Glimpsing the Heart of Peter

Simon Peter is a major figure among the personalities of the New Testament. He was one of the first to be introduced to Jesus, and later one of the original twelve chosen and appointed by Jesus to be his apostles. He is the first named in each of the three lists of apostles given in the Gospels.

Moreover, on the Day of Pentecost Peter preached the first sermon properly called a Christian sermon — centering on Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. And he’s the primary figure in the first 12 chapters of the Acts of the Apostles. It was Peter who carried the message of the Gospel to the Gentiles. Beyond all this, his two letters written to Christians suffering from persecution are included in the New Testament.

Yet, his performance was on occasion less than stellar. With Our Lord’s crucifixion hours away, at one point Simon Peter declared his never-dying loyalty to his Master and only a short time later, now in a hostile environment, he denied that he knew him. From this lapse, however, he recovered in a burst of penitential tears.

But in that same general period of time there’s another moment in his life when, in spite of his dismal failure, Peter’s responses show the depth of his heart’s commitment to Jesus.

It’s Thursday. The Lord and the twelve have arrived at a borrowed room to celebrate the Passover Feast together. For the customary washing of the feet before the meal, a bowl and towel are there, but no servant appears. Jesus assigns himself the task. However, he comes on his knees to Simon Peter and the big fisherman says in surprise, “YOU wash MY feet? To him that would be unthinkable. Jesus was his leader and leaders don’t do such menial tasks.

Jesus responded: “Unless I wash you, you have no part in me.” The pronouncement must have rung in Peter’s ears, and his reply shows the depth of his heart’s commitment to his Master: “Not just my feet but my hands and my head as well.”

It was as though he cried out, “Being severed from you would be like death. The most important thing in my life is to belong to you.”

That response was not entirely new. Earlier when Jesus asked the twelve if they would leave him as some of his other followers were doing, Peter blurted out with the same depth of feeling, “To whom else can we go? You have the words of eternal life.” His love and connections were real!

Jesus’ words to Peter have two levels of meaning. At the material level they have to do with the washing of the feet as a social propriety. At the spiritual level they have to do with what really connects one with Jesus – called “the washing of regeneration.” It stands for an inner cleansing, the washing away of our sins, the cleansing of the soul by the blood of Christ.

To return to the account of Jesus’ washing his disciples’ feet, Jesus adds a word about the ongoing life of true discipleship, saying, “if you’ve had a bath, you need only to wash your feet.” It’s as though he reminds them that that very day they bathed for the day and that need not be repeated. But after walking the dusty, soiled streets their feet may need attention.

Elsewhere the same John writes, “If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” He writes this to believers.

We can never forget Brother Peter. Tradition says that he spent his closing days in the city of Rome where he was crucified under the emperor, Nero. When it came time to die, some believe, he asked that he be placed on his cross upside down because he was unworthy to be crucified in the same position as his Lord.

The Scourge of Injustice

During our prayers this morning Kathleen and I discussed the subject of injustice — what happens when the lawful rights of a person or a group are violated by those in power who have unlawful goals. Injustice can deaden a marriage, divide a home, rend a state, or even taint a church.

Christians around the world these days are reading about injustice — the story of a whole series of towering legal offenses committed against our Lord which led to his brutal death on a Roman cross.

The Gospels tell the story.

The religious authorities — the chief priests, elders and other religious leaders — agreed among themselves that Jesus had to be arrested. The high priest, Caiaphas, went a step further: he suggested he must die. But it all had to be planned and carried out by stealth, without stirring up the crowds streaming into Jerusalem for Passover.

From that point on, the religious leaders ignored their laws because their intentions were sinister. Even Pilate, the Roman governor, saw through their plots. He knew that justice was not their issue; he knew they were motivated by sheer “envy.”

Judas, the traitor, helped them, and the temple guards arrested and bound Jesus in Gethsemane, outside the city. They and their accomplices had come armed with weapons in case they had to subdue him, or torches if he should hide and they had to search for him. They marched him to the high priest’s palace and there the nation’s highest religious leaders began breaking Jewish laws with abandon.

William Barclay lists some of the laws they broke — laws which should have protected an innocent man.

1. Criminal cases had to be tried during daylight hours and on the final day must be completed before darkness fell.

2. Criminal cases may not be tried during Passover.

3. Only if the verdict is “not guilty” may a case be completed during the same day it begins. Otherwise, a night must elapse before the verdict is decided, to give mercy time to arise.

4. A judgment by the Sanhedrin, the ruling court of Jerusalem, must not be rendered unless the body is convened in its normal place of meeting – the Hall of Hewn Stone in the precincts of the temple. (There was to be no “offhand curbside justice.”)

5. All evidence must be given by at least two witnesses who are permitted no contact with each other and who are examined separately.

6. In capital cases, the giving of false witness may be punishable by death.

Between the middle of that night before the high Priest and Sanhedrin and the forenoon of the next day when Jesus was nailed to his cross, every one of these laws was broken. Our Lord not only was falsely accused, he was then struck and spit upon by members of the court.

These hasty and lawless procedures amounted to one of the most glaring abuses of law on human record. It was a travesty of justice and it all led to the brutal killing of an innocent man — the world’s Redeemer.

Jesus subjected himself to this injustice for a reason. When Peter attempted to protect him with a clumsy swing of his sword, Jesus said to Peter, “Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? (Matt. 26:53). But he did not call. He made himself vulnerable to the worst injustice in order to fulfill the Scriptures.

We have to immerse ourselves in the story again and again, detail after detail, to awaken our dull hearts to the price paid for our salvation. The undeserved physical abuse was horrific at the hands of evil men. And the spiritual anguish even worse which made him cry out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Ps. 22:1). He was indeed “led like a lamb to the slaughter” (Isa. 53:7b).

As the truth sinks in and our sense of gratitude is awakened afresh, we also ask that God make us alert to injustice in our world or even in our marriages or families or church, helping us to avoid the indifference to injustice that the religious leaders of Jesus’ day showed.

It’s Holy Week — Who Cares?

“Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?” (Lamentations 1:12). What a searching question to ask ourselves during Holy Week!

I visualize the Book of Lamentations as written by the weeping prophet, Jeremiah, after Jerusalem had been sacked by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.

I picture him as sitting on Olivet overlooking the ruins – the temple is smashed and burned, the walls of the city lie strewn along the steep embankment of the Kidron Valley, and almost all human life in the city has ceased. It’s the picture of desolation.

At some point he must have noticed that travelers who passed the ruins went about their business as though nothing had happened and he sobs out, “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?”

There’s a place for that lament in our lives too. Sunday, March 28, for Christians is Palm Sunday and the beginning of what we call Holy week ending with Resurrection Sunday on April 4. To us today, Jerusalem is the city where, six centuries after Jeremiah, Our Lord was arrested, falsely accused, flogged unjustly and then put to death on a cross by the Roman authorities.

May we never forget that his death bore a two-fold testimony to the world. First, it bore witness to the exceeding sinfulness of sin. It was the sins of the world that put Jesus there –- greed, lust, selfishness, deception, pride — sins we all know about by shameful personal experience.

But, against all that darkness, the cross bore witness to the immeasurable greatness of God’s love for sinners — “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). John the Baptist dubbed Jesus, “the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

It is fitting for us to hear Jeremiah’s question in a personal way: “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?” That is, when we see the devastation of sin portrayed in the cross and at the same time the redeeming love of God, how much does it matter?

Here are references to key happenings during the original Holy Week. You may wish to use them for your daily meditations:

SUNDAY. This was the day of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem cheered on by the mistaken notion of the throngs that he would use his great powers as a national king to drive out the Roman occupation. (Matt. 21:1-11; Lk. 19: 28-44)

MONDAY. Jesus curses the fig tree. It was a shocking “acted parable” of judgment against the nation that had failed its divine assignment. (Matt. 21:18,19)

TUESDAY. The Olivet discourse upon his return from Jerusalem to Bethany (Lk. 21:5-36)

WEDNESDAY. It is thought by some to be a day of silence. But his enemies were not silent. The ruling Sanhedrin plots to kill him. (Matt. 26:3-5; Lk 22:1-2)

THURSDAY. Preparations for his observance of the Passover meal and at the same time his instituting of communion in connection with the Last Supper (Matt. 26:20-35; Lk 22:14-30).

FRIDAY. This is the day of our Lord’s crucifixion. He is betrayed and arrested (John 18:2-12); tried before Annas (John 18:13-24); before Caiaphas (John 18:19-24); before the full Sanhedrin (Lk 22:66-71); before Pilate and Herod (Lk 23:1-25) He was on his cross from 9 A.M. To 3 P.M. (Jn 19:16-37); then hastily buried (Matt.26:57-61)

SATURDAY. The Jewish sabbath, a day of silence.

SUNDAY. Resurrection appearances (Matt. 28:1-20). The day of astonishment, joy, and the rebirth of hope. To prepare us properly for the Day of Resurrection we need the whole week for Bible reading, meditation and prayer.

Holy Week is the week in which Our Lord was betrayed into the hands of his enemies, forsaken temporarily by his nearest followers, flogged by the Roman authorities and eventually nailed to a Roman cross on which he felt forsaken by the Father because a holy God cannot countenance sin.

When the Apostle Paul reflected on the event he wanted to fellowship Christ’s sufferings (Philippians 3:10). May we be saved from any nonchalance this Holy Week and rather deepen in our identification with Christ in his life, death, burial and resurrection.

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Unexpected Goings On at A Dinner Party

This dinner party was different from any other before or since. Jesus was the guest of honor in the home of sisters Martha and Mary and their brother, Lazarus. And Lazarus whom he had raised from his tomb was at the table with him, along with Jesus’ 12 disciples.

The home was in Bethany, a village on the far side of the Mount of Olives about two miles from Jerusalem. The meal was being served six days before Passover when crowds would flood Jerusalem and the surrounding area. Passover was the main Jewish feast of the year and the city was already beginning to stir in expectation.

The table posture of the guests would not fit our style today – they “reclined” on low-lying couches, resting on their left elbows and receiving and eating with their right hands.

Into this picture came Mary, sister to Lazarus. She carried a pint of very special ointment imported from India (worth nearly a year’s wages). Before the guests realized what was happening, she had broken its seal and poured its content lavishly on Jesus’ feet. She then used her hair to wipe up the excess, in the process unintentionally perfuming herself and filling the room with a pleasing fragrance.

One person at the table erupted in indignation. “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor?” It was Judas. On the surface this sounded like a good question. But John, the apostle who preserved the story for us knew in retrospect what the real issue with Judas was. He was a thief. He had been the treasurer for Jesus and his twelve companions and more than once he had filched money from that bag. Corrosive greed had eaten into his soul.

Jesus came to Mary’s defense “Leave her alone,” he said. “It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial.”

What an unexpected twist!

They must all have wondered, “My burial?” After all, he was a young man, about 33, and in complete full health. Though he had tried to forewarn his disciples, none of them at table with him was thinking in terms of funerals and burials.

But that’s what makes this dinner memorable. Jesus knew what was ahead for him and although he must have entered fully into the social exchanges at the table, his mind at the same time must have been playing on what was in his immediate future.

He knew that he was marked for a very cruel death, and an ordeal of unspeakable anguish as the world’s sin-bearer.

It appears that Mary’s perceptions were deeper than those of all others at the table, however vague even hers may have been. Perhaps, sensing that the time for such displays of love and respect was coming to an end, her womanly intuitions and her deep love for the teacher prompted her to seize the moment to pour out her devotion in this extravagant way.

Jesus halted the clamor by saying, “You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.” This seemed to be an acknowledgment that her insight was accurate. She had perceived correctly the trouble ahead.

When Matthew and Mark tell a similar story they add these words of Jesus: “I tell you the truth, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”

To Jesus, Mary made a gesture of extravagant devotion at a time when the world was set to reject him, and his own followers to forsake him. Her kind of devotion must have spoken to his lonely soul.

Jesus said to those at table with him, “She has done what she could.” And, “She has done a beautiful thing.” The beauty was in a devoted follower’s openhanded love.

The account gives us occasion to measure our own love for the Lord Christ at Easter time.

(If you wish to meditate further on this story during this pre-Easter season here are the references: John 12;1-8; Mark 14:1-9; Matthew 26: 6-13)

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A 24/7 Kind of Trust

My Bible reading this morning was Psalm 34.

What first caught my attention was the psalmist’s opening resolution to “extol the Lord” — that is praise him highly — “at all times.” We might call that a 24/7 pledge – in effect during both day and night, through thick and thin, in good times and bad.

Is that kind of devotion possible in our kind of world? Our pace is super-fast and the distractions of life come at us from all directions. Also many would agree that ours is not a particularly devout era. We have our superstitions, our “rabbit feet,” our hidden idols, and these may favor us with a little dash of “spirituality.” But our times are “secular” — meaning “of this age only, wanting no underpinnings of the divine in life’s superstructure.”

Someone once defined secular to mean “if God exists it doesn’t matter.” That’s not the same as atheism, meaning “there is no God.” Or agnosticism, meaning, “He may or may not exist; there isn’t enough evidence to be sure.”

Secularists do not deny that there is a God; he’s just not important enough to pay serious attention to. He’s like the big red engines at the fire station. If our house is on fire we are glad to have them come screaming to our aid, but we wouldn’t want one parked in front of our house day and night. They, like God, are only for emergencies.

Psalm 34 was apparently written after King David had had a narrow escape from death. The heading to the psalm refers to an incident when he was running hard from King Saul who wanted to kill him (1 Sam. 21:10-15). He sought refuge by offering himself in the service of Achish, king of Gath, only to learn that his life was in danger there, too. So, he feigned insanity in order to be driven off and thus escape.

All of this engaged my interest and with my pencil I began to shade every reference to God, both nouns and pronouns. That page now looks as if it has the measles. The psalm is obviously a God-centered declaration of 24/7 trust.

Listen to his testimony: “I sought the Lord and he answered me;/ and delivered me from all my fears.” Or this: “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted/ and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”

The psalmist even indulges in a burst of instruction: “Come, my children, listen to me;/ I will teach you the fear of the Lord.” And, “Keep your tongue from evil/ and your lips from speaking lies./ Turn from evil and do good;/ seek peace and pursue it.”

A 24/7 trust in God means not only that we call on him in desperate moments but that we seek to live in accordance with his righteous standards at all times.

This psalm is richly nourishing to the spirit, but it is no match for the promises of our Lord himself. To his distraught disciples Jesus said, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” And, “Whosoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.” (John 14: 18,21).

In order to know the assurance of King David’s psalm, or embrace the promises of his regal descendant, our Messiah, we must follow the right sequence.

The sequence is not: experience his goodness in all sorts of ways and then eventually trust him; it is rather trust yourself to him first and then experience his goodness and care in all sorts of ways.

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What Does it Mean to Walk in Integrity?

Toyota is battling a huge integrity issue. The company is recalling more than eight million cars in order to fix defects that it appears were known to them but went unacknowledged. A string of crashes and even deaths have forced the automaker to own up to manufacturing defects.

Who is responsible for this failure?

There is an answer. It is that corporate or group failure involving integrity must always be seen first as a personal failure. And it seems to me that a lesson regarding integrity can be drawn here that will benefit all Christians.

Integrity means wholeness – that is, without the admixture of duplicity. In the business world, it means being who you say you are and doing what you say you will do. Your performance matches your claims.

The reason we take the moral failure of a large organization down to the individual level is that organizations have no brain or heart of their own.

An organization’s brain is its officially adopted and written commitments and these are made by persons; its heart is the serious attention of those persons to these commitments.

So, integrity is first of all a personal issue. The Bible makes this point repeatedly. This being the case, if personal integrity matters so much in the work-a-day world, shouldn’t it matter even more in the Christian world?

Indeed. And that’s why the Scriptures repeatedly appeal in one way or another to the issue of personal integrity. The Bible’s object lessons are numerous and compelling.

For example, Joseph’s commitment to sexual integrity made him resist the temptation to violate the marriage of his boss. There was no one there to make the decision for him. His integrity landed him in jail, but the long term results were good beyond measure (Gen.39-48).

Add to this case the names of Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, John the Apostle, and above all, our Lord Jesus Christ. In our struggles to walk in integrity, he is our constant example.

Toyota will seek to recover its integrity as a company by apologizing, taking responsibility, making amends in concrete ways, and then recommitting to following good business practices.

Top management has already acknowledged their fault and pledged their commitment to make corrections insofar as possible. Individuals at the top are making the company’s integrity a personal matter.

In these morally soft times, I’m convinced that believers are being called afresh to be salt and light in the world, partly through the example of walking in unassailable integrity.

Here are three lessons we can draw to help us take a second hard look.

First, personal integrity is primarily a matter of the heart. It begins in the realm of cleansed motivations – purity of heart. Solomon exhorted young men thus: “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life” (Prov. 4:23).

Jesus said, “For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matt. 12:34). Integrity is first restored – by the Lord’s enablement – at the level of the heart.

Second, integrity is essential to true happiness – what some have called, “the higher happiness.” The psalmist says, “Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit (Psalm 32:2). Christians are “blessed” not only because they are absolved of their sin but because they are cleansed of their guile or deception. They are real.

Finally, walking in integrity requires diligence because challenges come nearly daily to allow a disconnect between motives and speech. A continuing walk of integrity requires that we be on the alert to the still small voice of God, the reproof of those around us, and especially to the potential schemings of our own hearts.

Jeremiah said, “The heart is deceitful above all things” (Jer. 17:9).

The Apostle Paul knew this and he said to the Roman governor, Felix, when he was on trial before him: “So I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man” (Acts 24:16). He was a believer who professed to live with deep, ongoing integrity.

As individual Christians, when we belong to God wholeheartedly, he puts into our hearts a longing for integrity. We want a mended character. It is for us to seek the grace to nurture that longing.

A Lesson in Patience

When I was 18 I worked for four months on a farm in Saskatchewan, and it was one of the most life-shaping experiences of my youth. I started in the spring of the year.

The growing season is fairly short at that latitude in Western Canada, so when it came time to sow the fields, the equipment had to be ready, the seed on hand, and every hour made to count.

My immediate boss, Harold, went out to the fields shortly after four in the morning, filled up the drill with seed and, as dawn broke, mounted the McCormick Deering W-40 and began sowing. At eight, I went out to relieve him; he came back to the field at one; and I returned at six and continued sowing until dusk, near ten. In a matter of a couple of weeks, the waiting fields of the 1200-acre farm were sown.

As fall approached and it came time to harvest the grain, the work days were similarly long — sun-up to sun-down.

Self-compelled combines, tractors and trucks were much smaller back in the forties of the Twentieth Century and that made the tasks more demanding. It was no easy challenge for me to pull up the short-bed, two-ton GMC truck to the combine, take on a dump of wheat, race for the nearby granary a half mile away, shovel off the load into the auger, and be back at the combine again 20 minutes later for another load.

This schedule included meals on the run, brought to the field in a cardboard box (before today’s commodious styrofoam containers of all sizes were available to keep food warm or cool as needed).

But between the spring days of sowing and the fall days of harvesting, the farmer had to wait. He waited patiently with his eye on the skies. A menacing hail storm could flatten his ripening grain. An early frost might damage his crops. Even lack of rain could reduce the yield severely.

But his was not an idle patience. During that uncertain season, he went about his secondary chores, repairing sheds, servicing machinery, getting a few hundred chicks started, milking three or four cows, and otherwise waiting in hope.

In those four months, I learned why farmers are the way they are. They are people of patient faith — a faith that isn’t easily flustered, that often seems impassive, but that holds a steady course in hope.

They have to be like that. After the seed is in the ground they must trust nature to be kind. They don’t start to harvest the day after thy sow. There’s always a waiting time. And during that wait, everything else they do is subordinate to the one event that makes all their work worthwhile — a coming harvest.

That must be why the Apostle James wisely used the farmer as an example of the kind of patience Christians should have as they labor on. He said, “Be patient, then, brothers, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop and how patient he is for the autumn and spring rains (James 5:7).

Like them, we wait in hope, but we carry out our duties as we wait. It is the steadfast hope of the Lord’s coming that keeps us actively patient.

Change Your Tapes

Scripture verse: May the foot of the proud never come against me, nor the hand of the wicked drive me away (Ps 36:11).

We’ve all done it. We hear a song that touches us so we order the tape. Or we hear a sermon that moves us and we say, I have to hear that again, so we ask for the tape. Then we play these tapes over and over.

Some counselors have put this image to good use. Here’s a believer who is often down on herself, or who sees the world through dark glasses, or repeatedly scolds herself for past bad choices — though forgiven. The counselor may say, “You’ve got to turn those tapes off in your head; start playing some new ones.”

This advice fits Psalm 36. David is vexed by the traits of the wicked person — he’s egotistical, has no reverence for God, his words are evil and deceitful, his sins are intentional — he even plots wrongdoing in the middle of the night. It’s a disheartening picture.

But the Psalmist turns immediately to another set of tapes. He calls to mind who God is — he’s loving, faithful, righteous, just. In fact, His love is “covenant love,” love that just won’t quit. That’s a tape that we should listen to again and again if the evil around us makes us glum.

The Psalmist ends with a simple prayer: “Continue your love to those who know you. . .” This prayer turns him to the right source for help, and he plays new tapes.

Thought: If we have power to choose the physical tapes we play, we have power to choose the mental tapes also.

God Knows Everything

When we were little children in Sunday School seventy years or so ago we used to sing a chorus that went like this:

He sees all you do, He hears all you say,
Our God is writing all the time, time, time.

Sometimes, in that simple little one room church in a prairie town in Western Canada, the superintendent would add a few words of earnest counsel. He wanted to be sure we understood. We would gaze up at him wide-eyed. God knows everything. It was a heavy message for little impressionable minds.

Choruses like these formed an early chapter in our moral training. The bottom line issue was that God knows us altogether and we can’t hide anything from him so we should keep this in mind when we go about our daily activities. I thought of those early lessons this morning as I read about the outrageously wicked King Herod the Great, and the innocent little Baby Jesus in Bethlehem.

They called him Herod “the Great” for good reasons. He built the seaport at Caesarea and wisely named it after the emperor. He built a theater in Jerusalem and an amphitheater outside the city. He set in motion the rebuilding of the temple which became a magnificent structure for the Jewish people. Herod was an exceptionally skilful administrator and diplomat.

But power was his issue, and he used it ruthlessly. His police were everywhere. Purges were frequent. His own wife, Mariamne, was marched off to execution because he suspected her of plotting against him. Her three sons also, and five others of his children from various unions met the same end. He even had all but two members of the ruling council of Jerusalem, the Sanhedrin, murdered. Herod’s viciousness was about on a par with the viciousness of a Saddam Hussein.

So, when some mysterious figures called Magi arrived in Jerusalem coming from a land as far away as Persia, the word spread through the city fast. The place must have buzzed. And when Herod learned these Magi claimed to have been divinely guided by a heavenly light to come to the birthplace of a baby born to be King of the Jews, his paranoid tendencies flared.

No matter that the child the Magi sought was a miracle baby sent by God to be the redeemer of the world. How could such an infant be safeguarded against the murderous jealousy of a powerful sovereign who would stop at nothing to keep his shaky throne secure?

Here’s how: God in Heaven knew what was in Herod’s mind. God knows everything. He sent a warning to the baby’s human father, Joseph. He sent it by means of a dream in the night: Get up right away and get out of town; head for Egypt; the murderous Herod intends to find and kill the child. Joseph obeyed and the child’s life was spared.

Today we have a more sophisticated word for the belief that God knows everything. We say he is omniscient. But he can’t be omniscient unless he knows the end from the beginning, and the whole sweep of history down to its minutest detail. The psalmist, David, wrote, “Before a word is on my tongue/ you know it completely, O Lord.” (Ps. 139:4) Jesus said his Father sees the insignificant sparrow fall. He also said that his Father alone knows the future date for the end of human history.

The little choruses sung in Sunday Schools 70 years ago may not fit our present cultural moods. Times have changed. But the truth has not changed. It is still a cornerstone conviction of orthodox Christians that God knows everything. And when we operate on that conviction we handle the crises of life better and our daily walk is more stable.

A Grandaughter’s Question About the Bible

A granddaughter e-mailed me recently with a couple of questions about difficulties she encountered in Matthew 22:1-14. It’s that story about the king who gave a wedding banquet for his son, but some invited guests refused to attend when the king’s servants were sent for them (verse 3).

The king sent servants a second time to repeat the invitation with urgency. The feast was ready. But the invited guests paid no attention. They had other things to do. In fact some of them abused and even killed the servants the king had sent (verses 4-6).

Determined that the banquet would not fail, the king then sent servants in all directions to invite anyone they found, even lounging at street corners, to come right away and enjoy the feast. The strategy worked. The banquet hall was full (verses 8-10).

Then the story takes a strange turn. The feast is underway. The king is moving among the guests and finds one man not properly dressed with “wedding clothes.” You don’t go to an eastern wedding banquet in the equivalent of overalls or scrubs. He asks the man how he got in. The man is speechless. So he has him bound and thrown out of the brightly lit hall into the darkness outside (verses 11-13).

My granddaughter had two questions: Why did the poor man get thrown out just because of “his shabby appearance?” And what is the meaning of the sentence the story closes with: “For many are invited, but few are chosen (verse 14)?

My answer began by pointing out first that we have to read the whole passage as one story and keep it together in our heads. It’s about a king who was throwing a big banquet to celebrate his son’s marriage. What’s that all about? Matthew says this story is to tell us something about the kingdom of heaven — how the rule of God will be vindicated and displayed at the end of the age. It will be like a big banquet in honor of Jesus, the king’s son.

You can imagine what a lavish event an eastern king would put on. And what eager responses he would expect from those honored by a special invitation. But the responses weren’t what he expected. And one man who even did turn up had to be thrown out.

About that man, here’s a hint. It’s believed by some that at such an event a wedding garb was provided at the door to be sure everyone was properly dressed. If this is so, then it appears that the man in his own way had scorned the king’s provision. It’s as though he said, “I’ll come to the feast all right, but on my terms.” This would be a very disrespectful and arrogant response. We can’t forget that there was a certain segment of Jesus’ audiences that responded to him in arrogance.

The feast was at night, the banquet hall would be brightly lit, and the improperly clad man was seized by the king’s guards, bound, and thrown out into outer darkness among others who were there too. Jesus was giving this story in the presence of listeners who felt similar responses to his gospel – indifference, disinterest, hostility – or even arrogance.

The final verse has to be understood in the light of the whole story: “For many are invited, but few are chosen.” That is, many are called to celebrate in the coming kingdom just as many were invited to an earthly regal feast in Jesus’ story. But the many are going to be passed over because of their own foolish or arrogant refusals. They are thus called but not chosen.