Author: W. Keith Brenton

Psalm 2; Matthew 3:16-17 – A Kiss for the Son

/ W. Keith Brenton / 5 Comments

52 Weeks at the Table – Week 20

The second Psalm (a numbering that goes back to biblical times, for so Paul describes it in his sermon to Pisidian Antioch, Acts 13:33) is not credited specifically to David. Yet it clearly foreshadows David’s descendent and forebearer (Revelation 22:16). Its declaration in the seventh verse – “I will proclaim the decree of the LORD : He said to me, ‘You are my Son; today I have become your Father’ ” – expresses the words from heaven at Jesus’ baptism (Matthew 3:16-17) and Jesus’ own intent on beginning His ministry (Luke 4:14-20) while reading the prophet Isaiah. To no angel had God ever bestowed the blessing of His Fatherhood (Hebrews 1:5).

This psalm’s twelfth verse also foretells an aspect of the Son’s nature we shudder to acknowledge: “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry and you be destroyed in your way, for his wrath can flare up in a moment. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.” For by the end of His ministry, He showed His anger toward those who had no respect for His Father or His Father’s house; tables were overturned, animals driven out. Their rejection of the Son then culminated in a kiss of betrayal. Those whom He would have gathered under His wings for refuge – but they would not (Matthew 23:37) – put Him to death on a cross. In about forty years, as He predicted, Rome laid waste all of Jerusalem – dashed to pieces like pottery.

And the Son of God lived to prepare a place for His followers – a refuge for the nations, His inheritance.

A Prayer Over the Bread

Lord God, we give you praise and honor; we give you our thanks for this bread, You Son’s body. We remember how You expressed Your pleasure at His baptism. We remember how He was rejected and despised, betrayed and killed. Most of all, we remember Your desire to give Jesus an inheritance of the faithful among the nations. As we share these morsels of bread, we remember Jesus. Amen.

A Prayer Over the Cup

This cup, our God, we realize could just as easily represented your wrath to be poured out on us in our disbelief and sin. But You sent us Your Son, who reflected Your displeasure at sin but personified Your joy in and love for Your people. So we drink a cup, not of wrath – which He drank for us – but a cup of blessing. May we always be grateful for this cup: His blood, and our salvation. Amen.

The Jesus Hermeneutic

/ W. Keith Brenton / 34 Comments

I’m adapting and expanding below a comment that I made in response to a post at Jay Guin’s insightful blog post: CENI: A Better Way – The Gospels because, on reflection, I didn’t say all that I wanted to say:

Are all of the imperatives in the New Testament to be interpreted as commands? instructions? suggestions? Which ones are which? Just the ones from Jesus? Just the ones from Paul? Peter? John?

The basic premise of conservative thought, I believe, is “We don’t know (but we don’t want to admit it), so to be safe, let’s just say that all of them are commands.” I can kind of respect that as a “safe” proposition, but the underlying assumption seems to be that God will always incinerate us with fire from above like Nadab and Abihu for any supposed infraction of unexpressed commands. I can’t buy that. That’s not consistent with the nature of the God who gave His Son as a sacrifice for our sins and is not willing that any should perish (2 Peter 3:9.

Are we really called to try to be safe sinners in the hands of an always-angry God? Or to be, at least in some measure, risk-takers with our hearts filled with His instructions (which speak of His love for us and His desire for us to have the best kind of lives)?

The old law said stone the Sabbath-breaker (Numbers 15:32-36).

Jesus said the Sabbath was made for man, not vice-versa (Mark 2:27) and He was Lord of it (v. 28). That’s not stated as law (though it certainly put Him at risk!).

To me, the question is: Do we have be on the edge of our seats in such fear of God’s wrath that we must regard every imperative, every example in New Testament scripture as (potential? binding?) command … or should we trust God and trust also in Jesus? Did He come to make it more difficult to have a relationship with God (Matthew 5:48) or to point out that no one can be perfect, so He served as our atonement to establish that relationship (Romans 3:21-26)?

I tend toward the latter – and I know that makes me a damnable heretic to a good number of my brothers and sisters in Christ – but my sense of His teaching is that we’re here to trust the Master, take some risks in order to do His will and help earn Him some results , and if we don’t do that, we are indeed in danger of being cast into the outer darkness.

“Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them. To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his money to work and gained five more. So also, the one with the two talents gained two more. But the man who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.

“After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who had received the five talents brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five talents. See, I have gained five more.’

“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

“The man with the two talents also came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with two talents; see, I have gained two more.’

“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

“Then the man who had received the one talent came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’

“His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.

” ‘Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents. For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'” ~ Matthew 25:14-30

Please body-block me if I’m wrong about this. But isn’t Jesus, in this story, condemning the cowardly servant because he only feared and distrusted his master, leading to his very fiscally conservative – but unproductive – actions?

In fact, if there was ever a more clear story in scripture about violating God’s unexpressed expectations, isn’t this it – far beyond the story of Nadab and Abihu? I realize that this story is not expressly about gathered worship and therefore does not serve the purpose of some who would otherwise cite it to prove their point, but in this story the master never once tells the servants to invest his money. He entrusts it to them according to their ability, but never says, “Make it grow!”

Sandwiched right there between the parable of the unprepared and prepared virgins and the metaphor of the sheep and the goats, here is this convicting parable that essentially says, What do you not understand about why God has entrusted you with all the good things in your life – especially the Story of His Son, Jesus? Do you think it’s all just for YOU?

The servants who had worked for the master in the parable knew he wanted results (just look at the lazy servant’s estimation of him). And it’s the same with us; we know from Jesus’ ministry, His message, the sending of twelve and seventy(-two), the Great Commission … we know He wants results! He doesn’t have to tell us in this story – He’s emphasizing it by its conspicuous absence, just as the story of Esther emphasizes God’s care and intervention only implicitly.

I asked some questions in the first couple of paragraphs about which imperatives should be regarded as commands. This story is not an imperative. It is not strictly an example. It’s really stretching the definition to call this an inference, necessary or not. It’s a parable. It’s the way Jesus chose to teach a good part of the time, for His own reasons (Matthew 13:10-17). Yet, I consider it just as binding on us any other teaching Jesus shared. The tone of His words is teaching, instruction – though this is deep and profound and hard teaching, near the close of His mortal days and ministry in His own flesh. And so were the instructions of the Holy Spirit through Paul, Peter, John and the other writers of New Testament scripture. If we can’t see the epistles through the lens of the gospels rather than the telescope of the old law, our focus is off and our hermeneutic is fatally flawed.

God did the “law” covenant with a maturing human race. It served its purpose as tutor, instructor, guardian. At the fullness of time, we needed a new and better covenant (Hebrews 7:22; 8:6; 12:24): not a law that no one could keep, but an agreement of grace offered and accepted; a contract of debt paid in full; a perfect Example and Pattern of self-sacrifice that would tug our hearts outward toward Him and others, rather than inward and self-ward; a teaching so full of abundant life that it was spoken and lived and murdered and yet could not be kept dead.

This is the Jesus hermeneutic.

It’s seeing scripture pointing forward to, directly at, or back toward Jesus of Nazareth, Son of God, Savior, Redeemer, Master, Teacher.

I said a few paragraphs ago that the parable of the talents is not about gathered worship, and strictly speaking, it isn’t. But it is about worship, the life of worship (Romans 12:1) to which God calls us, and wants for us to have, and wants to use in order to work His will through us and yield a great return: more souls who know Him, more souls who love Him, more souls who will share His love and His Story.

How Does God Resurrect the Dead?

/ W. Keith Brenton / 28 Comments

“The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life.” ~ Job 33:4

““The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.” ~ John 6:63

“Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.” ~ Luke 23:46

“And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” ~ John 20:22

“And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.” ~ Romans 8:11

“So it is written: ‘The first man Adam became a living being’; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.” ~ 1 Corinthians 15:45

“He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” ~ 2 Corinthians 3:6

“The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.” ~ Galatians 6:8

I don’t know what conclusion you draw from these verses; whether you regard them as literal or figurative or unimportant or incomprehensible. To me, these and other scriptures say very plainly that from the first moments when God’s Spirit hovered over the waters to the present moment when the Spirit and the Bride say “Come!”, the Holy Spirit has been and remains the Spirit of Life through whom God gives life.

If you believe that and regard it as part of the natural order that God has created and sustains, I cannot argue with you. If you believe that and regard it as miraculous – the restoration of life to dead, buried, disintegrated flesh; gloriously transformed into the image of the Incorruptible – I cannot argue with you, either. I do not know which way to describe it.

I simply believe it to be true, because that is what scripture simply says.

If it is true … what does that mean for those who quench the Spirit? confidently restrict His power to the past inspiration of the scriptures only? loudly assert their absolute knowledge regarding what He can or will or does or does not do in the present age?

Back up to Romans 8:9-10, just before the verse quoted above:

“You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness.”

Can a person who does not permit the Spirit of Christ to live in him or her – by denying that He can and should – have a reasonable expectation to be resurrected from the dead by that Spirit?

If Jesus’ words in John 16:5-15 were for His disciples and/or that era only, then who convicts the world of sin and guides His followers into all truth today?

If He is gone from our lives and our words, how can we hope for the full and eternal life He brings?

How can we convey that hope to others?

Psalm 22; Matthew 27 – It Is Accomplished

/ W. Keith Brenton / 5 Comments

52 Weeks at the Table – Week 19

When the four gospel writers sparingly record the events of the crucifixion, they seem to be directed by the twenty-second Psalm in the details which they choose to disclose:

The mockery and insults. The thirst. The exhaustion. The piercing of hands and feet. The dividing of garments and casting of lots. The plaintive cry, “My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me?”

What they leave unsaid are the parts of the psalm that the people of their day would have sung and heard many times in their lives; the words of unswerving faith and confident praise from King David’s plea for mercy and help. No doubt its lament and recognition of God’s power had sustained them in the humiliation and enslavement following the conquests of Babylon, Greece and Rome.

“Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the praise of Israel.”

“I will declare your name to my brothers; in the congregation I will praise you.”

“From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly; before those who fear you will I fulfill my vows.”

“Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord. They will proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn — for he has accomplished it.”

A Prayer Over the Bread

God of heaven and earth, we cannot help but recall the moment Your Son was suspended between them when we eat this bread, His body. For deep within, we know the answer to His question, “Why?” – and it is our sin. So we share His faith, His righteousness as we share this bread in gratitude and witness to the salvation You have brought … for You have accomplished it through Jesus. Amen.

A Prayer Over the Cup

Lord, we put our trust in You as did our forefathers in faith, and You have delivered us. We will declare your name to our brothers; in the congregation we will praise you. We will fufill our vows to live like Your Son. We will serve Him and tell future generations about Him and proclaim His righteousness to a people yet unborn through the sharing of this cup, the blood of the Christ, the Son of God. Amen.

Psalm 23; John 10:11-15 – The Shepherd and the Table

/ W. Keith Brenton / 1 Comment

52 Weeks at the Table – Week 18

Six short verses. Children in Sunday school classes have memorized them for decades. Seekers of God have treasured them for centuries. One shepherd-warrior-king wrote them centuries ago, perhaps to soothe the fevered, restless soul of his master King Saul (1 Samuel 16:23). He wrote and sang words that bring perspective. Words that bring comfort. Words that bring peace.

David writes himself into the role of sheep; compelled to rest in pastoral perfection, refreshed by waters that make no sound. His Shepherd restores his soul; gives him back what the tension and pain of life have taken away. His Shepherd provides without proscribing; guides without goading. He leads along the right path which – even though it may wind through a valley shaded with death-threat – finally leads to … a table.

There the sheep is transformed into a family member; honored in the presence of enemies at this table where there can be no more thirst; where the oil of anointing flows on a head made royal; where blessings of goodness, mercy, love and life never end.

And he is home … home forever.

Jesus said: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd who owns the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.

“I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep.” (John 10:11-15)

A Prayer Over the Bread

Holy God, we gladly acknowledge that we are the people of your pasture, the flock under Your care. We ashamedly admit that we often wander like sheep, paying no attention to where our noses and appetites are leading us. Thank You for the Good Shepherd, who restores our soul and leads us in paths of righteousness and lays down His life for us. We remember that He did this as our appetites now crave this bread, His body – so we give thanks through His name: Amen.

A Prayer Over the Cup

Righteous King of Heaven, You have prepared this table before us in the presence of our mutual enemies, and anointed us chosen ones, and we have no words or heart sufficient to thank You for this incomparable gift. We can only remember the Price of such a gift as we share this overflowing mercy-cup, His blood. Through the Son Himself we offer these thanksgivings: Amen.

Just How Much Like Jesus Should We Be?

/ W. Keith Brenton / 1 Comment

If we had His perfect perception of God, grace, sin, others’ hearts and the world around us, I would be glad to dispense the simple answer: “Exactly!”

But it is not so simple a matter.

How many of us have been channels of healing? Catalysts of exorcism? Paid our taxes with money from a fish’s belly? Fed thousands with a boy’s lunch?

Who among us has the perfect, unquestionable interpretation of Jesus’ teachings on God’s judgment, His return, and the destruction of Jerusalem? Or what it means to be perfect even as our heavenly Father is perfect?

So, in some measure, the question is limited by another: “Just how much like Jesus can we be?”

And here, I think, is the problem. We have, as a fellowship, too often tried to be too much like Christ – without the qualifications. His perfection. His perception. His judgment. His authority.

Which is still His, however we may brandish it as a weapon to enforce our perceptions as law.

There are too many among us who feel that the Jesus we should imitate, day in and day out, 24/7, is the Jesus of the Seven Woes (Matthew 23) – but that we can make up our own “woes” to deride and condemn religious leaders at our choosing.

Here are the reasons for the woes Jesus pronounces:

  • Shutting the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces and refusing to go in (vs. 13-14)

  • Winning a convert, only to convert him to being a son of hell (v. 15)

  • Nitpicking about what it’s okay to swear by (vs. 16-22)

  • Tithing the tiniest, but neglecting the greatest (vs. 23-24)

  • Washing the outside while the inside is still full of greed and self (vs. 25-26)

  • Living an externally righteous life while harboring hypocrisy and wickedness within (vs. 27-28)

  • Giving lip service to penitence from the ways of previous generations while planning the same treachery (vs. 33-36)

How do those compare to the reasons for the woes and condemnations we pronounce on others?

Do we have what it takes to make judgments of others like Jesus does?

Or should our judgments be focused more within – where we ought to know what’s going on?

God, be merciful to me … a sinner.

Psalm 118; Matthew 21 – The Rejected Stone

/ W. Keith Brenton / Leave a comment

52 Weeks at the Table – Week 17

“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” shout the people who have lined the street into Jerusalem, and hae paved it with palm fronds and sashes. Perhaps they are aware that they are quoting David’s psalm, later numbered 118 (v. 26); perhaps not. The blessing “Hosanna!” that they cry out echoes the plea and praise for salvation in verses 21 and 25.

But, just a few verses later in Matthew 21 – where the incident is recounted – Jesus quotes the two verses immediately preceding them in response to the challenge of His authority made by the chief priests and elders, telling them parables of obedient and disobedient sons, and of tenants who reject the messengers and kill the son of their landlord: “The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes” (Matthew 21:42; Psalm 118:22-23). They know that His prophecy about the kingdom of God being taken away means that it will be taken away from them … yet at this point, they still fear Him too much to move against Him.

We can’t know at what age David was when he wrote this Psalm. We can’t know if he wrote it, picturing a savior like Jesus. We can’t know if the Spirit inspiring him gave David a full view of the import of his words.

We can know that David wrote a psalm of thanksgiving and praise to the Lord, “for his love endures forever;” a psalm to be sung by every son of Israel (v. 2), every priest and member of the priestly tribe (v.3), and everyone who fears the Lord – a scriptural term that generally includes Gentiles as well as Jews (v.3). It was a song of the Lord’s protection, guaranteeing “I will not die, but live; and will proclaim what the Lord has done” (v. 17). It speaks of the gates through which the righteous pass (vs. 19-20) and of the light that shines upon them and of boughs in hand for a festal procession that leads to the altar of sacrifice (v. 27). Just so, in that final week, the path of the Christ would lead through the gates of Jerusalem and eventually back out again to a rocky knoll where He would be sacrificed to provide the righteousness for us that only God can give.

A Prayer Over the Bread

God and Father of David the king and Jesus, King of Kings, we give You our thanks for Your mighty right hand and the wondrous things You have done: provided freedom and refuge from sin; and triumph over death. For this bread, His body, we give You humble thanks through Jesus: Amen.

 

A Prayer Over the Cup

For this cup, His blood, our God, we also give our thanks. For Your love endures forever. You have not given us over to death. You have opened the gate of righteousness to us through this blood, and we give thanks. You are our God, and we will give You thanks. You are our God, and we will exalt you through Christ: Amen.

Scriptures and the Power of God

/ W. Keith Brenton / 12 Comments

After the Pharisees failed to trap Jesus in his words about paying taxes, their rivals the Sadducees had their turn:

“That same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question. ‘Teacher,’ they said, ‘Moses told us that if a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and have children for him. Now there were seven brothers among us. The first one married and died, and since he had no children, he left his wife to his brother. The same thing happened to the second and third brother, right on down to the seventh. Finally, the woman died. Now then, at the resurrection, whose wife will she be of the seven, since all of them were married to her?’

Jesus replied, ‘You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. But about the resurrection of the dead—have you not read what God said to you, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.’

When the crowds heard this, they were astonished at his teaching.” ~ Matthew 22:23-33

Sometimes I wonder if we are often in error – even though we may know the Scriptures – because we do not know the power of God. Nor do we even try very hard to comprehend it. So we’re certain about things like:

  • “If a person dies before he’s baptized – even if he’s heard and believed and repented and confessed and is on the way to the church and is killed in a car wreck – he’s lost and forever damned.”

    Really? The God who held the sun still in the sky for a day can’t prevent or delay the death of someone who wants to be immersed into Christ before he can do so? The Son of God who stilled storms and calmed lakes can’t forgive a broken, desperate soul who recognizes His divinity … even if he’s being crucified a few arm’s-lengths away?

  • “If a person doesn’t understand that she is being baptized for the remission of sins, her baptism counts for nothing and she is condemned to an eternity in hell.”

    Oh? The God who knows the number of hairs on our heads and the number of IQ points inside them and the teachings we have been barraged with – for better or worse – by folks with the best of intentions teaching us at our churches … that God can’t credit the belief of such a faithful one (as He did with Abraham) as righteousness … or at least the deep desire for it?

  • “If God is love and is not willing that any should perish, then eventually He will save everyone.”

    Are you sure? Then, the God who obliterated all the evil tenants of the earth in a flood, ordered the herem-extermination of child-sacrificers, and whose Son spoke in no uncertain terms of the fates of those on His left and His right … they were just joshing? That there is only kindness and no severity to those who will not believe? That He is merciful, but not just; loving but not righteous? He doesn’t really have the power to be perfectly both? Because, as I understand it, it is impossible for Him to lie.

We could go on and on. (Many have.) If we did, we would probably still be arguing as much from our ignorance of Scriptures as of the power of God.

But I think we especially underestimate His power.

And that may help explain why we so seldom pray and let Him work through us as powerfully as Paul did:

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. ~ Ephesians 3:20

1 Samuel 11, 16; Matthew 3, 27 – The Submissive King

/ W. Keith Brenton / 1 Comment

52 Weeks at the Table – Week 16

Saul, the reluctant king – tall in stature but small in submission – was often an angry person. When the Spirit of God came upon him at Gibeah (1 Samuel 11), he burned with anger and mustered thousands to defeat the pagans of Jabesh. When the Spirit of God departed from him (16), he often became angry at David, God’s new anointed. In his efforts to destroy his humble rival, only God’s Spirit – evident in David’s meek submission (26) – or coming on him in full prophetic force (29) could deter him. Disspirited by military defeat, he took his own life (31).

Another King, like His ancestor David, was the very figure of submission. He was born of the Spirit (Matthew 1:18), immersed in the Spirit (3:16), led by the Spirit (4:1), and promised His Spirit to His followers (John 7:38-40). He was reluctant to serve perhaps only once – in a garden, where His life hung in the balance with all of mankind’s souls for all eternity. Yet, trusting God’s ability to wrest ultimate victory from seeming defeat, He surrendered His Spirit (Matthew 27:50), received life again from the Spirit (Romans 8:11) and breathed His Spirit on those to whom He had made the promise (John 20:22).

A Prayer Over the Bread

King of our lives, we honor the submission of Your cherished Son to Your will that was gracious toward us and harsh toward our sins. We honor the victory You achieved on the cross and at the tomb over sin and death and our selfishness and our rivalry. When Your Spirit rests on us as we share this bread, recalling Jesus’ body broken for us, may He find a welcome and a yearning and a hunger for more of You deep within us, a place now emptied of self and sin. Amen.

A Prayer Over the Cup

Father God, purge from us the fire of anger and the evil spirit of arrogance that ignites and fuels it while we seek the peace of this table. Fill us instead with your cool, pure, thirst-quenching, life-breathing Spirit as we share this cup which reminds us of Jesus’ blood, spilled from His hands, head, feet and side for us. Fill us with a recognition of the cross where He breathed out His Spirit, so that we might breathe in life to the full – acting, speaking, praying always in His name: Amen.

Re-post from Last Easter: "Sunday Morning in a Garden"

/ W. Keith Brenton / 2 Comments

It is in a garden that mankind first meets God and chooses sin, and it is in a garden outside an empty tomb that mankind meets God re-infleshed and has the opportunity to choose perfection.

If you read the gospel accounts of the discovery of the empty tomb and you get caught up in trying to determine how many women or men or angels were there and when and where, you miss the simple fact which is not, in any way, related differently among the four individual writers:

Jesus of Nazareth, beaten and crucified and run through with a spear, is not only no longer in the tomb, but He is no longer dead!

It is the single most astounding fact in the history of mankind.

Other people have died and have been raised from the dead by God’s agents in the flesh, and scripture is not shy about relating those accounts.

But this is the first time God has directly intervened and raised a man from the dead; restored life to three-days-lifeless flesh and bone; breathed breath and spirit back into His lungs and set Him on His feet and sent Him walking on the earth never to die again.

Can it mean anything but that the man is God’s own Son?

I believe that. I would believe it even if I were convinced that the accounts in the gospels contradicted each other on every other fact they relate about the event.

They don’t.

They each tell it differently.

There was a time when I felt like I had to know all the right answers in order to believe. It wasn’t that long ago. Now I’m persuaded that I’m probably never going to know all the right answers, any more than Job did. He didn’t know them before he spoke with God. He didn’t know them after. But at no point did he stop believing.

So, in the interest of those who (as I originally described myself as the author of this blog years ago) “question reality and won’t settle for an evasive answer,” may I offer my personal harmony of the four-fold gospel witnesses in this instance?

On the first day of the week, while it was still dark, there was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.

Very early in the morning just after sunrise, the women – Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, Joanna and Salome – took the spices they had bought and prepared and went to the tomb so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. They asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?” They found the stone – which was very large – rolled away from the tomb already.

While they were wondering about this, and entering the tomb, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. One looked like a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed because they saw him but they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. Why do you look for the living among the dead? He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’ Now I have told you.”

Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. At first, they said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid. Then they remembered His words. So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell His disciples – to Simon Peter and the other disciple John (the one Jesus loved) and the rest of the apostles. Mary Magdalene came running and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!” And they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.

Peter and John, however, got up and ran to the tomb, the women following not too far behind them. Bending over, Peter saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus’ head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. Finally John, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. And they went away back to their homes, wondering to themselves what had happened, because they still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.

Mary Magdalene, out of whom He had driven seven demons, stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and again saw the two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”

“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

“Woman,” he said, “why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”

Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher).

Suddenly Jesus met them all. “Greetings,” he said. They also came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. – But do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me before I go.”

Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told those who had been with Him and who were mourning and weeping that He had said these things to her.

While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.

I haven’t added much beyond an “also” or an “and” or a “but” or a “because” to this narrative, and those only for clarity. The rest you’ll find in the histories of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. All I did was try to put them in the right order. What I wanted to point out was that John saw and believed … even though he and Peter still did not understand. John himself wrote those words (20:8-9) – an admission of his own growing faith, unsupported by knowing all of the right answers. He just believed.

He believed in the most preposterous, unthinkable, ridiculous, impossible truth ever: that God raised His Son Jesus from the dead.

Because He did, all of the other puzzles pieces of life were beginning to fall into place, and all of life’s questions were beginning to be answered.

Why God allows evil – so that good can stand in contrast and be freely chosen. Why God lets man sin – so that He can fill the guilty emptiness it causes with forgiveness. Why God allows suffering and death – so that He can end it once and for all.

Through this One. This Son. This life. This death.

This resurrection.

I still can’t understand it.

I just believe.