The Divine Crash

1 Corinthians 13:1-8

We are continuing to look at what else is good news about the gospel?  What does it mean today, tomorrow, and in the future. I took a lot of this from Rob Bell’s book “Love Wins.” and some of it is from Peter Rollins’ book “Insurrection.”

Feel free to leave a comment, take a listen to the audio at the bottom or on iTunes.

Prayer: Let your love never fail

The central idea to the gospel is the cross.

How many have seen a cross? How about a person wearing a cross?

Wondered if a person wearing it knows what it means?

Do I know what it means?

Does it means something I may have missed?

What else does the cross mean?

What does the cross mean at work? While driving? Later today? With those wierd awkward people?

What does it mean tomorrow? Two hours at lunch?

What else is going on with the cross?

What is God saying to us through the cross?

Matthew 21

- Matthew is one of four accounts of Jesus that move quickly until last hours that slow way down.

- At Jesus death we are told much more details

-Verse 23

- Chief priests asks what authority?

Good mood kinds of questions because they ask what right do you have to be here?

Chapter 26

Verse 14

- Going after creditials and motivs

- Judas betrays for 30 coins and looks for oppurtunity

- Judas was a disciple who spent years learning and eating and was together with him.

- The price for Jesus was 30 coins

Glad no one today betrays a friend and that Jesus’ world was so different because that would really hurt

Verse 36

- Jesus goes to pray

- They were sleeping, always a confidence booster but after 4 glasses of wine that is normal.

- His best friends aren’t with him in his deepest time of need.

1. People are questioning his authority and motives

2. His friends are betraying him

3. His best friends aren’t there for him.

Verse 67

- They spit in his face, strike him in the face, slap him, and tell him to prophesy

Verse 69-75 is about Peter denying Jesus

One of your best friends denies he knows who you are.

Chapter 27

- Verse 27

- Stripped in the praetorium, cross of thorns, staff and robe, and hail him

- second reference to being spit on.

- redressed him then take him to the cross.

Every imaginable thing that could happen to him did.

At least the world isn’t like that now is it?

• Questioned
• Betrayed
• Deserted
• Denied
• Spit On
• Struck
• Slapped
• Mocked
• Stripped Naked
• Beaten
• Insulted
• Lied about
• Falsely accused
• Condemned
• Crucified
• Bruised
• Rejected
• hated
• Pierced
• Stared at
• left naked in public to die
• Killed

have you ever had one of those things happen to you? what was your response?

This is the story of all the things that happened to him, What is his response

Luke 23:34

- He says father forgive them because they don’t know what they are doing.

- He is either referring to the theives or the people killing him.

Verse 39

- The thief hurls insults at him.

- The other thief rebukes the first and asks to be remembered.

- Jesus forgives and invites.

All of Jesus’ words show his heart is bent towards forgiveness and invitation.

John 19

- Verse 25

- Jesus’ mother, Mary Magadelene and Mary Celopas

- Jesus tells his mother who to go to.  His thought is who is going to care for his mother. As the oldest son this is his responsibility

John 21 Disciples desert him. They go back to fishing and then Jesus shows up and starts cooking them breakfast. They aren’t doing well with fishing and Jesus helps.

- No one asks who he was, perhaps the way he cooked they knew it was Jesus.

He spent years telling them he would be killed but when it happened no one believed.

- When he comes back he doesn’t attempt to get even for the betrayl he asks if they want breakfast.

Jesus’ response to everything that has happened was love, forgiveness, invitation, and caring for others.

Jesus had choices because he was wronged, betrayed, cheated on, lied to, mocked, desserted, gossiped about, and nothing that we can relate to because none of this stuff applies to today, right?

No one would have blamed him if he did jump off the cross and start throwing lightning bolts around right? He was innocent to begin with.

Jesus had choices in all of that to respond with evil, to spit back, throw a fist back, fight back, or respond with something else. He responds with love.  He never becomes the evil that is done to him.  He never mocks back, or responds with what is done to him.  He responds with love every single time. He is given choices and always responds with love.

Then, he rises from the dead, which was never done before. He wins. One writer says “He is tempted in all the ways we are, he just doesn’t give in.”  Which has fantastic consequences for us.

1. John 16:33 Jesus says “I’ve told you these things so you can have peace. I have over come the world.” In other words Jesus says “I win.” No one has ever lived the perfect life but Jesus has done it. No one has ever gone their whole life without responding evil with evil at least once except for Jesus.

2. This means there is a new way to the universe now. Because if the good news of the cross is simply a way to get you out of hell and into heaven then we have missed the cosmic significance of it because the good news is that the cross is God’s way of pushing the universe into an entirely new realm.

- Jesus overcame death and now the universe functions in a new way. Because good defeated evil in one decisive move. Because someone lived a perfect life and never once gave the finger in traffic. Because No one ever gave into that and then conquered death. The universe now works differently.

As a Christian we must acknowledge that because evil is crushed the universe must work differently. If you hate change you cannot be a Christian because Jesus change the fundamental structure of the universe.

So now when someone says stands around and says the pastor changed to much and so I am not going to give my offering and that will teach them. or  “I will have my revenge and I will get them back.” they are saying that they are living the way the universe used to work because Jesus says “I have over come it.”

- Other writers picked up on this and would write:

- Romans 12:21 Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good.

- They understood that everyday we are faced with endless choices of how we are going to respond to the world. Are we going to do more evil in response to the evil done to us or will we respond with more good.

- This is determined by how we view the universe. If we still view the universe as evil against evil then we will get revenge.

We will do that thing where we pull ahead, then slow way down and that will get them or we will bring up that painful past until we get what we want

Because if the universe works the way it used to then when someone pushes our buttons we push back but we push one more and make them hurt just a little more.

But if we realize that Jesus wins then we respond with good and love and that is the only way the new universe keeps winning is with good.

It has been said that because of the cross we have been treated better than we deserve and so we should treat others better than they deserve.

3. The Bible writers later realized this had huge ramifications even beyond the universe. Jesus made a public spectacle of the rulers, which is ironic because he was naked on a public cross that he used to triumph over them. In his day this meant the Romans won and Jesus lost.

- But if you can do the worst possible thing: I. E. strip them naked, beat them, kill them and they still live who really wins? As far as anyone knows Jesus is cooking fish.

- The worst thing anyone could do is no longer a defeat it is now victory.

- The powers that appear to be winning are now losing and the loser is now winning.

If the universe is now different then this is now true today more than ever.

- The powers that put Jesus on the cross, beat him, mocked him, spit on him, and appear to be winning, but in the end actually lose because Jesus is alive!

- The one who is naked and bloody and appears to be losing is actually winning.

So then, you are at work being mocked for being a person of faith and therefore a freak and different. It appears you are losing because you have no power.

- The essence of the gospel is that the person who looks like they may be loosing is actually winning because God walks with them and takes care of them no matter what the circumstance looks like.

If this is the case, then the Good News of the cross is God’s of saying “Love Wins!”

The Good News is God saying “I know what they did to you, love wins.”

“I know what they are saying about you, and you have these choices but the cross says that I know what happened to you twenty years ago and now we are digging it up in the shadows when you are alone and it wasn’t right and you can respond in any way you want but ultimately….Love wins!”

“When you are in traffic, love wins, not the horn or the finger.”

“When you are in school with a collection of lockers and those kids make fun of your hair or clothes, the cross says love wins.”

Because if the cross is real and it happened then the universe is different and now functions according to a different set of rules that means love wins and it wins today, tomorrow and love wins at the next family reunion.

In our scripture today it says “Love never fails.” Love is incapable of failing. Another way to say this is that Love always wins.

- This is a new law regardless of your teenager at home or your brother in law or your gay neighbor love always wins.

Jesus had choices and we have choices to love or to not, but Jesus always chose love.

The cross is God’s way of reminding us that love wins when everything else is falling apart. When we walk into a room where we know that one co-worker who irks us just the wrong way is going to be the cross reminds us that we can respond to that person in love or with more evil but because of the cross we know that love wins.

Some of us need a reminder of this.  We need a constant reminder that Love Wins. So in your bulletin is a bumper sticker. Put it somewhere you will see it and where others will see it so you can remind yourself and others that Love Wins.

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