Matthew 26

¹⁷ Now on the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Where will you have us prepare for you to eat the Passover?” ¹⁸ He said, “Go into the city to a certain man and say to him, ‘The Teacher says, My time is at hand. I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples.’” ¹⁹ And the disciples did as Jesus had directed them, and they prepared the Passover. ²⁰ When it was evening, he reclined at table with the twelve. ²¹ And as they were eating, he said, “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” ²² And they were very sorrowful and began to say to him one after another, “Is it I, Lord?” ²³ He answered, “He who has dipped his hand in the dish with me will betray me. ²⁴ The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.” ²⁵ Judas, who would betray him, answered, “Is it I, Rabbi?” He said to him, “You have said so.” ²⁶ Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” ²⁷ And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, ²⁸ for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. ²⁹ I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”

It is not uncommon for food and meals to be at the center of very significant moments in the development of stories. Think of the books you have read and the movies and shows you have watched. I bet right now you could think of a number of important moments involving food in these. One list of “The 20 best food scenes in film” offers these examples:

The dogs eating spaghetti in “Lady and the Tramp.”

The meal in “Babette’s Feast.”

Audrey Hepburn eating breakfast outside of Tiffany’s in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”

Peter Clemenza’s recipe for pasta sauce in “The Godfather.”

The meal in “Beauty and the Beast.”

Remy the rat preparing ratatouille in “Ratatouille.”

Some of these are winsome and some of these are poignant. All of these examples are at least interesting.

I firmly believe that our culture oftentimes reenacts the contours of the Christian faith without knowing it, because our culture originates form a largely Christian framework. The Christian story is, in a sense, in the DNA of our culture, even if our culture seems to be trying desperately to move past Christianity.

It is not surprising, then, that food and meals oftentimes arise at seminal moments in the development of plots and narratives. It does so in the Christian story as well. In fact, in our text, it is at a meal that a number of profound truths begin to coalesce under the tutelage and revelatory power of Jesus. Jesus reveals the heart of the gospel in its fullest form in a meal and, in so doing, establishes that meal itself as a powerful signpost to the reality of the kingdom of God and of Himself, Jesus, the King.

In the unfolding of Matthew’s gospel, we have now worked our way to a most significant meal. A meal now takes center stage, because it is a meal that is more than a mere meal. It is a meal that reveals, that explains, that depicts, that challenges, and that calls us to believe.[1]

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Sometimes one little letter makes all the difference in the world.

George Weigel once noticed a small change in a Washington, D.C., school’s slogan that was not actually small at all. The slogan of this school came from Ignatius of Loyola: Ad maiorem Dei gloriam. Translated, that is “For the greater glory of God.” And that slogan is oftentimes abbreviated as AMDG. So the school existed, in other words, “For the greater glory of God,” AMDG.

What Weigel found curious and then upsetting was seeing a billboard for the school’s fundraising campaign in which that great slogan had been altered, seemingly slightly.

What I find disturbing about the campaign is its “branding” slogan. I first became aware of it when, driving past the campus a few months ago, I noticed a billboard at the corner of Rockville Pike and Tuckerman Lane. In large, bold letters, it proclaimed, “FOR THE GREATER GLORY.” And I wondered, “…of what?” Then one day, when traffic allowed, I slowed down and espied the much smaller inscription in the bottom right corner: “Georgetown Prep’s Legacy Campaign.”

Ad maiorem Dei gloriam (For the greater glory of God), often reduced to the abbreviation AMDG, was the Latin motto of St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus. Georgetown Prep is a Jesuit school. So what happened to the D-word? What happened to God? Why did AMDG become AM[D]G while being translated into fundraising English?

I made inquiries of Jesuit friends and learned that amputating the “D” in AMDG is not unique to Georgetown Prep; it’s a tactic used by other Jesuit institutions engaged in the heavy-lift fundraising of capital campaigns.[1]

Well. Dropping God’s glory from your slogan in order to keep the glory undefined seems ill-advised to say the least. In fact, the question of who exactly gets the glory seems to be a very important question, especially in scripture!

So who does get the glory? God? You? Somebody else?

How we answer this matters…a lot!

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Matthew 26

¹⁴ Then one of the twelve, whose name was Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests ¹⁵ and said, “What will you give me if I deliver him over to you?” And they paid him thirty pieces of silver. ¹⁶ And from that moment he sought an opportunity to betray him.

In Umberto Eco’s novel, The Island of the Day Before, a 17^th-century man named Ferrante surprisingly encounters Judas Iscariot chained to a rock in the sea. After inquiring as to the nature of his punishment, Judas offers this explanation:

            Why, because God has willed that my punishment consist in living always on Good Friday, to celebrate always and every day the Passion of the man I betrayed. The first day of my suffering, when for other human beings sunset approached, and then night, and then the dawn of Saturday, for me only an atom of an atom of a minute of the ninth hour of that Friday had gone by. As the course of my sun began to move even more slowly, for the rest of you Christ was rising from the dead, but I was still barely a step from that hour. And now, when centuries and centuries have passed for you, I am still only a crumb of time from that instant…[1]

This is not the only legend that creatively depicts Judas Iscariot’s suffering and punishment. There must have been something especially heinous about Judas’ behavior for the coming generations to engage in this kind of imaginative exercise. And, indeed, there was!

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If you stand on the South Korea side of the Demilitarized Zone and look into North Korea, you will see a town. The North Koreans call it “Peace Village.” It was actually constructed in the DMZ by North Korea in 1953 at the end of the Korean War. They say that 200 people live there. It has the fourth tallest flagpole in the world, homes, shops, a tall water tower, a hospital, fields, farm equipment, buildings, and streets. From time to time you can hear music playing, coming seemingly from the homes and businesses. At night, the lights of the town come on.

All in all, “Peace Village” appears to be a vibrant little town.

Except for one problem. It is fake. It is empty. It is an empty façade. Except for a few workers that clean the streets and carry on other tasks, nobody lives there and apparently nobody ever has. The buildings appear not to have actual floors. They are empty shells with lights at the top. Many of the windows, upon close examination, or simply painted onto the walls. The lights are turned on by the state, as is the music. The lights are one but literally no one is home.

The South Koreans refer to “Peace Village” as “Propaganda Village.” It appears to have been built by the North Koreans as a move in psychological warfare. It is intended to communicate to those looking at it from South Korea that North Korea is healthy and prosperous and the people are happy there. It is ostensibly intended to lure defectors to the North from the South.

It has all the appearance of life—the externals are in place, everything looks right, the lights are on, the music is playing—but there just is not actually anything there. There is no life there.

I would like to talk about church.

That which makes the church the church is the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ.

Without if, we are simply “Peace Village”: an empty husk with the lights and music on.

We have committed ourselves to being “an authentic family around the gospel” because we do not want to be an empty shell. We want to be alive. And the gospel alone is what makes us alive!

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Matthew 26

¹ When Jesus had finished all these sayings, he said to his disciples, ² “You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.” ³ Then the chief priests and the elders of the people gathered in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, ⁴ and plotted together in order to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him. ⁵ But they said, “Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar among the people.” ⁶ Now when Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, ⁷ a woman came up to him with an alabaster flask of very expensive ointment, and she poured it on his head as he reclined at table. ⁸ And when the disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying, “Why this waste? ⁹ For this could have been sold for a large sum and given to the poor.” ¹⁰ But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a beautiful thing to me. ¹¹ For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. ¹² In pouring this ointment on my body, she has done it to prepare me for burial. ¹³ Truly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her.”

We Baptists do not do a lot of anointing with oil. Let me be very clear: I not only do not oppose anointing somebody with oil while praying for them, I actually find it quite beautiful and powerful and biblical and good (“Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.” James 5:14). I have been asked to do so on occasion over the years, and I am happy to do so. Like all good things, it can be abused, but the abuse of a thing does not render the thing itself inherently wrong (unless, of course, it is!).

I recall one of the first times I was asked to anoint somebody with oil and pray for their healing. I gladly and quickly agreed. I and some others went to the home of this brother. I had brought a little vial of oil. When it came time to pray, I went to pour a drop or two on his head when…you guessed it…a great deal of oil came pouring out in an instant!

I recall trying to hide my surprise as I placed my hand on his oily hair and prayed. We all prayed and, when we finished, we all had a good laugh at how much oil I poured out on him! There was no getting around it: I doused the brother when what I intended was a couple of drops.

But now that I think of it, why not douse with oil when calling for the blessing and favor of God upon another?

Excessive oil is a sign of excessive favor and blessing. Consider, for instance, Psalm 133.

¹ Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity! ² It is like the precious oil on the head, running down on the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down on the collar of his robes! ³ It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion! For there the Lord has commanded the blessing, life forevermore.

Or consider our own text, Matthew 26:1–13. The context is very different, but here too we find an excessive, lavish anointing. Here too the greatness of God is extolled, though, here, it is extolled before the approaching storm of the sufferings of the cross.

In our text, a woman lavishly anoints Jesus. Though, for her, it was not an accident. And, in doing so, she is placed in stark contrast not only to those plotting the death of Jesus, but even to the disciples themselves who protest her actions.

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One of the more fascinating offerings of history is the record of what earlier pagan Romans thought of this new group of people who called themselves Christians. Many of the Romans’ impressions of the Christians have been preserved and they offer very interesting insights. In general, we might say the Romans were shocked by many Christian beliefs and ways of living. Historian Larry Hurtado points to the words of Lucian of Samosata, a satirist from the late 2^nd century, about Christians as a good example. Here is what Lucian, a pagan, had to say about the Christians.

The poor wretches have convinced themselves, first and foremost, that they are going to be immortal and live for all time, in consequence of which they despise death and even willingly give themselves into custody, most of them. Furthermore, their first lawgiver [Jesus] persuaded them that they are all brothers of one another after they have transgressed once for all by denying the Greek gods and by worshipping that crucified sophist himself and living under his laws.[1]

This is most interesting. Among the beliefs and behaviors that Lucian found strange were:

• The Christian belief in eternal life.
• The Christian disregard for death
• The Christian rejection of all other gods but Jesus.
• The Christian veneration of the crucified Christ
• The Christian adherence to the way of Jesus.
• The Christian belief that followers of Jesus somehow form a new family.

His wording is telling: Jesus “persuaded them that they are all brothers of one another.” Lucian says this scoffingly as if these poor, deluded Christians have been duped into a new conception of family that is purely fictional.

In general, I would like to say that Lucian offers a pretty good description of the Christian faith, whatever his motive, intent, and tone were. We do indeed believe that once you reject all other gods and come to Jesus in faith you are bound together with all other followers of Jesus into a new family, that you do indeed become brothers and sisters of one another.

Joseph Hellerman did a study of the letters of Paul in the New Testament and discovered that Paul makes 139 references to “brothers” in relation to the members of the churches. That is 139 references to “brothers” in 13 letters.[2] The New Testament is fairly saturated with this idea: the church is a family.

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Matthew 25

³¹ “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. ³² Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. ³³ And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. ³⁴ Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. ³⁵ For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, ³⁶ I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ ³⁷ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? ³⁸ And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? ³⁹ And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ ⁴⁰ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ ⁴¹ “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. ⁴² For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, ⁴³ I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ ⁴⁴ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ ⁴⁵ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ ⁴⁶ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

There is a cartoon from an old issue of Leadership Journal that made me chuckle a bit. We are viewing a pastor at his pulpit staring out at his congregation and speaking to them. The words of the pastor are printed beneath: “In the twenty years I’ve been here, I feel I’ve come to know most of you pretty well.” Seated before him in the pews are his congregants: presented as interspersed sheep and goats.

It is likely the case that somebody who had not read Jesus’ words at the close of Matthew 25 would be pretty confused by the cartoon, for it is drawing on Jesus’ categorization of human beings as being either sheep or goats, that is, either the people of God or those who reject God.

Even for the believer the cartoon might be a bit problematic. After all, can pastors really claim to know who is actually a sheep and who is actually a goat? And yet, it is likely the case that, right or wrong, we all have opinions on who belongs to which group.

Ultimately, of course, only Jesus can divide the sheep from the goats. Our text reveals to us that the day will come when He will do precisely that.

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Some years ago, the liberal cultural commentator Garry Wills was complaining about what he saw as the fundamentalist religious bent of the American population. What prompted this was an election not going the way Wills thought it should have. He was not happy, to put it mildly. In order to prove how unhinged and stupid Americans are, he chose an interesting example. Richard John Neuhaus wrote of Wills’ argument:

[Wills’] clinching argument…is the fact that more Americans believe in the virgin birth than in Darwinism. “Can a people that believes more fervently in the virgin birth than in evolution still be called an Enlightened nation?”[1]

Now, that is a most interesting question! Can you be an intelligent, enlightened person and believe in the virgin birth?

I want to answer that this morning with an emphatic “Yes!” In fact, I want to argue that if you are enlightened you will believe in the virgin birth, for it was taught in the scriptures, has been rightly heralded by the church, and is important to our understanding of who God is and what He has done for us in and through the person of His Son, Jesus.

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John 1

¹⁴ And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

In the year 451, Christian leaders from around the world met to consider an important question about Jesus. Over one hundred years before, at the Council of Nicea, they had answered another very important question: Is Jesus God? Yes, they answered. Jesus is God. But that gave rise to another question: How can God become a man? What does that look like? Does Jesus cease being God because He becomes a man? Or did He remain God in His incarnation and His humanity was essentially a façade?

This was the question that the Christians who gathered at the Council of Chalcedon met to answer. And they formulated their answer in what is known today as The Chalcedonian Definition or The Chalcedonian Creed. I would like you to hear their answer, but, before I read their answer, a plea: Do not be overwhelmed. Do not be discouraged. This was written a long, long time ago. The language is going to sound strange. Yet, this is important, and we need to remember the good work of these Christians.

Here is what they said:

We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach men to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly God and truly man, of a reasonable soul and body; consubstantial with us according to the manhood; in all things like unto us, without sin; begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the virgin Mary, the mother of God, according to the manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the prophets from the beginning have declared concerning him, and the Lord Jesus Christ himself taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers has handed down to us.[1]

Now, as I said, that is a mouthful to be sure! But I would like to say something to us this morning: This strange and wordy statement is our inheritance and I want to show that it is a very valuable inheritance indeed! I want to show this: The Christians at Chalcedon were correct and their essential formulation matters. It is this: Jesus has two natures in one person and is fully God and fully man.

I believe that the Chalcedonian definition is fundamentally biblical and strong and true. But I do believe that maybe there is an easier way for us to understand why it is important that Jesus be fully God and fully man, having two natures in one person. And the way I would like to do this is by arguing three things:

1. Jesus had something to accomplish as man.
2. Jesus had something to accomplish as God.
3. But to accomplish these things, it was necessary that Jesus be fully God and fully man, one person with two natures.

Let us consider these three assertions.

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Matthew 25

¹⁴ “For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. ¹⁵ To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. ¹⁶ He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. ¹⁷ So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. ¹⁸ But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master’s money. ¹⁹ Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. ²⁰ And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here, I have made five talents more.’ ²¹ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ ²² And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me two talents; here, I have made two talents more.’ ²³ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ ²⁴ He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, ²⁵ so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.’ ²⁶ But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? ²⁷ Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. ²⁸ So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. ²⁹ For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. ³⁰ And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

I love a good sermon illustration. I remember some of the better ones I heard as a kid long ago. A good illustration rightly placed can help drive home a gospel truth in a powerful way. Maybe that is why Jesus told so many stories!

One of the most memorable illustrations I have ever heard is actually a modern one. It was shared on May 20, 2000, in Memphis by John Piper. I am speaking of his famous “seashell” illustration. A Gospel Coalition article entitled “How John Piper’s Seashells Swept Over a Generation” recounts what Piper told his audience that day.

Three weeks ago, we got news at our church that Ruby Eliason and Laura Edwards were killed in Cameroon. Ruby Eliason—over 80, single all her life, a nurse. Poured her life out for one thing: to make Jesus Christ known among the sick and the poor in the hardest and most unreached places.

Laura Edwards, a medical doctor in the Twin Cities, and in her retirement, partnering up with Ruby. [She was] also pushing 80, and going from village to village in Cameroon. The brakes give way, over a cliff they go, and they’re dead instantly. And I asked my people, “Is this a tragedy?”

Two women, in their 80s almost, a whole life devoted to one idea—Jesus Christ magnified among the poor and the sick in the hardest places. And 20 years after most of their American counterparts had begun to throw their lives away on trivialities in Florida and New Mexico, [they] fly into eternity with a death in moment. “Is this a tragedy?” I asked.

The crowd knew the answer, calling out, “No!”

“It is not a tragedy,” Piper affirmed. “I’ll read you what a tragedy is.”

He pulled out a page from Reader’s Digest…

‘Bob and Penny . . . took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their 30-foot trawler, play softball, and collect shells.’

“That’s a tragedy,” he told the crowd.

And there are people in this country that are spending billions of dollars to get you to buy it. And I get 40 minutes to plead with you—don’t buy it. With all my heart I plead with you—don’t buy that dream. . . . As the last chapter before you stand before the Creator of the universe to give an account with what you did: “Here it is, Lord—my shell collection. And I’ve got a good swing. And look at my boat.”

“Don’t waste your life,” he said, the words quietly tucked in before he barreled into another memorable anecdote, this one about a plaque in his home featuring C. T. Studd’s poem, “Only one life, twill soon be past / Only what’s done for Christ will last.”[1]

I encourage you to go to YouTube, type in “Piper seashells” and listen. It is indeed a powerful moment! And it is a powerful moment because it powerfully presses home something we know to be true: that it is possible to waste the life that God has given you and it is possible also to use it for great good.

In Piper’s story, he contrasts Ruby and Laura. In Jesus’ story of the talents he contrasts the faithful servants who made much of what they had been given and the unfaithful servant who squandered it.

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