Matthew, Romans, Hebrews and 1 Peter: You need to do it!

Presented to The Salvation Army Alberni Valley Ministries, 18 April 2021 by Captain Michael Ramsay (service outside the Legion following all of the Covid-19 rules and recommendations)

 

I am so thankful that we are allowed to have our worship times outside now (as long as we are blessed with appropriate weather). 

 

There has been a lot of talk about obeying the authorities in recent times. It has after all been illegal for the Church to meet in the churches for church services since Christmas. It is only in the previous few weeks that we have even been allowed to meet outside in the elements again. There have been many discussions about churches gathering. I had an article published in the Journal of Aggressive Christianity entitled “What we did when Church was illegal ^“[i]. It has been a serious concern. At a time when rates of suicide and drug use and abuse are at all-time highs to remove these emotional and spiritual supports from the most vulnerable doesn’t seem to make any sense to many people. 

 

According to Matthew, Jesus famously tells us to “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s” (Mt 22:21) and Paul in Romans 13 and Peter in 2 Peter 2 caution us to obey the authorities, reminding us that they are not there by accident. For good or ill, whether they are good or bad, God has put them there or at the very least permitted them to remain. 

 

This is a very important directive that we are given in Romans, Peter, and Matthew – to obey the authorities. There is very good reason for this advice. 

It is also very important to look at who is offering us this counsel. Jesus, like Peter and like Paul later, was executed by the State. The government tried, convicted, and sentenced Jesus, Peter, Paul, and many of Jesus’ disciples to death by capital punishment. Jesus and many of his prominent followers – including authors of the comments here encouraging us to obey the government – were convicted and executed for disobeying the government, breaking the law. Peter, Paul and Matthew all knew Jesus was executed by Caesar’s authority, after a trial, before they wrote their letters encouraging us to obey the authorities. They also seemed to realize that if they continued to meet with other Christians publicly that they would be sentenced to death and yet they did it anyway. How do we reconcile this apparent contradiction? 

And how does it apply to us today where the Church has been denied by the courts (at least so far) its constitutional protection from the government? If we are told again not to meet for services, should we obey government directives or not? Should we meet in the churches or not? Peter has an answer for us .

 

1 Peter 2:20-22a records “For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. 21 For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.

 

I think this is key. We are not supposed to disobey the authorities about anything in the whole world (no speeding, no working under the table, no breaking covid-19 laws) – except when the authorities forbid us to serve God. We are instructed in the Bible to meet as a Church and not stop doing so, Hebrews 10:25. This is important. If the community of the saints no longer exists than the Church no longer exist.  

 

The question that we have to ask ourselves is what does our meeting together look like? Some people feel that have been able to meet successfully through zoom or social media. Some feel that regular meetings have been accomplished through phone calls or letters. We here have been meeting to make and serve meals to those in need in our community. We have also had support groups running, as they are now permitted. Our support groups are of course based on the Bible and have prayer as a key component and our food service always has had prayer as a part of it, sometimes a devotional thought and always the option of worship music playing in the background. 

 

To conclude for today: If you are hearing me in person right now then obviously you are meeting as the Church. If you are reading or watching this at another time and place, I encourage you to ask yourself these two very important questions about being a part of Church during the pandemic when the government is restricting religious gatherings:  

1.     Are you obeying the government in every way that you possibly can? As a Christian you need to do this. Anything else makes us all out to be causeless and seemingly clueless rebels. And 

2.     Are you continuing to meet as the Church somehow with others to pray, serve, and read the Bible? If you are not, you need to do so. 

 

Let us pray. 

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[i] Michael Ramsay, “What We Did When Church Was Illegal”, Journal of Aggressive Christianity Iss. 131 (Feb – Mar, 2021), On-line: http://armybarmy.com/JAC/article4-131.html?fbclid=IwAR16vfl-dZKyos7OGnZpyZmWI6xp0JaSQtqQAZNvV0MF5AEWbdJ8HWE1VUU

Luke 24:1-12, 23:13-15; John 12:12-15: The Ups and Downs of Holy Week and the Resurrection

“Hosanna” “My God, My God Why Have You Forsaken Me”, “He is Risen”. Holy Week is filled with up and down crazy emotions.   

On Palm Sunday we are ecstatic. It looks like the miserable times are coming to an end; it looks like the light at the end of the tunnel is shining bright and we are about to step out into the daylight. “Hosanna”, “Save us!”, we shout!  

On Good Friday it looks like that light of hope is extinguished – and indeed even the sunlight is literally extinguished. There is an eclipse or something: darkness covers the earth (Luke 23:45).  

On Easter Sunday that darkness is overcome in a way that it cannot understand and in a way we should have seen coming but didn’t, and it is a time of genuine celebration – even if there is still a great uncertainty (John 1:5).  

When Palm Sunday rolled around in the first century the Judeans, Samaritans, Israelites, and more were living in occupied territories. The Romans and their military had control over Palestine, the Levant. The people of Israel had been occupied by one military power after another for centuries and they were ready for this to end. They were ready to be free of all the restrictions that are put on an occupied territory by the authorities. They are ready to meet again in the open, with no restrictions and no worries about running afoul of the authorities. They are ready to be free and then here comes Jesus riding on a donkey (Luke 19:28-44). There is hope that they are about to be free! 

This is not unlike our lives here and now during the pandemic. Today our nation -and much of the world- is preoccupied with Covid-19, Coronavirus, the pandemic. At times it has completely stripped us of our freedoms and mobility and in BC even taken away rights that many people thought were protected by the constitution. It has seen us, in the earliest days all of us, even now some of us, locked in our homes not venturing out if we can avoid it. At times we have poked our heads out and wondered why some people are allowed to do somethings and other people aren’t. At times we have poked our heads out and wondered why some activities are deemed unsafe while some activities that seem less safe are deemed not only acceptable but necessary. The same space is allowed to be occupied by hundreds of people at a time to vote, 50 people all day to shop for a charity event, an unlimited amount of people throughout the day to shop if a corporation can make a profit from it, and no people if that space is used for worship and the included emotional and spiritual care needed for the most vulnerable. The inconsistency is frustrating. Covid-19 is frustrating. Covid-19 is occupying our country. And many of us just want to be free of it. We are crying to be liberated from the pandemic: “Hosanna, save us” we cry (cf. Matthew 21, Mark 11, John 12). 

And then there is Good Friday. Jerusalem, who on Palm Sunday went out to meet Jesus calling for him to, “Hosanna, save us!” from the Romans, by Friday was calling for the Romans to save them from Jesus! Crucify him they yell! Crucify him! (Luke 23:20,21) One day they are asking him to save them, the next, the Romans are asking them to save Jesus, but they refuse – calling out “crucify him”! Jesus is then executed at their behest and laid in a tomb. 

This betrayal reminds us of our present time. A week ago we were given the hope that we could gather together publicly, free from discrimination, free from worry, free from the preoccupation with covid-19 and the government regulations that have kept the Church out of the churches. Palm Sunday last week was like Palm Sunday 2 millennia ago in that we had hope. But it turned out to be false hope. We would not be rising again to meet in our traditional ways – yet. Within days Covid-19, the government and their regulations sent us back to where we were. I cannot possibly explain to those who do not already understand the devastation this caused in the hearts of many already hurting people. I sat with, listened to, and prayed with people who were crying as they actually believed that we would be able to return to our traditional ways of worship if only for a little while... only to have the pandemic that occupies our land and the authorities that rule over us, dash that hope. 

In the First Century the hope that the people expressed as Jesus rode into town had turned to disappointment, sadness, and even hate on the part of some people as Jesus was led out to be executed. The disciples fled and went into hiding. They no longer met in public and no longer met in the large groups they had met in before. No more crowds of 5000. No more crowds of 50.

And then came Easter Sunday. The ladies went out to the tomb (Luke 24:1-12). The ladies met an angel, a messenger of the Lord. The ladies were witnesses to the resurrection. Hope was restored. People began to understand what had happened. Jesus escaped death. More than that he defeated death! He did die but he came back from the dead. He conquered death! He actually rose to eternal life! And people saw him! There were all kinds of witnesses! And this, this is our hope! 

Our hope is not only that this pandemic will end and our hope is not just that our people will be allowed to worship in our churches again. Our hope is greater than that. Our hope is this: no matter how bad things get in our world, in our community, in our families, in our personal lives, it will all be okay in the end. Even if we die because of all this, or from other infirmities, or old age; no matter what happens it will be alright. As followers of Jesus we are able to raise from the dead. He will call us out of the grave. One day Jesus will return and then the Scriptures assure us we will all come out to meet him, and the first to meet him will be those who have already passed away (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18). 

And when we rise from the dead to meet Jesus it will be a whole new world – there will be no more covid-19, no more death, no more infirmities, no more disabilities, no more sickness, no more sadness, and no more suffering (1 Corinthians 15:20-22, 51-58; Revelation 21:4). When we rise with Christ all that will be set aside. And that is our hope. Our hope is that we will all be made new and we will all be perfected. And our challenge today is to live up to that which we have already obtained. Let us turn our lives over to the Lord today (if we haven’t already) and let us experience the forgiveness, peace and life everlasting that comes only from serving our Lord.  

Let us pray. 

 

Video link: https://www.facebook.com/Salvogesis/videos/239993207829297