The Big Picture

Sermon by Pastor David Layman

August 20, 2006

Isaiah 53
Revelation 22:1-5

An increasing number of people in our society are part of no religious
community, and have never read the Bible. If one of them should ask us
Tell me what the message of the Bible is, in 50 words or less, what
would we say to them? They dont want to hear the odds and ends of what
they can find in the Bible, such as history, parables, laws,
geneologies, worship songs. They want to know what the overall message
of the Bible is. They want to know the big picture. How would we
respond? It would be embarassing to say I dont know. Because then
theyll say But youve been going to church for years. Shouldnt you
know?

N.T. Wright, in his book Simply Christian, states, the Bible tells
the story of how the creator God is rescuing the creation from its
rebellion, brokenness, corruption, and death. He has accomplished this
through the death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah, in fulfillment
of the promises to, and the story of, Israel. SIMPLY CHRISTIAN,
HarperSanFrancisco, 2006, p. 186-187)

1. God is creator. Steve Stoller and John Iverson will be leading a
class this fall that will explore creation from a Christian perspective.
Christians may vary in their understanding of precisely how God created,
but that God created the world is basic to the Biblical message.

2. We live in a world gone wrong, where there is rebellion, brokenness,
corruption, and death. Anyone who reads the paper would have to agree
with this!

3. God is in the process of rescuing the creation from this rebellion,
brokenness and death. That is good news! Many acknowledge the worlds in a mess, but fear theres no realistic hope that things will get better.
The Biblical story relates not only that God created the world, and that
the world has turned away from God. God is in the process of rescuing
creation!

Genesis 12 and the call of Abraham begins to tell the story of Gods
rescue operation.
And as N.T. Wright notes, Gods rescue operation is not designed to
simply rescue certain individuals from the world. God has a plan to
renew and restore all of creation! God has plans for a new heaven and a
new earth, not just redeemed individuals!

4. The story of Abraham and his descendants is the story of Israel, the
particular people God chose to work through. But Israel failed to
fulfill Gods purposes. Those meant to serve as Gods rescuers, time and
again, needed to be rescued themselves.

5. And this brings us to Jesus. Isaiah is one of the central books of
the Bible, and in Isaiah we read of the suffering servant through
which God will redeem the world. In Isaiah 40:11 we read how this
servant Will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs
in his arms, and carry them in his bosom... Isaiah goes on to relate
how the people of Israel have failed to be the servant of the Lord that
God desires. But in Isaiah 53, we read of the suffering servant of the
Lord.

He was despised and rejected by others;
a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity;
and as one from whom others hide their faces.
He was despised, and we held him of no account.
Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases...
But he was wounded for our transgressions,
crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us whole...
All we like sheep have gone astray...
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth....

He was cut off from the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people.
They made his grave with the wicked
and his tomb with the rich,
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth...

Jesus was the suffering servant of the Lord. Jesus fulfilled the role
Israel failed to accomplish throughout the centuries.

And Jesus didnt just die. He was raised from the dead. God is not going
to lose in the end. As messed up as our world appears to be, in the
death and resurrection of Jesus, the ultimate meaning of life has been
fulfilled. All the truth we need to live by is in this Book. As N. T.
Wright notes, the Bible isnt simply a repository of true information
about God, Jesus, and the hope of the world. It is...part of the means
by which, in the power of the Spirit, the living God rescues his people
and his world, and takes them forward on the journey toward his new
creation, and makes us agents of that new creation even as we travel.
p. 191

The Bible presents an unfinished story, in which God invites us to
participate. The Bible is not simply a rule book, though woe be unto us
if we take its ethical instruction lightly. But the Bible presents the
story of how God is rescuing His creation from rebellion through the
death and resurrection of Jesus. And God, through the witness of
scripture, is asking us to become characters in that salvation story.
Just as God called Abraham and Sarah, a childless couple getting up in
years, just as God called Moses, a refugee with a speech impediment, and
Saul, a persecutor of the church, God is calling you and me to
participate in the unfinished story of the Bible. God speaks through the
Bible to call upon each one of us to become characters in His salvation
story.

Robert McAfee Brown (The Bible Speaks To You, Westminster Press,
Philadelphia, 1955, pp. 11-12) writes of a Navy transport in 1946 with
1,500 Marines on board. They were being brought back from service in
occupied Japan. A small group of these Marines came to the chaplain and,
to his great surprise, asked him to lead a Bible study class. The
chaplain jumped at the chance. Nearing the west coast, the group read
from the 11th chapter of John, which described Jesus raising Lazarus
from the dead. The chaplain said the raising of Lazarus dramatized the
words of Jesus, when he said I am the resurrection and the life.
(11:25). The chaplain told the story of Raskolnikov, a man in
Dostoevskys Crime and Punishment who had killed his very self in the
act of murdering another, but had been brought back to life when Jesus
words were read to him. When this class was over, a Marine corporal
followed the chaplain back to his cabin. After struggling to say
something, the Marine blurted out Chaplain, I felt as though everything
we read this morning was pointed right at me. Ive been living in hell
for the last 6 months, and for the first time I feel as though Id
gotten free. This corporal had gotten bored during his time in the
occupation of Japan, and gone off and gotten into some serious trouble.
No one in authority seemed to know about it, but he knew about it, and
he was sure God knew about it. He felt terribly guilty, and believed
that he had ruined his life, and would never be able to face his family
back home. The corporal said Up until today, Chaplain, Ive been a dead
man. I have felt utterly condemned by myself, by my family (if they
knew), and by God. Ive been dead, but now, after reading about Jesus
and Lazarus, I know that I am alive again. The forgiveness of God can
reach out even to me. The resurrection Jesus was talking about is a real
thing, after all, right now.

The Bible begins with Genesis 3 telling of the sin which caused
humankind to be blocked from the tree of life in the Garden of Eden.
Revelation 22, the last chapter of the Bible, tells of a new heaven and
a new earth. As there was a river in the Garden of Eden, Revelation 22
speaks of the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing
from the throne of God and of the Lamb...On either side of the river is
the tree of life...and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

When we read the Bible, let us read it with The Big Picture in mind.
Its the story of how the creator God is rescuing the creation. Marine
corporals, you, I, and others can become part of that story. And that is
Good News!

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