When we read the stories of Jesus in the Gospels, we are often attracted to the gentle images of Jesus—His care for the sick and for children, His stories of searching for the lost, and His talk about the kingdom of God. This might be why other stories in which we see Him acting forcefully and bluntly—particularly against the religious leaders of His day and some of their practices—can take us by surprise.

Read Matthew 21:12-16, Mark 11:15-19, Luke 19:45-48, and John 2:13-17. What is the significance of the fact that these similar stories are told in every one of the Gospel accounts?

Clearing the Temple

It is hardly surprising that this incident is included in each of the Gospels. It is a story filled with drama, action, and passion. Jesus was obviously concerned about the use of the temple in this way and about the replacement of true worship with the sale of sacrificial animals. What a desecration of all that those sacrifices were to represent, which was His substitutionary death for the sins of the world!

Such direct action fits well in the tradition of the Hebrew prophets. This point is suggested in each of the Gospel accounts by either Jesus or the Gospel writers quoting from Isaiah, Jeremiah, or Psalms to explain what was happening in this story. The people recognized Jesus as a prophet (see Matt. 21:11) and came to Him as He healed and taught in the temple court after He had driven out the merchants and moneychangers. It was the people who found healing in His touch and hope growing in their hearts as they listened to His teaching.

The religious leaders also recognized Jesus as a prophet—as someone who was dangerous to their power and the stability of their social order—and went away to plot to kill Jesus, in the same way as their predecessors had plotted against the prophets in previous centuries (see this contrast in Luke 19:47-48).

Amen!(0)

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While some folks say, things aren’t what they used to be, I say, yes, but they never were what they are now. 

I am a historian by nature. When I visited the Litchfield Congregational church, built in Connecticut in 1721, I tried to imagine all the sin-weary souls who had come to hear the Gospel preached for over three centuries inside those consecrated walls.

Photo by William Earnhardt

Later, when I went to see the Rays and Red Sox play at old Fenway Park, it was not enough to watch the game. I had to picture what it must have been like for a father taking his son out of school to attend a game back in 1912. Millions of people with memories of that old ball park, and my mind wanted to capture them all. I walk by an old high school building built in 1927 in Tampa, and I have to stop and try to imagine all the scenes that may have taken place. All the loves and relationships that began on that campus. I stand on the sidewalk, looking at an old glass window. I ask myself, on the last day of school in 1942 did a young man stand where I stand now, and glance for the last time at a young girl he had a crush on standing in the window, before leaving to join the war, never to return? 

In 1991 I drove  to a remote little town in extreme western Oklahoma, to preach. When I arrived at the church, I went downstairs to get water. While downstairs I saw several Sabbath School classrooms, all totally vacant and abandoned.  The elderly couple who invited me home for lunch explained that all those rooms were packed with children back in the day. But they all grew up and moved away to find jobs. The husband was the school master back in the day, but had since  retired for decades, and, with no children around any more, the only traces of the school were distant memories. I remember a feeling of sadness coming over me as I thought of the hollow classrooms once full of life. I can’t say if it was the evangelist or the historian in me that made me wish there was a way to fill those classrooms with lively children again. 

Over the years those hollow classrooms occasionally haunt my mind. Of course in my lifetime, I have seen changes in my own childhood church. It still has a thriving church school and Sabbath School department, but when my friends and I go home to visit, we remember days gone by when the church was much fuller. But I have to keep in mind that when we were kids our church was The Adventist Church in the area.  Today there are several Adventist churches in the area, and there really is no “The”  Church now. This is where the evangelist in me wars with the historian in me. The historian in me wants to re-create the church I grew up in. I want to go home again. The evangelist in me rejoices that there are new churches, and the gospel is being preached all over the area now, instead of in just one place. I understand my childhood church is slightly smaller now because people are spreading out to other churches to share the gospel beyond my little neighborhood.

Now my mind looks  back to those empty Sabbath School classrooms in the middle of nowhere in  Western Oklahoma. Is it really sad that the kids grew up and moved on to bigger places where they could find jobs? Not if moving gave them more opportunities to share Jesus with those in need! Now I look back at those empty classrooms in a different way. Maybe the primary Sabbath School teacher did not realize it at the time, but she was doing a lot more than teaching the children in her small town about Jesus. She was training them to be missionaries and take the Gospel from those little rooms and spread it all over the world! The historian in me looks into those vacant rooms and sees a church that died. The evangelist in me looks into those hollow rooms and sees scores of children leaving those sacred halls to share the Gospel in new places, meeting people around the world who need Jesus. 

The church is a movement, not a history museum. The church is a people and not an old building standing out in a field where there used to be a town. While reality tells me that many of the kids probably left the church, I am sure many stayed in the church. Many of the children who  filled those old Sabbath School classrooms in western Oklahoma took the church with them when they moved away! The Sabbath School class did not die in those classrooms in western Oklahoma; the class just outgrew its walls! They grew all over the world! I look back now and realize children with whom I sat in Primary Sabbath School class in my home church are now scattered from the South Pacific Islands to New England and beyond. And you know what’s cool? We left four walls we used to meet in, but we never left the church. We took it with us! Just as importantly, we never left each other. We are in touch on Facebook and Sabbath School Net, where we still share ideas from theology to evangelism strategies. And of course we still get together personally when we can. A couple years ago, a former classmate, now a teacher, helped me put my Bible curriculum together while living 1200 miles away. You see, our little Sabbath School classroom did not die. Just the opposite. We grew so big we exceeded the boundaries of our four little walls. 

I believe it to be the same with the little classrooms in a small town in Western Oklahoma. If I ever get a chance to return, and I hope I do, I will go downstairs and look into those empty classrooms again. This time instead of trying to imagine a class that once was, I will see a class that still is and even more. I will see a classroom that has grown into something much bigger and greater than it ever was. I won’t see a class that died in a little room. I will see a class that grew all over the world to help people all over the world who need Jesus. 

When I think of my experience in the church, I realize in one sense, I can never go home again. The building I worshiped in as a child will never be what it was. That’s just fine. It was never meant to stay what it was. It was meant to grow. It was meant to grow beyond those walls into the rest of the world where people need Jesus. My church is now all over the word. So in one sense, I can never go back to my home church  again. In an even more real sense, my home church is all over the world now and is everywhere I go. And the even greater reality is, that I’ve never been home and never will be until Jesus comes. While the historian in me wants to reminisce about the way the church used to be, the evangelist in me says to keep growing the church. It’s not finished yet! 

Amen!(0)

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The Gospels are peppered with the stories of Jesus’ miracles, particularly those of healing. As Isaiah had prophesied, He healed the blind and released those who had been held captive by disease, sometimes after many years of suffering (see, for example, Mark 5:24-34, John 5:1-15). But He did more than this: He made the lame walk again; He healed lepers—not just by word but by touching them, “unclean” though they were;

Jesus Heals

He confronted demons who were possessing people’s minds and bodies; and He even raised the dead.

We might expect these miracles to have been about attracting crowds and proving His powers to His many doubters and critics. But this was not always the case. Instead, often Jesus gave instructions to the person healed not to tell anyone about it. While it seems the just—healed people were unlikely to follow these instructions and keep their wonderful news to themselves, Jesus was trying to show that His miracles were about something more significant than a spectacle. The ultimate goal, of course, was for the people to receive salvation in Him.

Yet, the healing miracles of Jesus were an expression of His compassion. For example, in the lead-up to the feeding of the 5,000, Matthew narrates, “When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick” (Matt. 14:14, NIV). Jesus felt the pain of those who were hurting and did what He could with the people He came into contact with to help them and lift them up.

Read Isaiah’s prophecy in Matthew 12:15-21. In what ways do Isaiah and Matthew identify what Jesus was doing as something larger than healing a few—or even a few hundred—sick people?

“Every miracle that Christ performed was a sign of His divinity. He was doing the very work that had been foretold of the Messiah; but to the Pharisees these works of mercy were a positive offense. The Jewish leaders looked with heartless indifference on human suffering. In many cases their selfishness and oppression had caused the affliction that Christ relieved. Thus His miracles were to them a reproach”. – Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 406.

Jesus’ healing miracles were acts of compassion and justice. But in all cases, they were not an end in and of themselves. Ultimately all that Christ did was for the purpose of leading people to eternal life (see John 17:3).

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1. Jesus came to show us what God is like. For four thousand years, God had revealed Himself to His people through miracles, visions, prophets and many other ways. But as marvelous as God’s revelations were, even the leaders of God’s people too often seemed oblivious to the nature and character of God. They wanted to do things their way.  Can you imagine an attitude like that in the people of God? Even today?
2. Mary’s song. Wouldn’t it have been enough for Mary to give birth to a baby whose coming was a miracle? How was Mary affected by the news that she was about to have a baby who was divine in every sense of the word? Do you think that her early childhood instruction in Biblical matters had anything to do with her breathless but confident acceptance of this blessing? In what ways was the kingdom Jesus was born to establish an “upside down kingdom”? How did Mary express the extraordinary characteristics of a divine rule that would offer salvation to all?
3. Why Jesus heals. True or false: Jesus won many friends with His healing miracles. Wasn’t this the primary purpose for His work as a healer and restorer of life? Or was there another reason for His miracles of healing? According to Matthew, Jesus “warned” His followers not to make Him known. Why not? Based on his healing ministry alone, could not Jesus have established His throne as the ultimate source of power and success? What overwhelming objective did He choose instead? 
4. Clearing the temple. Jesus, Master of tenderness and caring, snapping a whip and shouting at the rabble rousers in the temple to cease their activities. How does this picture of Jesus fit others that show Him to be gentle and loving? Your lesson hints that such demonstrations to oppose God’s work are invitations to stern action to defend it. What do you think we can do these days to pull our church away from actions of unwarranted anger and guilt?
5. The cross of Christ. Yes, the cross is a beautiful symbol of God’s love for us. But do you cringe at the very thought of the Master of the Universe, the Ultimate Expression of Love, suffering anguish and humiliation on the cruel cross while His enemies shout jeering insults? The Son of God, murdered for our sins, dying for us–what can we do to remember that Jesus, the One who died for our sins, our Substitute, loves us with everlasting love and looks to us to show those around us the depth and power of that love? 

Amen!(0)

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The memory verse gives us two hymns:
Hymn 378, “Go, Preach My Gospel” and Hymn 354, “Thy Love, O God”.

Compassion for the poor and oppressed is voiced in
Hymn 353, “Father, Help Your People” and
Hymn 352, “This Is My Will”. Are we ready to go and help?
Hymn 359, “Hark! The Voice of Jesus Calling”.

Jesus heals the sick in
Hymn 363, “Lord, Whose Love in Humble Service”,
Hymn 364, “O Jesus Christ, to You”,
Hymn 370, “Christ for the World”,
Hymn 475, “Balm in Gilead” and
Hymn 523, “My Faith Has Found a Resting Place”.

On Thursday there are many hymns from which to choose about Jesus going to the cross to pay for my sins:
Hymn 157, “Go to Dark Gethsemane”,
Hymn 156, “O Sacred Head Now Wounded”,
Hymn 158, “Were You There?”,
Hymn 159, “The Old Rugged Cross”,
Hymn 163, “At the Cross” and
Hymn 164, “There is a Green Hill Far Away”, to name just a few.

The Great Controversy excerpt on Friday reminds us that we are
“Redeemed” – Hymn 337/338.

Blessings on your week and the beautiful Sabbath Day of rest.

2 Timothy 2:15 KJV – “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”

Amen!(0)

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