessing to the
truth and losing His life for it. And Peter responds by lying again and again
and again, just to save his skin. That
contrast is a start. Here is the proofs.
Jesus Christ did not come the way the founders of other religions came
to be a wonderful moral example, to show us how to live, how to be willing to
sacrifice or to be a person of integrity. As a moral example, He was a failure,
because He didn't help Peter when he's trying to sum up all of his will power,
by vowing to be true to Jesus Christ in front of all of his friends, which is
an accountability. But it utterly failed! If Jesus came to set a moral example,
it fails Peter, and it fails us. Because His moral example is just so high, and
unattainable that crushes you. But Jesus not actually comes as a moral example.
He didn't come to die for us as an example, but He came to die for us as a substitute.
That is why He says that "You'll all fall away!" And when Peter say
that he wouldn't forsake Jesus, Jesus could have said, "Peter, even my
father will forsake me." On the cross, when Jesus was on trial, He was
perfect. In Luke 22, the only account, tells us that Jesus looked straight at
Peter when Peter was denying Jesus, and their eyes met, and Peter was cut to
the quick, went outside and wept. You see the difference between Jesus and Peter. Jesus, who deserves freedom, is
being condemn by justice, so you who deserve to be condemn by justice could be
free. And the resurrection is the receipt of that.
For example, if the penalty of breaking the law X is going
to jail for 2 years; after 2 years, you sprung because you paid the penalty.
There is no more claim on you. If the penalty of our sins is death, and Jesus
Christ died and then raised. What does it mean? It means, He paid it! It's all
paid! Fulfilled! It means, those who believes in Him, the law has no more claim
on you, because the resurrection is a receipt, which proves it. As Paul says,
Jesus Christ is raised for justification (Romans 4:25). It proves that we are
free. In this founding document of Christian church, where its greatest leader,
is an enormous failure, and yet Jesus Christ died for him. It proves that
Christian salvation operates differently than every other religion. Christian
salvation is for the weak, for the moral failure, for the ones who admit that
they are sinners. And that is the reason why the resurrection and the cross
accomplished your salvation for you, and you have to see that if you want to
encounter the risen Christ.
3. Then you must
submit to the resurrection pattern so that you can live the resurrection life.
What is the pattern? Paul talks about a spiritual resurrection
now (Phillipians 3 - the power of Christ resurrections). In Ephesians 2, Paul
says that we are raised with Him. How does that work? That there is a pattern
of death and resurrection of the Holy Spirit comes into your life and takes you
through, to die to more and more of your sins, and live into more and more of
the righteousness. And in this story, Jesus is taking Peter through this. All
of our problems - fears, angers, bitterness, anxiety - all comes because the
love of our hearts has disordered. How do we get our loves back to the right
order, so that we become people who really live with greatness? The answer is, you go thru this pattern, you
feel like you are dying when you sin, and you repent. You admit your moral bankruptcy. It feels like
a death when you repent. But you go through that death to the experience of
greater forgiveness, greater sense of God's grace, greater gratitude, and as
time goes on, the love of God gets higher and higher priority in your heart;
and you become more and more of a person of greatness like Jesus, himself.
Let's see how Jesus takes Peter through this pattern. It's
from John 21, "...when they finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter
...." Why are they eating? Because when Peter comes to see Jesus, and just
imagine him, knowing what he's done, having to face Jesus one on one. Peter
comes up to Jesus, and Jesus has actually built a fire and He was cooking fish,
and so they eat. Let's see what Jesus does to rebuild Peter's life by having it
fall apart. First of all, Jesus brings Peter to a fire. A fire is where he
denies Jesus the third time. Next, when Jesus says, "Simon, son of John,
do you love me more than these?" This is to remind Peter of what Peter
said, "Even if all fall away, I will not." (Mark 14: 29) What Peter
was saying that "all these people, they don't love you like I do. I love
you, Lord, more than any of them." And Jesus is reminding him, "Do
you love me more than all of these?" And Peter, interestingly enough,
ignores that, and could not say "Yes, I do" after all of these. All
he says is "Lord, you know that I love You." First, Jesus reminds him
of the "fire". Second, Jesus reminds him the form of his broken
promise. But then, 3 times, He asked him "Do you love me?" It was
agonizing. Jesus is just trying to make him go back through everything he did.
And essentially every time Jesus asked him, "Do you love me?" Peter
answers basically, "Yes, Lord, I am a moral failure, but I love You."
Now, why is Jesus doing that? Jesus is putting Peter through death. It is the
death that repentance feels like. All the self esteem is gone. All of your
excuses are going away. But every single time Peter says "I have failed!
No excuses!" And Jesus says, " Feed my lamb....Take care of my
sheep....Feed my sheep" The word "feed" in this context means to
shepherd of pasture someone. What is he actually saying is "Be the leader
of my church."
Peter: "I am a failure."
Jesus: "Right. Take charge!"
Peter: "I am a failure!"
Jesus: "That's right. That's why I want you to be the leader."
Peter: "I am a failure!!"
Jesus: "I want you to be the supreme leader of the Christian church."
Jesus: "Right. Take charge!"
Peter: "I am a failure!"
Jesus: "That's right. That's why I want you to be the leader."
Peter: "I am a failure!!"
Jesus: "I want you to be the supreme leader of the Christian church."
What is Jesus saying? He is saying nothing prepares you for
effectiveness for the lives of others, for leadership, and greatness, like
failure's plunged into the sea of My grace. Because the word "feed",
"shepherd" actually means both being strong, and at the same time
being tender. Tender but bold. And Jesus is trying to saying, because you are going through
the death of resurrection of repentance and the experience of grace, that is
going to make you such a good leader. Because you are not going to worry about
anybody says anymore. Because your reputation won't matter anymore. Because you
know you have got My love. But at the
same time, it means humility, tenderness -- you don't put on errors anymore.
Your self esteem doesn't matter anymore. You don't hold your self image as if
you are afraid of breaking it.
Dick Lucas (1960-1990) preached about John 21
"Feed my sheep". He was invited to Stony Brook school, Christian
boarding school on Long Island to speak at chapel all week. But after the first
chapel talk, to his horror, the head master got up and say, "Well, now,
Rev. Luke is going to be with us all week, and if there is anyone here who
would like spiritual counsel, or pastoral counsel from him, you can get out of
class and go to see him." And this horrified Dick, because first of all,
Dick was a lifetime Englishman bachelor, and to put it nicely, children were
trial for him. And when he heard it, he could not believe it. But unfortunately,
the children all are beating a path to his door, and he heard a fourteen year
old girl after another is coming in, and unburdening her heart like this,
"...and he doesn't even know I exist." And one morning, when he was
doing his daily Bible reading, and he came to John 21, and he saw Jesus said to
Peter, "Feed my lambs." And he said, "It knocked me flat."
Because it doesn't say like "Feed my cat or my dog." Because you can
get something out of them, e.g. getting your slippers. It is because you have
to know that you are a complete failure and yet you have been absolutely loved
by the grace of God to be kind enough, to be humble enough, to be loving
enough, and to be eager to feed "lambs". There is no payoff. There is
no emotional , social or cultural payoffs, and just to listen to them, to care
for them. Because if you see that you are a moral failure have been plunged
into the grace of Jesus Christ, you don't care if you are a Cambridge graduate
from the 1930s Oxford, Dick said, "I am the last person to want to sit and
listen the girls talking about their love lives. I could. I could. Who do I
think I was?" Do you see that the encountering with Jesus Christ makes you
tender but also strong, courageous too. At the very end Jesus says,
"...very truly I tell you when you were younger you dressed yourself and
went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands,
and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.
"(John 21:18) It is ironic, because the Greek idiom for crucifixion is to
have your arm stretched out, which is a pasture of love, vulnerability, openness,
embrace, and also when you get crucified. And Jesus is saying that "You
are going to be such a great pastor. You are going to be such a great shepherd.
You are going to be so tender and so courageous that mixtures that come having
to go through the pattern of death and resurrection; dying to your self esteem,
dying to your pride, and yet just being built up with my love. You are going to
be so tender and so courageous that in the end you are going to die for your
sheep willingly."
Historian tells us when Peter was led to his death, Peter
had no problem when he was going to be crucified, but he told them to crucify
him upside down, because he said, "I am not worthy to be crucified like my
Master was crucified like me." And that is the secret of courage. What is
the secret? Nothing you can put me through is anything like my Master went
through for me. I can handle anything. Don't you want this kind of tenderness?
Don't you want this kind of compassion for other people? Don't you want this
kind of boldness and fearlessness? Let Jesus Christ takes you to your "fire"
and heal you there.
