Sermon Tone Analysis

*Luke 13:10-17*

 

There is a grave in the cemetery of an Episcopal church in rural Louisiana with a 150-year-old oak tree growing out of it.

The tombstone has only one word carved on it…"Waiting."

What the disciples experienced in small scale-three days in grief over one man who had died on a cross, we now live through on cosmic scale.

Both Friday and Sunday have earned names on the church calendar: Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

Yet in a real sense we live on Saturday, the day with no name.

Human history grinds on, between the time of promise and fulfillment…waiting.

Or so we tend to think…

 

v    But here Jesus teaches us that we are not just “waiting”

Ø     That the Kingdom of God has indeed come to earth

§        And that the first sprout of evidence is among them…

 

*READ v. 10-13*

*Here we see the…*

*Kingdom Presented*

v    This is the last recorded time that Jesus is in a synagogue

Ø     He is headed to Jerusalem for the final time

§        Just months before his death on the cross

 

v    Jesus has been asked to preach at a local synagogue

Ø     Can you imagine sitting under his preaching!

§        Let’s go back in time and imagine ourselves in that building

·        Listening to Jesus preach…

Ø     He is teaching on the kingdom of God

§        Every syllable of that comes out of his mouth is full of the authority of God

§        Every word truth

§        Every interpretation accurate

§        Every explanation makes sense

§        Every application cutting right to your heart and soul

·        You are totally enthralled, sitting on the edge of your seat

¨     No thought of what time it is

v    Just as he is about to make another point, in walks the crippled woman

Ø     You all know her

Ø     She comes late every Saturday

Ø     She is bent over almost 90 degrees

Ø     Has been for as long as you can remember

 

v    Suddenly Jesus stops short and motions for the woman to come forward

Ø     You think, “Finally someone is going to reprimand her for being late!”

§        Instead Jesus looks at the audience, then at the woman and says…

·        /“Woman, you are set free from your infirmity”/

¨     He then gently puts his hands on her back

Ø     Slowly, while his hands are still places on her back, the woman straightens up perfectly

§        The woman lifts her hands toward heaven and says over and over

·        Hallelujah!

Hallelujah!

Hallelujah!

 

v    He looks around to see if anyone understands

Ø     If anyone gets it

§        We are not in a waiting pattern for the kingdom of God

·        It is here!

v    *Isa 61:1-2 *prophesied about the time of the Messiah…

Ø     /The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor./

v    Jesus has just released an oppressed prisoner…the crippled woman

Ø     Evidence that the Kingdom has arrived

§        Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, is not just a day of waiting…

·        It is a day of Action!

¨     But not to the synagogue ruler…

* *

*Look at His response…*

*Kingdom Response*

*READ v.14*

v    Saturday was the Sabbath

Ø     It was the day of rest

§        There was to be no work done on the Saturday Sabbath

 

v    But remember what Jesus had declared earlier in his ministry…

Ø     *Mk 2:27-28*

§        /Man was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath was made for man/

·        Men was not made to be a slave to Sabbath regulations

·        It was not to be a milestone around our neck

¨     But it was created to be a blessing to man

Ø     Created for mankind!

§        But the Sabbath had become a milestone

¨     That was the Pharisaic Law

Ø     Saturday had become over-regulated

¨     That was the tradition

Ø     100’s of years

¨     It was what they were accustomed to

Ø     And it is always hard to change…

 

*Illustration:*

v    Have you seen “The Terminal” with Tom Hanks

Ø     Fanciful, fun movie about a man who cannot go back to his home country and is not allowed into the US

§        He is stuck in this middle ground…

·        So he lives in the international terminal at JFK airport

¨     Can you believe that it was based on a true story?!

 

A man named Merhan Nasseri was a man without a country.

For 11 years he lived in a Paris airport.

He had no passport.

He had no citizenship.

He had no papers that enabled him to leave the airport or fly to another country.

He had been expelled from his native country of Iran.

Then he was sent away from Paris, France, because he lacked documentation.

He flew to England but was denied entry and sent back to Paris.

When he was returned to the Paris airport in1988, airport authori­ties allowed him to live in Terminal 1, and there he stayed for 11 years, writing in a diary, living off of handouts from airport employees, cleaning up the airport bathrooms.

Then in September 1999 the situation reversed.

French authorities presented Nasseri with an international travel card and a French residency permit.

Suddenly he was free to go anywhere he wanted.

But when airport officials handed him his walking papers, to everyone's surprise, he simply smiled, tucked the documents in his folder, and resumed writing in his diary.

They found he was afraid to leave the bench and table that had been his home for 11 years.

When Christ’s Kingdom presents itself, we have a move to make that can be as frightening as the move Nasseri had to make from the airport.

A move to accept the new and move away from the familiar.

(The old)

 

v    When Christ’s Kingdom presented itself to the Synagogue ruler…