Sunday
12/31/17 Freeville/Homer Avenue UMC’s
Sermon Title: “Our Jewish Roots”
Old Testament
Scripture: Isaiah 61:10-62:3
New Testament
Scripture: Galatians 4:4-7
Gospel Lesson:
Luke 2:22-40
Once again, Merry Christmas, as we still are in the season of
Christmas! This Sunday, also once again, is the First Sunday after Christmas. This
twelve day season of Christmas will end this Friday January 5th. So
through this Friday, it is perfectly ok to still say Merry Christmas!
Next Saturday, January 6th, is the holiday of the
Epiphany, which commemorates the visit of the Magi or the Wise Men to Jesus,
with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. This holiday also celebrates the
incarnation or the divine nature of Jesus Christ, being both the fullness of
God and the fullness of a human. Next Sunday, January 7th, is the Baptism
of the Lord Sunday, as this is the day that the church celebrates Jesus Christ
getting baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River.
So next Sunday then is a combination of sorts, as we have
the Epiphany, or the visit of the Magi or Wise Men, and the Baptism of the
Lord. Since I am off next Sunday, I will leave it to our guest preacher, Pastor
John Aukema, to figure out how to preach in the same sermon, on the Wise Men
coming to young Christ, and Jesus being baptized in the Jordan River at the age
of 30.
With all of this said, of the many events that occurred in 2017
that were especially troubling for me, one was the protests that occurred in
Charlottesville, Virginia. Do we remember these protests? They included
protesting Confederate/Civil War Monuments, and someone was even killed. Specifically
though, I want to talk about the White Supremacists and the Neo-Nazis that were
protesting. I remember literally watching men and women wear Nazi uniforms
protesting. These were the same uniforms that were worn by many to ravage
Europe with war, to kill millions of Jews and other innocents, and that killed
thousands of our country men and women in World War II.
Among the many grossly offensive things that these White Supremacists
and Neo-Nazis conveyed, including extreme racism and hatred, was Anti-Semitism.
What is Anti-Semitism? Anti-Semitism is hatred or prejudice towards Jews. When
interviewed however, many of these White Supremacists and Neo-Nazis proclaimed themselves
to be Christians. While this is true, they also espoused racism, hatred, and Anti-Semitism.
The title of my sermon this morning, is called “our Jewish roots”.
To start with a question then, out of curiosity, has anyone
here ever known someone who was Anti-Semitic, or anti-Jew? I have, and I still
do. Most of the people in fact, that I know that were or are Anti-Semitic, or
anti-Jew, also claim at the same time to be Christians. So these people love
God, believe in Jesus, but are at the same time Anti-Semitic, or anti-Jew. I
have heard such people tell me things such as, “Jesus wasn’t Jewish, and instead
he was killed by the Jews”. There has been an effort throughout history to
separate Christianity from Judaism. Some have argued that the Jewish religious leaders
were to blame for Jesus’ death, and therefore it’s perfectly acceptable to be Anti-Semitic
or anti-Jew.
Every year in our lectionary scriptures we are generally given
a gospel reading on the First Sunday after Christmas about Jesus going through
some Jewish initiation and or religious rituals. You see Jesus Christ was a
Jew. All of Jesus’s twelve disciples were Jews. Christianity, before it was
called Christianity, was a movement within Judaism, called “The Way”. Not until
the term “Christian” was coined in the city of Antioch, in the Book of Acts 11,
did the word Christian even exist. “The Way” of God, “The Way” of the Messiah
was at first an exclusively Jewish movement. This means in very early
Christianity, it was a movement within Judaism that was open only to Jews.
This all then changed in the Book of Acts, when the Apostle
Paul was called by Jesus Christ to bring the truth of the gospel of the gentiles,
or non-Jews. The Apostle Paul is sometimes called the Apostle to the gentiles.
Also
in the Book of Acts, was a disagreement over who can believe in the gospel of
Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul successfully convinced the Apostle Peter and
others in the church in Jerusalem to accept gentiles, or non-Jews into the
church. The Apostle Paul won this battle, and today the gospel and the
Christian Church is world-wide, not just a movement within Judaism.
When this occurred probably within 20-30 years of Christ’s
death and resurrection, Christianity and Judaism began to grow distinctly separate
and more different. Yet, while this is true, Christianity comes from Judaism.
Jesus was a Jew, his parents Mary and Joseph were Jews, and as I said, all of
Jesus’ disciples were Jews. In the bibles that most Protestant Christians use,
we have 39-books of scripture written in the Old Testament. Our Old Testament
as we call it, is the Hebrew or Jewish Bible. The first five books of the Bible
is called the “Torah”. The Old Testament or Hebrew Bible, while written over
centuries, existed long before Jesus Christ was ever born.
The Jews even to this day, often read their scriptures on
scrolls that roll out, instead of in a bound book. Within the Old Testament, or
Hebrew Bible, we have characters like Abraham, Moses, Noah, King David, the
Prophet Isaiah, and the Prophet Ezekiel. What do all these Books of Scripture
have in common? All of these Books of Scripture were written by Jews. All of
the figures that I just cited from the Old Testament or the Hebrew Bible were also
all Jews. So the authorship and the figures in the Old Testament connected to
the God of Israel were all Jews.
In addition to all of this, the prophetic claims of a
coming Messiah or savior in the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible were written by
Jews. The scripture that we read on Christmas Eve from the Prophet Isaiah,
about the coming of the Messiah, was written by a Jew. When Jesus went into the
Jewish Synagogue and read from the Isaiah scroll about the coming of the
Messiah, and then said today this has come true, Jesus was declaring that the Jewish
prophecy of the coming savior or Messiah had come true in him. In fact, the
actual scripture says in Luke 4:17-21, in which Jesus was asked to read from
the Isaiah scroll, the following:
“and
the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and
found the place where it was written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because
he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim
release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the
oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And he rolled up
the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the
synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, “Today this
scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing”
(Lk. 4:17-21,
NRSV).
In this scripture, Jesus read from the Jewish Book or
scroll of Isaiah, and then proclaimed himself as the Messiah, or the savior of
Israel and the world. I tell you all of this, to say this, if you claim to be a
Christian, and are at the same time, anti-Jew or Anti-Semitic, then you clearly
have no solid understanding of the Bible or the Historic Christian faith. This
is to say, if one is truly a Christian and believes the prophecies in the Old
Testament or the Hebrew Bible, and if you believe that Jesus Christ is the
Messiah or the savior, then you simply cannot be anti-Jew or Anti-Semitic. I
mean can a person be anti-Jew or Anti-Semitic? Sure they can, but if they are,
they have a massive historical, theological, and biblical problem to contend
with. Further, if we hate any group of people, or any persons in general, that
is also unbiblical. We are not called to hate, but rather we are called to
love.
So you see, if Jesus was descended from the great King
David, and if he was even born in King David’s home city of Bethlehem, then it
was important that Jesus was a direct decedent of a Jewish king named David. In
fact, the Old Testament Jewish prophets foretold that the Messiah, that Jesus
Christ would be born in Bethlehem, again the decedent of a Jewish king.
The connection and affinity therefore, between Christianity
and Judaism is simply undeniable. Part of this affinity and connection extends
to the current Israeli/Palestinian Crisis. This of course the crisis over the
State of Israel and the fate Palestinian people. Should a Christian then
support the Jewish country or state of Israel? Or should a Christian support
the Palestinian people. I personally am a strong supporter of the country or
State of Israel, but I also support the creation of a free and independent
Palestine for the Palestinians. Ex-present Jimmy Carter, was also a stalwart
for what has been called “a two-state solution”, as well. This is the belief
that Jews and the Palestinians can both have their own sovereign and independent
countries.
Our scriptures this morning come to us from the Old
Testament or Jewish Hebrew Bible Prophet Isaiah, and from Book of Galatians. The
Apostle Paul, a former Jew and convert to Christianity. wrote his epistle or
letter to the Galatians.
In our gospel reading from the gospel of Luke for this
morning, Jesus experiences Jewish rites and rituals.
The
gospel of Luke reading for this morning begins with:
“When the time came for
their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to
Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord,
“Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord”), and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated
in the law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons”
(Lk. 2:22-24, NRSV).
So, Mary and Joseph, Jesus’ Jewish parents are taking baby
Jesus to complete the rituals and customs laid out in the first five books of
the bible called the “Torah”. In fact, the gospel reading says the “law of
Moses,” as Mary and Joseph followed Jewish Law, as laid out in the Torah. Jesus
is then presented at the Jewish temple in Jerusalem, before the Lord, as was required
in Jewish Law. Mary and Joseph then made an animal sacrifice, that according
Jewish Law had to be “a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons”.
So baby Jesus, with his Jewish parents, go to the Jewish
Temple in Jerusalem, to follow the Jewish Law for their son Jesus.
After this in the scripture, a man named Simeon came into
the temple, who was also Jew, and claimed that Jesus was the savior or the
Messiah. The Prophet Anna, from the Jewish tribe of Asher, one the twelve
tribes of Israel, then enters into this gospel reading. The Prophet Anna according
to this morning’s gospel of Luke reading:
“never left the temple but
worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day. At that moment she came,
and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were
looking for the redemption of Jerusalem”
(Lk.
2:37b-38, NRSV).
So Simeon and the Prophet Anna both see baby Jesus, and
praise him as the Messiah, the savior, and the savior for all people, Simeon
said. After this, Mary and Joseph took young Jesus back to Nazareth, and he
grew up there. He likely worked with his father learning carpentry or masonry,
and probably grew up learning and reading the Jewish scriptures that we call
the Old Testament.
The reality my friends, my brothers and sisters is this,
Christianity is an offshoot of Judaism. Christianity today, has as many as 2.4-2.5
billion adherents worldwide, whereas Judaism has about 30-million worldwide.
Judaism is significantly smaller that Christianity. Yet, we have this combined
history and affinity.
Given
this, what do “our Jewish roots” mean to you? Further, how do “our Jewish roots”
effect your view of the Jews, Judaism, the country of Israel, the Palestinians,
and etc. It is undeniable as I said, that Christianity and Judaism are closely
linked. The question for all us to consider then, is we do with “our Jewish
roots?” Amen.
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