In the October 10, 1972, edition of The Sumter Daily Item, the newspaper of my hometown, Sumter, South Carolina, there is a picture that I love. It is a picture of my grandfather, Leon “Rosie” Richardson, holding a large pear in his right hand while he looks down proudly at  it. In his left hand, he is holding a writing pen beside the pear to grant the viewer perspective on just how big the pear is.

The caption is headlined “A-Pears To Be Big” and reads as follows:

Leon Richardson displays whopping Bartlette pear he grew on his land. The king-sized fruit weighed in at 2¼ pounds, about the average, says Richardson, of most of the pears he grows.

Again, I love this picture! My granddad looks so happy, so proud, and, knowing him as I did, I can just tell he is absolutely delighted with himself and his giant pear! I will say that after discussing that picture with my brother, Condy, we both are a wee-bit skeptical about his claim that 2¼ pounds was “about the average” size of the pears on that tree. And that skepticism is for one reason: My brothers and I used to climb in that tree and I have eaten many of those pears and unless something pretty amazing happened between October 1972 and May 1974 (the year I was born), those things were not, on average, that size!

Regardless, it is all great fun, and it is a great picture, and it brings back wonderful memories!

It is also an image steeped in New Testament imagery, for the image of fruit-bearing appears not-infrequently in the pages of scripture. And, indeed, the image of producing the fruit of the Kingdom appears in scripture as well.

To speak of fruit in the biblical sense is to speak of that which we are to produce and to speak of the kinds of lives that we are to live. It is to speak, in other words, of the impact of the Kingdom of God on the church, on our lives together, and on the results of our walking with Jesus.

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Matthew 27

⁵⁴ When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, “Truly this was the Son of God!” ⁵⁵ There were also many women there, looking on from a distance, who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to him, ⁵⁶ among whom were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph and the mother of the sons of Zebedee. ⁵⁷ When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who also was a disciple of Jesus. ⁵⁸ He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. ⁵⁹ And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud ⁶⁰ and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock. And he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb and went away. ⁶¹ Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb.

Strangely enough, the Shroud of Turin, the famous cloth that many allege was the burial cloth of Jesus and many allege was not, has been showing up in the news a lot lately.

Dr. Russell Moul has written an article entitled “What’s Going on with the Shroud of Turin?” that seeks to explain why. Moul first points out that the current scientific consensus is that the shroud dates to 1260–1390 AD on the basis of radiocarbon dating conducted in the 1980s. Then Moul explains why the recent uptick in interest:

However, a study conducted by Italian scientist Liberato De Caro offered an alternative perspective on the Shroud’s age. The results were published in 2022 but have only now caught media attention for some reason. De Caro and his team from the Institute of Crystallography in Bari, Italy, examined the artifact with a new technique, known as wide-angle X-ray scattering, in a study conducted in 2019.

According to this paper, the Turin Shroud dates back to 2,000 years ago, contemporaneous with when the historical figure of Jesus was said to have lived.

The researchers say cellulose found in the Shroud’s fibres has aged slowly since the 14^th century because of the lower ambient temperatures in the rooms where it has been housed. This, they argue, means that most of the Shroud’s aging occurred before the 1300s.

“The degree of natural aging of the cellulose that constitutes the linen of the investigated sample, obtained by X-ray analysis, showed that the [Turin Shroud] fabric is much older than the seven centuries proposed by the 1988 radiocarbon dating”, De Caro and his team write.

However, the authors stress that their results can only be accurate if future research finds evidence that the relic was kept safely at an average room temperature of around 22°C (71.6 °F) with a relative humidity of about 55 percent for 1,300 years before it appeared in the historical record.[1]

This is intriguing. Mould does caution the reader, however. He points out that some of Liberato De Caro’s earlier work on and hypotheses concerning the shroud has been seriously questioned.

I supposed folks will be arguing about that cloth long after I am dead and gone! But it is interesting, is it not? The burial of Jesus and the details surrounding it still hold the attention of the world! And this is only fitting. For the death and burial of Jesus are at the heart of the greatest good news the world has ever heard!

In Matthew’s account, we find a number of figures surrounding the cross at the time of Jesus’ death. Each of then offers a powerful depiction of various human responses to Jesus.

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On September 12, 2023, people the world over watched transfixed as a formally-bedecked British official stood before the King’s Guards and the watching public and heralded the following decree:

Whereas it has pleased Almighty God to call to His Mercy our late Sovereign Lady Queen Elizabeth the Second of Blessed and Glorious memory, by whose Decease the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is solely and rightfully come to The Prince Charles Philip Arthur George:

We, therefore, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of this Realm and Members of the House of Commons, together with other members of Her late Majesty’s Privy Council and representatives of the Realms and Territories, Aldermen, and Citizens of London, and others, do now hereby with one voice and Consent of Tongue and Heart publish and proclaim that The Prince Charles Philip Arthur George is now, by the Death of our late Sovereign of Happy Memory, become our only lawful and rightful Liege Lord Charles the Third, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of his other Realms and Territories, King, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, to whom we do acknowledge all Faith and Obedience with humble Affection; beseeching God by whom Kings and Queens do reign to bless His Majesty with long and happy Years to reign over us.

Given at St James’s Palace this tenth day of September in the year of Our Lord two thousand and twenty-two.

GOD SAVE THE KING[1]

It was a rare moment for the world to see and one steeped in history and pageantry. Here, the King was announced and proclaimed and officially recognized, to the acclaim of the people who shouted back: “GOD SAVE THE KING!”

There is a word for this decree: evangelism. Evangelism means the heralding of good news, of the gospel.

I would like to propose that the church should do and should see itself as doing exactly what the herald of that decree did: Announcing the King! That is evangelism. That is mission. That is witness. And the absence of a healthy doctrine of the Kingdom of God from evangelical church life has meant that our witness is stunted in this regard.

We are royal heralds.

We are King proclaimers!

This is our duty.

This is our privilege.

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Matthew 27

⁵¹ And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. ⁵² The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, ⁵³ and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many. 

Gary Burge and Gene Green have passed on a fascinating historical anecdote about King Herod.

Herod ordered all the noble Jewish families to come to Jericho to attend to him. When they arrived, he had them herded into Jericho’s hippodrome (horseracing track) and told his soldiers to slay them the moment he died. This was to promote national mourning.

While he was on his deathbed, he obtained a letter from Rome giving him permission to slay his too-ambitious son Antipater. He did so immediately. Then he gave his will: Archelaus would be king, Antipas would rule Galilee, and Philip would rule the northeast regions (Gaulanitis, Paneas). Five days later he died.

When Herod was dead, the hippodrome was opened, no one was killed, and the people gathered together in the theater. Herod’s will was read, and Archelaus was hailed as king.[1]

This is equally absurd and pitiful: a king demanding that people be slaughtered to make sure that there was some sort of reaction at his death. A truly great king, of course, would not have to set up such a diabolical manipulation. The world mourns the death of greatness without having to be tricked into it.

Case in point: the death of Jesus on the cross. The heavens and the earth mourned the death of Jesus, and this showed up in a number of starling ways!

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Abhineet Agarwal has written a wonderfully strange and haunting little story entitled “The House with No Door.” It is a surrealist story about a house that has no door and a town’s struggle to understand what that fact means. It is also about a woman who finally manages to enter the house with no door.

The house was strange not only in the sense that it had no door but also in the sense that no one had ever entered it; for it is common sense that no one can enter a house with no door…

But everyone knew that there was something about the house that allowed entry to only some sort of people — this “something” would forever remain a frustrating mystery, a mystery that would make the clouds over the house rumble with a forlorn anger and the trees whisper in a language only the wind understood. This mystery of the criteria required for entering the house with no door is the reason why no one had ever entered it. That’s why the townsfolk had created far-fetched legends around the house in a half-hearted attempt to explain the light noises that came from the house: there was much talk of angry ghosts and numerous hearsay that elucidated the disturbances with the help of stories of sad spirits.

I love that phrase: “This mystery of the criteria required for entering…”

How one could enter the house with no door seemed to almost drive the townspeople mad.

Many were too afraid to even try to enter the house, though they wanted to.

Others thought about entering the house through the windows but did not because they found the idea of doing so to be “blasphemous” and disrespectful to the architects.

The children cried and the pi-dogs barked, the women beat their breasts, and the earth shook with rage if someone came too close to the windows of the house. Thus the age-old question remained forever unanswered: how was one supposed to enter the house with no door?

Others felt that “maybe, the house with no door was made in such a way because no one was supposed to enter it.”

Others felt that, no, the house with no door was to be entered.

Others thought the whole house was a prank!

Others thought the house was haunted and should be left alone.

Finally, one lady enters the house. She figures out what the house is. We are told in the story what the house means and she is able to enter it.

Let me spell it out nonetheless. Even though I personally feel that the answer is an undemanding one, let me proceed to record it, just so that this “enigma” is finally resolved: you don’t need doors to enter houses—you need feet.

When asked how she had finally entered the house with no door, this would be her raging reply: “I simply walked in.”[1]

It is, again, a wonderfully strange little story, and worth the time it takes to read it.

I am struck by that story: A house with no door, a house with no way in. And, finally, a way in.

It strikes me further that the same conversations were surrounding the Kingdom of God in the first century. Is there a door? Is there a way in? Who can enter? How do we get in?

Some self-proclaimed guardians of the Kingdom said they were the keepers of the door and they would determine who could go in.

Some said everybody could go into the Kingdom.

Some said nobody could enter.

Some completely misunderstood what the Kingdom was.

But what about Jesus? What did Jesus say about entering the Kingdom? Does it have a door? And, if so, how do we enter?

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Matthew 27

⁴⁵ Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. ⁴⁶ And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” ⁴⁷ And some of the bystanders, hearing it, said, “This man is calling Elijah.” ⁴⁸ And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine, and put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink. ⁴⁹ But the others said, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him.” ⁵⁰ And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.

I think one of the best feel-good viral videos I have ever seen is a video of a man sitting on a bench in a city park. He is listening to Jon Bon Jovi’s 1986 rock classic “Livin’ on a Prayer” and loudly singing the opening lines by himself. The video picks up with him singing midway through the opening verse.

Gina works the diner all day
Working for her man, she brings home her pay
For love—for love

As he sings these lines, a number of people lounging in the park turn to him with smiles of pleasant curiosity. Slowly, some join in as he continues.

She says we’ve got to hold on to what we’ve got
Cause it doesn’t make a difference
If we make it or not
We’ve got each other and that’s a lot
For love—well give it a shot

And then—the greatest part of the video—by the time he hits the chorus seemingly the whole park has joined in and loudly sings along with him:

Whooah, we’re halfway there
Livin on a prayer
Take my hand and we’ll make it—I swear
Livin on a prayer

Now what on earth, you might ask, does this have to do with Jesus saying “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” from the cross?

Simply this: In the video, the man loudly proclaims something that was well known to the majority of people within earshot. He shouts out the beginning words of a song that had cultural currency and, to judge by the joint singing of the chorus, cultural buy-in. As he does so, we see the crowd move from (a) curiosity and confusion to (b) partial participation to (c) majority buy-in and celebration. In a sense, the man on the bench invites the crowd on a journey and most of them agree to take it with him. But he invites them through proclaiming the opening lines of the song. He invites them through the “hook,” if you will, of a doorway through which they knew they would need to pass to greater things: the great sing-along chorus of that song.

There is something like this happening in our text in Matthew 27.

⁴⁵ Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. ⁴⁶ And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” ⁴⁷ And some of the bystanders, hearing it, said, “This man is calling Elijah.” ⁴⁸ And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine, and put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink. ⁴⁹ But the others said, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him.” ⁵⁰ And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.

Jesus is quoting the first words of a psalm that many of the Jews would have known well. At first, there is confusion, as you can see in the unfolding of our text. Then, in time, with the coming of the Spirit upon the church, some join in and sing with Him. And now a multitude from every nation, tribe, and tongue joins with Jesus in singing the rest of this psalm. And let us be clear of this: The rest of this psalm matters immensely. Jesus opens a door for us so we can walk with Him through this great psalm and eventually reach the great chorus of praise!

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Right out of seminary, I pastored a small church in north Georgia. The church I pastored was about 1.5 miles from one of the biggest and fastest growing churches in the United States. I used to joke that our church was the church everybody drove past on Sunday mornings to go to this megachurch!

One day I was talking to another pastor and he asked me if I heard about what happened in this great big church. I said I had not. He told me that the church had hosted a conference on leadership the week prior. Thousands of pastors attended. A big-name national leadership guru had been brought in. The book table held his many best-selling books.

My friend who was telling me this story had attended the conference. He was in the room when this happened.

Now, this megachurch was surrounded by multi-multi-acre asphalt parking lots. They had shuttles that would bring folks from the far end of their parking lots to the sanctuary. The church sat on a big highway on one side but, on another side, it actually sat on a fairly typical road. Whenever I drove down that road, I always found the sight of that massive church and sanctuary overwhelming!

Well, it just so happened that on the other side of the small road that bordered the megachurch there was a very small house church. It was basically a ranch-style house with a little steeple on the top. And a few folks attended that church.

I will not deny that the shocking contrast between the two churches when you drove down that road was sometimes humorous. It was just such a contrast: the massive, huge megachurch to the left and the little tiny house church to the right. The megachurch looked like it could just eat the little church like a chicken nugget!

So my friend was at the leadership conference at the megachurch. And he told me that the famous speaker was talking about the great things God can do, the big things God can do. He extended his arms out and looked upwards and swayed left and right, saying to the crowd, “I mean, just look at what God has done here! Look at this amazing sanctuary! Look at this crowd! Look at how many baptisms this church has! Look at this staff! Look at how amazing this is!”

Then he paused. Then he continued: “And, compare this with that little church across the street. It is so small. It is so tiny!”

At this, a number of people in the audience laughed.

“Now,” he continued, “you have got to ask which church you want. This? Or that?”

A number of people amened.

Then, there was movement at the front of the sanctuary. Somebody stood up. It was an older man. He stood up by himself. He made his way out to the aisle and then slowly up the aisle to the exit doors. And he left.

That man was the pastor of the little house church across the street.

By this time the speaker had started back up and was moving on to his next big point.

My friend said it was terrible. He felt terrible. And he suspected others did as well.

And I think the reason why he felt terrible was because he knew something about the Kingdom and about the great God we serve, and it is this: God does great big things out of little tiny things so little tiny things must never be despised. In fact, the little tiny things are a good picture of  how the Kingdom of God comes into the world.

Matthew 13. Listen:

³¹ He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. ³² It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”

I would like to talk about the Kingdom of God. I would like to talk about the Kingdom that is at first dismissed as too small, too insignificant, too paltry, but, in time, will be shown to be mighty indeed.

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Matthew 27

³² As they went out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name. They compelled this man to carry his cross. ³³ And when they came to a place called Golgotha (which means Place of a Skull), ³⁴ they offered him wine to drink, mixed with gall, but when he tasted it, he would not drink it. ³⁵ And when they had crucified him, they divided his garments among them by casting lots. ³⁶ Then they sat down and kept watch over him there. ³⁷ And over his head they put the charge against him, which read, “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.” ³⁸ Then two robbers were crucified with him, one on the right and one on the left. ³⁹ And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads ⁴⁰ and saying, “You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” ⁴¹ So also the chief priests, with the scribes and elders, mocked him, saying, ⁴² “He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. ⁴³ He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him. For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” ⁴⁴ And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way.

I grew up in a great church: Grace Baptist Church of Sumter, South Carolina. I have so many wonderful memories of that church. One that stands out is Melody Parker, the wife of our pastor Gary Parker, singing the old African American spiritual, “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?” I can see her now, standing off to the side of choir, and I can hear her even now. It made quite an impression on me.

Why? I do not quite know. Maybe because that spiritual was so different than the songs we normally sang. Or maybe it was her voice and the feeling she put into that song. But I remember that when she sang it, I stopped my looking around and really paid attention. She would sing:

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Oh, were you there when they crucified my Lord?
(Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble) tremble

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Were you there when they nailed him to the cross?
Were you there when they nailed him to the cross?
(Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble) tremble
Were you there when they nailed him to the cross?

(Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?
Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?
Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble) tremble

Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?

Well, were you there when the stone was rolled away?
Were you there when the stone was rolled away?
(Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble) tremble
Were you there when the stone was rolled away?

The point of the spiritual—or so it seems to me—is that, in one sense, we were not there but, in a deeper and more meaningful sense, we were there. After all, Christ died for my sins, was crucified in my stead, and rose again for me…and for you…and for us all.

But it does raise the obvious question: Who was there? And when Matthew answers that question in Matthew 27:32–44 the image is decidedly negative and hostile. And yet, there is more happening in this scene that is readily apparent.

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The Kingdom of God is the “already/not yet” Kingdom. It has “already” come in Christ, breaking into the fallen kingdom of the world, and yet will come in fullness only when Christ returns. In that sense, it is “not yet.” So we live out of the Kingdom now, but we will not live fully in it until the King ushers it in in fullness.

Professor David Briones got at this “already/not yet” reality nicely when he wrote:

According to Scripture, believers are

• • alreadyadopted in Christ (Romans 8:15), but not yet adopted (Romans 8:23);
  • alreadyredeemed in Christ (Ephesians 1:7), but not yet redeemed (Ephesians 4:30);
  • alreadysanctified in Christ (1 Corinthians 1:2), but not yet sanctified (1 Thessalonians 5:23–24);
  • alreadysaved in Christ (Ephesians 2:8), but not yet saved (Romans 5:9);
  • alreadyraised with Christ (Ephesians 2:6), but not yet raised (1 Corinthians 15:52).

We live in a theological tension…Underlying this theological tension is a theological structure: the already–not yet framework. It is, according to Cullmann, “the silent presupposition that lies behind all that [the New Testament] says.” The New Testament authors thought, wrote, and lived through the grid of this biblical framework or mindset. It determined the way they spoke about God’s dealings in this world in light of the world to come.

If we don’t understand this mindset, the theological tension we live in will become a theological disaster. We will inevitably misread Scripture. And if we misread Scripture, we will live misled lives.[1]

I believe this is very well said and very true! We most hold to an “already/not yet” mindset. We previously considered the “already” mindset when we considered the strange customs of the Kingdom. Let us now consider the “not yet” dynamic and how Jesus spoke of the Kingdom as not having arrived in fullness yet.

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Matthew 27

²⁴ So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.” ²⁵ And all the people answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!” ²⁶ Then he released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, delivered him to be crucified. ²⁷ Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor’s headquarters, and they gathered the whole battalion before him. ²⁸ And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, ²⁹ and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and put a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” ³⁰ And they spit on him and took the reed and struck him on the head. ³¹ And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him and led him away to crucify him.

In an article in Nature, authors Lee and Schwartz argue that the act of physically washing one’s hands seems to have psychological effects on human beings. They write:

Hand washing removes more than dirt—it also removes the guilt of past misdeeds, weakens the urge to engage in compensatory behavior, and attenuates the impact of disgust on moral judgment. These findings are usually conceptualized in terms of a purity-morality metaphor that links physical and moral cleanliness; however, they may also reflect that washing more generally removes traces of the past by metaphorically wiping the slate clean. If so, washing one’s hands may lessen the influence of past behaviors that have no moral implications at all.

They continue:

…the psychological impact of physical cleansing extends beyond the moral domain. Much as washing can cleanse us from traces of past immoral behavior, it can also cleanse us from traces of past decisions, reducing the need to justify them. This observation is not captured by the purity-morality metaphor and highlights the need for a better understanding of the processes that mediate the psychological impact of physical cleansing. To further constrain the range of plausible candidate explanations, future research may test whether the observed “clean slate” effect is limited to past acts that may threaten one’s self-view (e.g., moral transgressions and potentially poor choices) or also extends to past behaviors with positive implications.[1]

Well, that is most interesting! Even so, be that what it may, physical washings cannot remove the stain sin. And yet, symbols are powerful, and they can be used for good or ill.

Our text is filled with symbols, one futile, one pernicious, but both corrected by the higher realities of the Kingdom to which they unwittingly point.

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