2012 SINGLE SERMONS
PASSION
DR. JIM DIXON
OCTOBER 14, 2012
The holiest week in the Christian year is called Passion Week. And Passion Week begins with Palm Sunday, with a triumphal entry of Christ into the holy city of Jerusalem. Passion Week continues with the cleansing of the temple, with the Olivet Discourse, and with the Passover meal, the institution of the Lord’s Supper. Passion Week included the washing of the disciples feet and the giving of the new commandment, the new “mandatum,” “Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself.” Passion Week continued with Good Friday, with the crucifixion, the death of Christ and His shed blood for the sin of the world and substitutionary atonement. And of course, Passion Week ends with Easter Sunday. Death could not hold Him. He rose in power and glory, and He is the hope of the world
Why is that week called Passion Week? Why the word passion? Well, this leads us to two Greek words, which really are foundational to the Christian life and to the Christian walk. This leads us to two Greek words that provide perhaps the two most important qualities that Christians are to possess. The first Greek word is the word “pathos.” This is the word that is oftentimes translated passion. Pathos refers to very deep and very strong emotions and feelings, but it literally means “to suffer.” So passion refers to a cause for which you are willing to suffer.
So do you have any passion in your life? Is there any cause for which you’re willing to suffer? This is the meaning of passion, and we can understand then why Easter week is called Passion Week. Christ was willing to suffer for us. We represent the cause for which He was willing to suffer and die. And of course, the kingdom of heaven was the cause for which He has suffered. How about you? Are you willing to suffer for the cause of the kingdom of Heaven?
Whenever Barb and I take folks to Israel, we always take them to the region of the Dead Sea and to that mountain called Masada. And to understand Masada, you need to understand the history of the Jews. They were oppressed and subjugated people. That they were shackled by the Roman Empire. They had had generations of being oppressed by nations—by the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Medo-Persians, the Seleucids, the Ptolemies, the Greeks, and now the Roman Empire. And they were tired of it. So they rebelled against the Roman Empire, and that was around 67 AD in the first century. They rebelled. And those Jews who rebelled were called zealots. They were filled with zeal. They were filled with passion. They wanted to throw off the shackles of the Roman Empire and they rebelled. And of course, Rome came with all of its might, with all of its legions—three Roman legions. This was massive. They came under the leadership of Titus, the Roman General, and they swept over Jerusalem and destroyed the temple and the Temple Mount as Jesus had prophesied. The Jews were scattered, and some of the Jews fled to Masada.
And there on Masada, they made their last stand. It was 73 AD when they could see that their cause was futile and the Romans would prevail, and they refused to go back into Roman slavery. So they took their own lives. Today, the Jewish people throughout Israel oftentimes speak of the “spirit of Masada.” And they’re talking about the passion, the refusal to be enslaved by anyone, and the passion of being willing to die rather than to be enslaved.
Now, of course, as Christians, we look back on our, our history and we know that the Christian church was born in the Roman world. And we know that as Christians we never rose up militarily against the Roman Empire. We never took off the sword like the zealots did. But we were killed, nonetheless. Christians died en masse throughout the Roman world. They were killed in Hippodromes. They were killed in amphitheaters. They were killed for the amusement of the masses. They were driven underground. They were driven into the catacombs, homes and dens and caves of the earth, Christians who would rather die than renounce Christ. We know that Christians went forth throughout the Roman world, to all the nations of the Roman world, proclaiming Christ and being willing to die for it. This was their passion, the cause for which they were willing to die, the kingdom of Jesus Christ. So they went with the gospel, and many of them paid the price.
Matthew was, martyred in Africa, as he took the gospel to the region of Ethiopia. He was slain with a sword while preaching in Ethiopia. Mark was martyred in Africa as well.
John Mark took the gospel to Egypt, and after preaching he was bound to a team of horses and dragged through the streets of Alexandria in Egypt. And there he breathed his last breath. But he had served Christ.
Luke was martyred in Greece, taking the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Greek people. He was run through with the sword. And of course, John the Apostle was thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil. He miraculously was rescued and ultimately was incarcerated on the island of Patmos because of his testimony to Jesus Christ.
James the greater, the brother of John, the son of Zebedee, was martyred, killed by King Herod, Agrippa the first, as recorded in the Book of Acts, the 12th chapter. James the brother of Christ, the great head of the Jerusalem Church, the author of that letter that bears his name, was pushed off the pinnacle of the temple by an angry, unbelieving mob. They pushed him off the southeast corner of the temple wall. He fell for more than a hundred feet, and somehow was still alive, though barely, where he fell. And they stoned him to death there because of his testimony to Jesus Christ.
Peter was crucified in Rome, perhaps upside down, by the order of Emperor Nero. This was 67 AD. It was near the place where the obelisk now stands, in the great courtyard in front of St. Peter’s Basilica. That’s where Peter died for Christ. The Apostle Paul also died in Rome, also by the command of Nero, the Roman emperor, also in 67 AD. And Paul was beheaded at at three fountains on the Appian Way, and his body today is in the Basilica of St. Paul, outside the walls.
Of course, Thomas, the doubting disciple, was martyred in India, taking the gospel to the people of India. He was run through with the lance on the coast of Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Philip, the great disciple who went forth as a missionary, was martyred in Phrygia, modern day Turkey in the city of Hierapolis, near Laodicea, near Colossi, all for the cause of Christ.
You can go through and look at the leaders of the early church, the disciples and apostles, and almost without exception they died martyrs’ deaths for the cause of Christ. They were so committed to the cause of heaven and the cause of Jesus they were willing to suffer. They were willing to give their life. And I tell you, the problem with the church of Jesus Christ in the 21st century is we’ve lost our passion. So there’s not much we’re willing to suffer for today.
Our lives are too good, too soft, too entertaining. There’s not much we’re willing to suffer for today. Live and let live is what we say. We don’t have that passion for the cause of Jesus Christ and for His kingdom. We don’t have the passion for His gospel. It takes passion to be the Church of Christ and to serve Christ.
Another place that Barb and I often take folks when we travel to Israel is the Hill of Megiddo. You can look beyond the hill down into the valley of Jezreel. Th hill called Megiddo is ancient. In fact, archeologists have found evidence of communities there from 7,000 BC. Incredible. And from 4,000 BC onward, cities were built there. Over 20 cities were built on that Hill of Megiddo.
Today, archeologists can go down and they’re just stacked. 26 cities are stacked one on the other, including the city of Solomon and Solomon’s Stables, which have just recently been unearthed, confirming the historicity of the Bible concerning Solomon. But those 26 cities are all built in this place, stacked one on top of the other. Why were cities built right there? It’s because this was a strategic location. The Hill of Megiddo looked down on the valley of Jezreel, on the plain of Esdraelon. And all the major roads were there. In the ancient world, the east-west road that connected Asia over to Europe, the “Via Maris,” the road to the sea, went right through that valley. And of course, the north-south roads went from the Assyrian and Babylonian empires down into Egypt and the land of the Pharaohs, right through that valley.
The ancients said, “Whoever controls Megiddo controls the world.” So cities were built right there, and battles were fought on that plane of Jezreel. And the Bible says there’s going to come one last battle. It’s called Armageddon, from the Hebrew “ha megiddo,” “the hill of Megiddo.” And it’s kind of taken into the Greek as “Armageddon.” But of course the battle will be global and no one would survive were Christ not to come back. No one would survive it. But that battle of Armageddon will begin right there in Israel. It says it’ll begin there on that plain of Jezreel, that plain of Esdraelon, that plane of Megiddo. That’s where it will begin.
And you know, that shouldn’t surprise us. We can look at Israel today and see what a hotspot it is, how great the tensions are, how great the rage of Islam is, the hatred of the West and the hatred of the Jews. We know that that battle’s going to begin then when they begin there. But the Bible tells us there’s a sense in which Armageddon has always being fought. There’s a sense in which the world is always facing Armageddon. There’s a sense in which there’s this constant struggle between good and evil, light and darkness. I mean, the Bible says that the Antichrist will arise on the final stage of history, but the spirit of antichrist is already working in the world. The man of lawlessness will come at the consummation, but the spirit of lawlessness is already at work in the world. This struggle is between good and evil, light and darkness, Christ and Antichrist. And it’s a struggle for the souls of people, of human beings, the very souls of men and women and children. Christ calls us to the struggle. But it takes passion. For every generation it takes passion.
We invite you to teach a Sunday school class. It takes passion. I mean, we’ll train you, we’ll equip you we’ll, we’ll put you into a team situation, but it still takes passion. It takes passion to join us and go with us into the inner city to help the poor and the oppressed. We have many ministries there. We want to hold hands with you, but you must have a little passion.
Maybe you’d be willing to be trained to be a mentor. We’ll train you, we’ll go with you, but you must have a little passion if you want to help a child in the inner city. It even takes passion to sing in the choir. You must have a little passion to come out on Tuesday night, go through rehearsal, maybe practice a little bit during the week, spend a little extra time here on Sunday morning. It takes passion to be the church of Jesus Christ.
So the church of Jesus Christ is in desperate need of passion today. It might take a little passion to come out tonight and check out this wonderful evening or Wednesday night as we pray for the nation.
Well, there’s a second Greek word and therefore second teaching that’s related to this word passion. And that’s the word “sumpathos.” Pathos means passion. Sumpathos means compassion. This is another New Testament biblical word, sumpathos. Passion is willingness to suffer for a cause. Sumpathos, compassion, is a willingness to suffer with another human being, to suffer with another person. This is what the church of Jesus Christ needs: passion and compassion.
And of course, sumpathos is the word from which we get the English word sympathy. And we all have a capacity for compassion, for sumpathos, because we’re created in the image and likeness of God, and God is love. So all of us have this capacity for compassion.
You know, when you go to a movie and maybe it’s kind of a sad story—it might be a love story, or a story about a friendship, or about somebody who’s dying and, and the pain of that loss—we’ve all been at movies where we’ve had our hearts touched and our eyes tear up. That’s because of the imago Dei. God made us like that. We have this capacity to sympathize. We have this capacity for compassion. But of course, it’s easy to get a little tear in a movie. We might leave a movie theater having cried a little bit and almost feel good about ourselves. Yeah, the heart’s still there, but see, the Bible calls us as the people of Christ to action—acts of compassion.
That’s why in the Bible there are many compassion words. The word sumpathos is the first and foremost. But then there’s the word “eusplanchnos,” which is translated tenderhearted but means compassion. And Jesus used that word in the parable of the good Samaritan. The Samaritan didn’t just feel for the wounded Jew by the side of the road, but he was moved to action. Sumpathos was replaced with the word eusplanchnos, “moved to action.” This is the word Jesus gives us, and it’s what he calls us to: that we’d be moved to action.
In that same parable, Jesus uses the word “eleos,” which is another compassion word—sometimes translated mercy, sometimes translated compassion, but eleos means “to be moved to action, to help even an enemy.” It meant to be moved to action, to help somebody that you think doesn’t deserve it. But you’re moved to action. You’re moved to love anyway. This is the depth of compassion that Christ calls His people to. And the church can’t be the church unless we have compassion.
I mean, Blake just mentioned in his prayer time how many of us have cancer right here in our congregation. Many have cancer or other serious illnesses and diseases, and we’re the church of Christ. We’re called to pray for each other. And we’ve seen people healed and we’ve seen people suffer. But we know that Christ loves us. And as we come together in prayer, good things happen. But it can’t happen unless we have compassion. We’re not going to pray unless we have compassion.
Barb and I have a prayer list we go through every night of folks in the church, many of you who have cancer, and we pray every night for you. And we wouldn’t do that if we didn’t care. I mean, we can’t be the church of Jesus Christ if we don’t care. The church of Jesus Christ has always needed passion and compassion. And it’s these two pillars that makes the church strong as we serve Christ through the ages and through the generations. This is the call of Christ upon His people.
Well, I think it’s impossible for the church to serve Christ faithfully without both of these. It’s like truth and love. You need them both. I mean, we want to proclaim the truth to the world. We want to stand for the truth. We want to defend the truth, but we want to do it with love. We want to do it in such a way that people can tell we really care about them. We really love them. This is the combination the church of Christ has been called to, and it’s not an easy combination. This truth and love, passion and compassion, is not an easy thing.
I want to give you a little example before we close of how, as the church, we seek to work this out. A big subject is marriage, adultery, and divorce. Marriage, adultery, and divorce has been a matter of much controversy in the church of Jesus Christ. How do we combine truth and love? How do we have passion for the truth and compassion for people? How do we work that out? And of course, every culture has a different view of marriage. I was reading some time ago where the Balante people in Senegal have this view of marriage where it’s all tied to the bridal gown. The bride creates her own gown. She knits it and sows it and prepares it, and she wears it at the wedding. And the Balante people in Senegal believe that the marriage will last as long as that dress remains. If the dress goes threadbare, the marriage is over. And so most people in the Balante culture wear the dress for the wedding, and then she puts it away to keep it safe. She might bring it out for very special occasions. Now, if you come home and you see your wife cleaning the house in that dress, you know that something’s wrong and your marriage is in a whole lot of trouble. Because when that dress goes threadbare, in their culture they view that as kind of the end of marriage.
The Bible tells us that marriage is meant to be for our lifetime, that until death do us part, this is the will of God, that marriage be for a lifetime. And of course, this is why in the Bible adultery is so serious. It’s a violation of that lifetime covenant between a man and a woman. So adultery is certainly condemned in the Bible.
In Genesis, chapter 20, verse nine, adultery is called the great sin. Don’t think there aren’t degrees of sin in the Bible. There are degrees of sin in the Bible. Of course, any sin, no matter how small, makes us a sinner. And we’re all sinners. And no matter how small our sin (and most of us are significant sinners) it would make us unworthy of heaven. We all need mercy. We all need grace. But there are degrees of sin, biblically, and so in Genesis chapter 20, verse nine, adultery is called the great sin. And in Job chapter 24 adultery is called the sin of deep darkness. Adulteries is called the heinous sin. In Genesis chapter 38 and in Leviticus chapter 20 and chapter 21 and in Deuteronomy chapter 22, the penalty for adultery is death by stoning.
So this is a very, very serious sin. Now, Jesus repealed that penalty of death by stoning, even as he repealed the lex talonis, the “eye for an eye.” So Jesus, out of compassion, out of sumpathos, repealed the penalty of death for adultery. So when the woman was caught in the very act of adultery and brought before Jesus, the crowd wanted to stone her. Because she was caught in the act of adultery, in accordance with Genesis 38 and Leviticus 20 and 21 and Deuteronomy 22, they wanted to kill her. And Jesus said no. He had compassion on her, and He said to her, is there no one to condemn you? She said, no one, Lord. He said, neither do I condemn you. Go and do not commit the sin again. But Jesus said to the crowd, whoever is without sin, throw the first stone.
So we understand the compassion of Christ. But we also understand that Jesus took adultery very seriously. He took adultery very seriously. And therefore, when you look at Matthew chapter five or Matthew chapter 19 or Luke chapter 16, Jesus says that the one grounds for divorce is adultery. That’s how serious adultery is. It’s the one grounds for divorce. Adultery is the Greek word “moicheia,” although twice, in two of those passages, Jesus uses “porneia.” I’ll get to that in just a moment. But this is serious. The sin of adultery is so serious, it’s grounds for divorce. Now that doesn’t mean that when adultery takes place, Christ wants you to divorce. Christ is always rooting for the marriage. He’s seeking forgiveness and repentance and healing even when there’s been divorce. But divorce is permissible when there’s been adultery.
Some of you might be thinking, well, that’s a pretty tough view of marriage, that you can’t get divorced unless there’s adultery. That’s a pretty high view of marriage. That’s pretty tough. You’re trapped in your marriage. Unless somebody commits adultery, you can’t get out of it. That’s a pretty tough. There’s not a lot of compassion there. But you must understand the culture in which Jesus said these words, because Jesus said these words in a Jewish culture where there were two great theological schools and everybody knew them. These were the two great rabbinical schools.
One school was called Hillel, the other school was called Shammai. Hillel took a liberal view of marriage and divorce. It was the liberal school theologically and morally. We’re not talking politics. So the Hillel school took the liberal view theologically and morally and said, you can divorce.
For whatever reason, the husband can say to the wife, “I divorced thee, I divorced thee, I divorce thee,” and it’s over. In that patriarchal culture, the husband had that power. If the wife just cooked a bad meal, “I divorced thee, I divorced thee, I divorce you.” That was Hillel. And everybody know that they taught that, and many Jews practiced that. Many Jews put off their wives. It was tragic in terms of what it meant in the culture in society.
But then there was the Shammai school. And the Shammai school was the conservative school, morally and theologically. The Shammai school said, no, there can’t be a divorce unless there’s adultery. And that was true for the man and the woman. There can’t be divorce unless there’s adultery. So when Jesus said the words he said in Matthew five, Matthew 19, and Luke 16, the whole audience said, wow, he’s siding with the Shammai school.
But here’s the deal. We could go back and look now at what the Shammai school taught, and we recognize that they had a strict view of marriage and divorce, but adultery wasn’t the only reason for which they allowed divorce. It just was the summary sin that they identified the grave causes with. There had to be a grave cause for divorce. And they used adultery as a summation of grave causes. It might be wife beating, it might be abandonment, but adultery represented the summation of grave causes. So when Jesus said except for adultery, He might have simply meant, “Except for these grave causes.” And perhaps that’s why He uses porneia instead of moicheia in two of those three passages, because it’s a broader scope word. We don’t know. It’s a difficult subject.
But I say this: the church of Jesus Christ over 2,000 years has sought to combine passion for the truth, passion for holy scripture, passion for Christ, with compassion for people. And we seek to do that today. It’s a scary privilege to be the church of Christ. It’s a wonderful thing to be the body of Christ, but to serve Christ faithfully. You do it with a certain amount of fear and trembling as you combine passion and compassion and truth and love. But in everything you know… I mean, if you’re all truth and there’s no love, it comes out wrong. And people just kind of view you as pharisees or fundamentalists. And if it’s all love and no truth, you drift into moral and theological apostasy and there’s no standards anymore.
So there’s this tension, but a clear call to passion and compassion, truth and love. This is the body of Christ. It’s the call of Christ on the church. In every generation we seek to be faithful. We hope that as you go forth, you seek to be faithful too, that wherever Christ places you, you minister in truth and in love. Let’s look to the Lord with a word of prayer.