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| June 18, 2006 David Beebe SERMON:
"Is There Another Gospel?” IS THERE ANOTHER GOSPEL? Scripture:
Philippians 2:5-11, Galatians 1:3-12, Matthew 11:25-31
(also Matthew 19:12, Luke 17:20-21, 1 John 1:2-3, 4:2,
2 John 1:7) I
don’t usually read my sermons, but I will read this one, because of its nature
and its importance. Pray
with me: Not
to us, O Lord, not to us, but to you alone belongs the glory, because of your
steadfast love and faithfulness. Amen. (Psalm 115:1) In
recent months television programs
and news stories have high-lighted two books which have concerned many
Christians as possible challenges to our faith.
I want to talk about the issues that have surfaced because of them. The
first book is The Gospel of Judas, a
lost document which was mentioned by early church leaders but has only recently
been found. Like many other
recent discoveries, because of the dry weather conditions of the Egyptian
desert, it had survived. The
second is a novel, recently released as a motion picture, Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code. Though
it is a novel, it borrows heavily
from another book which purports to be an historical reconstruction, The
Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (by Michael Baigent,Richard Leigh, and Henry
Lincoln.). This book claims that
Jesus Christ married Mary Magdalene, who later moved to the south of Both
books or their press releases seem to suggest that the Christian Church has been
suppressing their viewpoint, the first because of the prejudice against Judas,
and the second because of a desire to cover up the role of Mary Magdalene. Now
there is some truth to these charges. It
does appear likely that the early Christian Church scape-goated Judas, who was
probably a zealot, a freedom-fighter who intended to force Jesus’ hand and
start a revolution. But after all,
Peter also denied Jesus ,and all of the disciples except John ran away. And
it is also true that, although the early Christian Church had women leaders,
mentioned in the New Testament, and even woman bishops, the Church early
suppressed this feminine role, including the role of Mary Magdalene as the first
apostle to the apostles (as the Pope
has recently called her) and the first witness to the Resurrection. It
might even be wildly possible that the fairly effeminate figure of John in
DaVinci’s painting of the Last Supper is a
cryptic t way of portraying the Magdalen. But
that is about where the truth ends and the fictions begin. ___ What
is the truth behind these recent stirrings? First,
it will help to know that in the early years of the Christian Church there were
sects, generally called “Gnostic” (gnosis in Greek means “knowledge”), that believed they had a
secret insight into deeper truths then were obvious on the face of the Christian
story. Partly
they did have some insights from which we might profit. Though they missed the
truth in the New Testament that God has revealed the Good News of the Gospel to
the simplest folks, they thought wisely that true saving knowledge comes not
from the head but from the heart. They
believed that there are deep eternal truths.
Their watchword might have been the
words of Jesus, “The But
that is actually is mistranslation
of Luke 17:20-21: Once
Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the What
Jesus was saying was that the kingdom they looked for had already arrived and
was standing before them in flesh and blood in his own person. And
that is much of what the Gnostics denied. They
tended to believe that the spirit is good but the body is evil.
Indeed the so-called Gospel of
Judas suggests that Jesus had Judas arrange for his crucifixion, so that his
body would not hinder his spirit. The
Gospel of Judas, not written by Judas, wants to claim that Jesus was divine but
not really human. It
is against such Gnostics as these that the Letters
of John are speaking when they say such things as this (in 1 John 4:2: By
this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ
has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus
is not from God. ___ On
the other hand, The DaVinci Code and Holy
Blood, Holy Grail want to portray a Jesus who is not really the revelation
of God but is all too human. It
would not really be so shocking if Jesus had married.
After all, most rabbis do. But
it seems clear that Jesus had chosen another way, not because marriage is less
than noble but because it is not suited to every vocation. To
John the Baptist, for instance, it might have seemed unwise to marry a wife and
cart her off into the wilderness to live on locusts and wild honey.
And if Jesus understood, as the Gospels suggest, that his vocation
involved dying on a cross, why would
he have married? Indeed he may have
himself and his cousin John in mind when he says to the disciples: (Matthew There
are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of
heaven. ___ Now
why is this so important? And why do
I want to spend so much time on it? Because
it strikes at the heart of the Christian faith. The
It
seems hard for people to keep these two truths together.
Some people find it hard to see his true divinity.
But in the Church it is probably truer that people have found it hard to
see his true humanity: He
bled, he cried, he sweat, according to the Gospels.
“Blood, sweat and tears,” – He was one of us.
That is how much God loved us, to be among us, to bear our pains, to
share our hopes, to die on our cross. And
that is why God has exalted him. Is
there another gospel, another word of Good News?
No indeed, this word that God loved us enough to be one of us and to bear
our crosses is the one true Gospel. – good news for the world!
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