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For worship planning ideas on Lord’s Days 11-13 , please link to our ministry partner at the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship and specifically to this page where you will find ideas for constructing a service around the theme of the identity of Jesus as Savior, Lord, and Christ.
(posted
on 10/24/2005)
Comments, Observations, and Questions to Consider
- For the postmodern age, but in a sense perhaps for most any age, Lord’s Day 13 presents a concept that can be quite unpopular: namely, the idea that we are owned by a Lord, a Master, a Boss who can call the shots because we are his, body and soul. In a day when people fancy themselves as self-made and rugged individualists, few concepts run as against the grain as this one. In free and democratic societies, few ideas run against the grain more than do hierarchical notions that there are some to whom we owe fealty and allegiance in that they own us.
- The Catechism authors, however, don’t stop to engage in any counter-questions a person may raise regarding the idea of Jesus as Lord. Instead they recognize that it’s good to belong to Jesus because the alternative was belonging to the devil. The idea that anyone is free and autonomous is not one the Bible seems to take seriously. Instead across Scripture—and hence across the sweep of Christian theology—is the tacit assumption that we are all in one form of thrall or another. We live either under “they tyranny of the devil” or we live under the gracious rule of the one who loved us enough to die for us. Everybody serves some master or another.
- A key line in Q&A 34 is “with his precious blood.” The way Jesus becomes a person’s Lord is not through some violent takeover nor from some cold legal or fiscal transaction. We are not bought and sold coldly like slaves on an auction block. We came under the sway of our Lord Jesus because of history’s supreme act of loving sacrifice: the death of Jesus on the cross. Emphasizing the loving nature of Jesus as Lord may be a way to present the concept of Lordship to people unaccustomed to thinking in such terms.
Possible Biblical Texts
Revelation 1:1-8: This passage highlights the boldness of the early church’s proclamation of Jesus as Lord. For the Apostle John to be able to see and report on the glorious reality of Jesus as Lord—and to do all that even while suffering under the indictment of the Caesar—presents a remarkable witness. John’s every word in Revelation gave the lie to the notion that the Caesar mattered in the broad scheme of things.
Colossians 1:15-23: Paul is here at his breathtaking grandest! Most of this passage is (in the original Greek) one giant run-on sentence as Paul heaps up subordinating clause after subordinating clause in an exuberant rush to convey the cosmic scope of Jesus’ work and what it means. Seldom in the New Testament are the claims and implications for Jesus’ Lordship quite this large and plain and unmistakable to see.
Illustration Idea
Illustration Idea #1: The New Testament boldly declares that “Jesus is Lord” and by virtue of that, he is also “the ruler of the kings of the earth.” But if Jesus was the Caesar's Caesar, then that changed everything. The Caesar was, by his own decree, Deus et Dominus, God and Lord, of the world. When the Caesar spoke, the world listened. When the Caesar said, "Jump," the world asked "How high?" And so if the Caesar got annoyed by gospel-preaching apostles, then with a stroke of the Caesar's quill that man was gone, out of there, disappeared. Yet those same apostles continued to find the pluck to say, "Jesus is Lord!"
It was the early church's simplest, yet most profound of creeds. Jesus Is Lord! Impossibly, that small band of former fishermen, erstwhile tax collectors, woebegone Jewish peasants, and former prostitutes ran around the Mediterranean Basin declaring this scandalous message. Pious Jews heard the message "Jesus Is Lord" and they gasped at the heresy of it. Loyal Romans heard it and they were angered by the treason of it. If Jesus is Lord, then Jesus was the same as Yahweh, but how could that be? That's heresy! If Jesus is Lord, then the Caesar was demoted a notch in the grander scheme of things, but how could that be? That's treason! All over the then-known world, jaws dropped clear to the ground at the idea that some simple Jewish carpenter's son from some hick, redneck town in the backwaters of Galilee had become so cosmically significant as to trump all claims or titles to the contrary. (Note: Some of this illustration was derived from a sermon by Neal Plantinga).
Illustration Idea #2: Why did Paul and other New Testament writers seem to find happiness in the idea of being owned by Somebody? Because Paul knew what people today too often forget: every human being is a slave. We all serve someone or something and there is no getting around it. So for Paul the question was not, "Do you have a master?" but rather, "Who is your master?" We have within us what John Calvin called the seed of religion, or maybe better said, the seed of religiousness. We have a hankering to worship, to serve, to be devoted to something with a fervor that is properly described as religious. So the question becomes, "Who is your lord?"
Of course, if you asked that question, lots of people would say they have no lord, no master to whom they are answerable. But it's not true. Look how furiously some people pursue pleasure. Whether it's the pleasure found in sexuality, the pleasure found in having a top-notch home theater system, the pleasure found in eating delicious food, or the pleasure of having a heavy-duty off-road experience as you take your Land Rover out for a spin, many people orient their lives around securing the tools needed to have fun. As a song that was popular when I was in college put it, "Everybody's working for the weekend." Pleasure can be a lord, and for many it is the lord around whom their lives are oriented.
Or look at that cadre of sixteen handsome and beautiful and talented folks who captured the nation's attention on The Apprentice. Even if you loved that show, can you look at those highly driven people who live tethered to their cellphones and honestly deny that they are serving some sort of lord with a zeal that is religious in nature? Over 200,000 people applied to get on that first round of The Apprentice and a similar number is lining up for round two. What do you suppose would happen, even in a place as huge as New York City, if every one of those same people devoted the same amount of time and energy to promoting the cause of Jesus through working in homeless shelters, soup kitchens, AIDS clinics, and after-school Bible programs? My guess is they would do a tremendous amount of good for the city. If they poured that much energy into spiritual projects, no one would hesitate to call that religious zeal. So why can't we spy the religious-like nature of pursuing the goal of impressing Donald Trump? What finally is the difference? We're fooling ourselves if we think only religious people serve a Lord but business types do not.
Paul saw no difference. The only difference is in the nature of the lord who holds you in slavery. Outside of Jesus, you will all-but inevitably be a slave of sinful desires--goals and dreams that Paul claims lead only to death. There is nothing you can desire in this world that can prevent you from dying. Whether your life's ambition is money, fame, success, a certain kind of house or car, travel, or whatever, even if you get what you aim for, it cannot do you any lasting good. It's a dead end because life is a dead end.