Robert Smith – Page 10 – What Does This Mean?

Sunday School: Jesus as a Boy in the Temple

Encore Post: Passover is the highest holy day in Judaism. The Old Testament required all of God’s people to celebrate Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles in Jerusalem (Exodus 23:14-17) but many could not afford to be there more than once a year. Since entire communities would make the trip, they tended to travel in caravans, making the trip a joyful, almost continuous picnic.

A boy’s twelfth year is a year of joyful study. When Jesus grew up, twelve-year-old boys studied God’s word so that they could become a Bar Mitzvah — a son of God’s Covenant. When they were ready, they would read a passage from the Bible in Hebrew during a service in the synagogue Sabbath service on a Saturday. To do that, he had to learn to recite almost the whole Bible by heart. Once he completed the reading, everyone considered him a spiritual adult.

Since most of the Jewish people were in Jerusalem at the Passover, it was the custom of the faith’s leading rabbis to gather in Solomon’s porch — the courtyard Herod the Great had built around the temple proper — to teach. Jesus stayed behind in the temple to listen to them. The disciples of theses teachers asked them questions. The teacher, in turn, would ask the disciple a question. Once the student replied, the teacher would comment on the answer. Often these discussions were written down and studied as a part of the oral law — the Talmud.

The Rabbis were very impressed with Jesus’ answers. They didn’t know how a young man from far away Galilee could know so much about the Torah. In the meantime, Mary, Joseph, and their families began the trip home to Nazareth. They assumed Jesus was with his cousins. When they couldn’t find him, they went looking for him. They found him in the Temple.

When Jesus replied to Mary’s scolding, he revealed much about himself. First is he knew God was his Father. Second, that teaching was the family business that he would take up. Finally, that in perfect obedience, he followed her instructions perfectly. In this one incident, we learn something important about Jesus’ nature. He is God and Man at the same time.

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Pastor Emeritus
Fort Wayne, Indiana

Blog Post Series

Sunday School: The Holy Family Moves to Egypt

Encore Post: King Herod the Great is a figure that the Jews have mixed feelings about. He was not Jewish, although his family converted to Judaism and he was raised in that faith. He ruled because the Romans appointed him King of the Jews. He adopted a Graeco-Roman life style. In many ways, he represented everything they hated.

Yet Herod built many things that improved the lives of the Jews greatly, including its only Mediterranean port — Caesarea Maritima. His most important project was the rebuilding of the temple into its most glorious form. He was also ruthless. He killed anyone he even imagined threatened his throne, including his sons and favorite wife. A joke going around Rome at the time was that it was better to be Herod’s pig than his son. It takes little imagination to believe that he killed all of the young males in Bethlehem.

It is no wonder, then, that the arrival of the wise men from Persia upset Jerusalem, asking for the newborn King of the Jews. The talk of the Messiah was a real problem for him. This kind of thing could provide a focus for those who would rebel against him and Rome. His offer to worship the young child rings hollow to anyone who knew him.

Matthew tells us that the wise men were warned in a dream not to return to Herod. Ancient wisdom valued dreams and so they paid attention to it. For Joseph, a man named after the most famous interpreter of dreams in the Bible, the appearance of an angel in a dream for a second time moved him to act. He quickly took his family to Egypt.

A Jewish family moving to Egypt was not unusual. For centuries, the Greek rulers of Egypt were patrons of the Jewish people. Legend tells us that the second such king had commissioned the Septuagint — the Greek translation of the Bible used by Jesus and his disciples. A larger population of Jews lived in Alexandria at that time than in Jerusalem. As it turned out, they didn’t have to stay long. Herod died just a few months after he killed the innocent boys of Bethlehem. Matthew tells us the flight of the Holy Family to Egypt fulfilled the prophecy that Jesus’ life would repeat the history of the people of Israel in one person.

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Pastor Emeritus
Fort Wayne, Indiana

Blog Post Series

Sunday School: The Wise Men Worship Jesus

Encore Post: The Wise Men were scholars in Babylon, in Iraq today. One thing they studied was astrology. They saw a star that told them that a king would be born in Israel. So they went to see Him. They did not arrive on Christmas Eve at all, but a few months to a year afterward. They found Mary and Jesus at home in a house.

There are lots of theories as to what the Star of Bethlehem actually was. Some scholars think it was a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, which appeared to approach each other in the sky three times around the time Jesus was born. Others point to the conjunction of Jupiter and Venus, which occurred about the same time. Also suggested has been comets, novas and other signs in the sky. Any of these would inspire ancients who believed in astrology to go visit the newborn king. It may not have been any of these. Christian scholars have pointed out that God was quite able to create a star to use just for the birth of his son.

Assuming a newborn King of the Jews would be in King Herod’s palace, it made sense to visit him. What they didn’t know is that, in the last few months of his life, Herod was very paranoid. He was known to kill viciously anyone, including his wife and his sons, whom he thought were planning his overthrow. So, then, when the angel warned the wise men not to go back to Herod, it was a very good thing.

Even though tradition says there were three of Wise Men (Think: We Three Kings of Orient are) no one knows how many came. Matthew doesn’t number them. Perhaps it is because they presented Jesus with three Kingly gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

They were the first Gentiles to realize Who Jesus was and to worship Him. The church celebrates the coming of the Wise Men on the twelfth and last night of the season of Christmas.

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Pastor Emeritus
Fort Wayne, Indiana

Blog Post Series

Sunday School: The Presentation of our Lord

Encore Post: Childbirth was an exciting and frightening event at the time of Jesus. Many children and their mothers died soon after a birth. When both mother and child survived the ordeal, God’s law required male children to be circumcised on the eighth day following their birth. After forty days — when the greatest danger to the life of the mother and the child had passed, they were to present themselves at the temple to make a sacrifice. For the woman, this sacrifice made her clean again and able to return to worship God.

During the time of Jesus, rabbis gathered in the temple in the court of the women, the closest to the Holy of Holies, a woman was allowed to go. They would take each child in their arms and bless them. So it was that the Holy Spirit directed Simeon to Joseph, Mary, and Jesus. The Spirit revealed to Simeon that Jesus was the coming Messiah. By the prophecy given to Him, Simeon pointed to Jesus’ mission to save both Jews and Gentiles and to the cross. Simeon’s song of joy is still sung by the church in worship.

Anna was a prophetess, like Miriam and Deborah, one of very few women God used to speak to His people. She likely served in the temple to help with a variety of tasks. In her devotion to God, she also saw Jesus and had the privilege of telling everyone that the Messiah had come.

On February 2, the Church celebrates the presentation of Jesus in the temple and the singing of Simeon’s song, known as the Nunc Dimittis. We also sing this song every time we celebrate the Lord’s Supper.

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Pastor Emeritus

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Blog Post Series

Sunday School: Jesus is Born

Encore Post: About one hundred years before Jesus was born, the Jewish people rebelled against the Greek king of Syria and won their freedom. To this day, the Jewish people celebrate that event during the season of Hanukkah. At that time, people from the area around Jerusalem and Bethlehem settled in Galilee and built little towns like Nazareth. Likely the grandparents or great-grandparents of Mary and Joseph settled there. When the Roman rulers of Palestine required all its peoples to register in their home towns, Joseph and Mary had to travel the 80 to 90 miles to Bethlehem on foot. The census was an achievement of pride for Augustus Caesar. The emperor had it inscribed on his tombstone. It likely took decades to complete — especially on the edges of the empire and in its client kingdoms.

When Mary and Joseph arrived in the small town of David, there was no room for them to stay in any of their homes. The word the King James Version translated “inn” means something more general that a place to rent a room. It means more like, “guest room.” So likely one of their relatives let them stay in the stable — actually a fairly warm and somewhat private place to give birth in that day. The people of Bethlehem had built their homes into the caves on the hillside, a very efficient way to maintain steady temperatures year round and protect people and their home animals from the elements.

Our traditional crèches show the scene more like it would have been if Jesus had been born in medieval Germany rather than Roman First Century Judea. Because most people in the middle ages could not read, art work told all the stories of the birth of Jesus together in one scene. They often include a baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, a manger with hay, cattle, sheep, donkeys and camels, shepherds, wise men and their gifts. Yet it is unlikely that the original scene was that crowded. Most families in that time and place likely would have, at most, a donkey and sheep — no cattle.

Shepherds were common folk, looked down on as working-class people are looked down on today. Those on the night shift would not be a group to which an announcement from the throne of God would be made. Yet the angel, God’s ambassador, announced the birth of his son, chose them.

Martin Luther summed it up in a Christmas Sermon:

If Christ had come with trumpets sounding; If he had a cradle of gold, His birth would have been a stately thing. But it wouldn’t comfort me. So, He had to lay in a poor girl’s lap and be scarcely noticed by the world. In that lap I can come to see Him; In this way He now reveals Himself to the distressed. Yes, He would’ve had greater fame, if He’d have come in great power, splendor, wisdom and high class. Yet, He will come some day, in another way, when He comes to oppose the great nobles. But now He comes to the poor, who need a Savior.

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Pastor Emeritus
Fort Wayne, Indiana

Blo g Post Series

Sunday School: Mary and Elizabeth

Blog Post: At first glance, Mary and Elizabeth do not seem to have much in common — other than King David as their common ancestor. Mary was a very young woman, barely out of childhood. Elizabeth was very old and had no children. Mary lived on the outskirts of the Holy Land, out in small town Galilee. Elizabeth is at the center of Jewish life, the wife of a priest, living in the bedroom communities of Jerusalem. It is clear that the women knew of each other, but not that they knew each other. Elizabeth’s pregnancy is an obvious blessing from God. Everyone knew her to have been barren until old age — like mother Sarah. Mary was a teenager pregnant outside of marriage. Likely everyone assumed Joseph was a bit too eager and frowned upon it.

One thing is sure. A prompt visit to a distant relative was a wise thing, — it allowed the community a chance to calm down about something they didn’t approve of. So imagine the joy of yet another miracle. The Holy Spirit filled Elizabeth. The baby John the Baptist, still in her womb, recognized the presence of the Messiah, still in her cousin’s womb, and leaps for joy. Elizabeth suddenly knew the full truth — that God had become a man in the womb of her young relative. She was the God Bearer, the Mother of God. God had kept his promise — the Messiah had come to save his people from their sin.

Mary responded to Elizabeth With thanksgiving to God. She sings the first song in Luke’s musical. Called the Magnificat, which we sing in Vespers services. In this song, she marvels God has so richly blessed a poor girl. She remains with Elizabeth for three months.

The early church fathers saw something special in the faith of these two women. Both of them believed what God revealed to them from the very start. Their husbands — Zechariah and Joseph — at first doubted. In the end, all four of them firmly trusted in God, who finally came to save — and did so through two very unlikely women, neither of whom should have conceived, one very young and one very old.

Blog Post Series

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Pastor Emeritus

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Sunday School: Mary and the Angel

Encore Post: In the small town of Nazareth, not far from the Sea of Galilee, the Angel Gabriel appeared a second time. He visited a young girl, likely about twelve to fourteen years old. Mary of Nazareth was preparing for her marriage. Her parents and Joseph’s parents had likely arranged their wedding years before.

Like all the Jewish families in the area, her ancestors had settled there when God’s people won their independence from the Greek rulers of Syria about one hundred and fifty years before. They were from David’s town of Bethlehem, near to Jerusalem, and descended from King David. She was related to Elizabeth, the wife of Zechariah, to whom Gabriel had appeared just six months earlier.

Just as startled as Zechariah, Mary responded very differently. The elderly priest had doubted God’s word, sent by his messenger. If anything, the message brought to her was even harder to believe. She was a virgin, and she knew what everyone knew — it takes a man and a woman to conceive a baby. However, she did not doubt the word of God’s angel. She didn’t even ask why. She asked how. When told the Holy Spirit would cast his shadow over her, as he did in the beginning, over the face of the deep, she consented. “I am God’s slave,” she said. “Let it be.” And it was. The eternal Son, God of God, Light of Light, became a baby in her womb.

She would treasure this visit it her heart. She would need that strength. Difficult days lay ahead. Her Joseph would doubt. Wouldn’t you if your beloved said, “Good news! We will have a baby. No, obviously he’s not yours. He’s God’s son. An angel told me!” He would plan to divorce her until an angel appeared to him. A Jewish man named Joseph knew better than to doubt dreams!

Yet it meant the first century equivalent of a shot-gun wedding, whispered gossip in the shadows, a quick visit to cousin Elizabeth until everything calmed down and long, uncomfortable walks while very pregnant. Yet God’s word was enough for her. She was blessed to bear and raise God’s Son. He would suffer and die while she watched. Yet she knew what his name meant: he would save his people from their sins. She would indeed be blessed — and honored by God’s people as the Mother of God himself.

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Pastor Emeritus
Fort Wayne, Indiana

Blog Post Series

Sunday School: Angel in the Temple

Encore Post: Four Hundred years had passed since the prophet Malachi spoke to God’s people. God had been silent all those years, but had not been idle. Now an elderly priest named Zechariah was chosen to burn incense in the Holy Place of the temple, right outside the Holy of Holies. The Angel Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God himself appeared to Zechariah to announce the miraculous birth of a son. He was to be named John (God’s gift) and would fulfill Malachi’s last prophecy to send a herald to prepare the way of the Messiah. The last time this angel appeared, he brought dreams to Daniel.

You’d think Zechariah, who should have known better, would accept the news that he would have a son with joy. Yet that, like Abraham, he would have a child in his old age, when he was barren, was too much. Gabriel punished him by taking his voice until the day his son was to be circumcised.

When John was born, his relatives asked Zachariah what name to give his son. Zechariah wrote on a Roman wax tablet, “His name is John.” Then the silence of God was broken. Zechariah prophesied about the coming salvation and the role his son would play. We sing this prophecy in the liturgy of morning prayer. It is called the Benedictus. This old priest was, therefore, the second last prophet of the Old Testament. His son, who we know as John the Baptist, would be the last and greatest.

John the Baptist had almost all the credentials to be the Messiah. His Father was a priest, descended from Aaron. His mother was related to Mary, the mother of Jesus, and so descended from King David. Gabriel the Archangel announced his birth in the temple, while his father was offering the prayers of the people to God. Both of his parents were very old, like Abraham and Sarah, and barren, like Hannah, the mother of Samuel. God named him in the same way he named Isaac and changed Jacob’s name to Israel. The angel announced he would come in the spirit and power of Elijah, one of the greatest prophets. Yet from the very start, he and his parents understood John was not the Messiah, but the one who would reveal him to the world and prepare the way for him.

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Pastor Emeritus

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Blog Post Series

Preparation of the Gospel: The Peace of Rome

Encore Post: After the defeat of Marc Anthony and Cleopatra, Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, great nephew and adopted son of Julius Caesar, had gained sole control of the Roman Republic. With a combination of political skill and military power, he unified a badly divided empire. Having the Roman Republic declare him first citizen and give him the title Augustus, the Son of God (meaning Julius Caesar), he gained absolute power with the trappings of the Republic. This political unity would more or less hold for two hundred years. Successfully pushing warfare to the edges of the Empire, Augustus established the Pax Romana — the Peace of Rome.

This peace was a great blessing in the Mediterranean world. Travel was free of political barriers. A network of durable roads was constructed from Rome to the edges of the empire. Many of these are still in use today. Roman culture gave status to rulers and rich people who constructed public buildings, works like aqueducts, baths, theatres and temples, resulting in a sustained construction boom. A unified currency made trade relatively easy to conduct.

Rome was justly proud of its unified legal code, which, except for the highest levels of society, was stable and, for the most part, objectively enforced. Being a practical people, Romans adopted and adapted Greek culture and language. Where possible, Rome preferred to allow local nations to rule themselves, as long as they paid their taxes, were politically loyal, raised troops when needed and bowed to Roman law when it conflicted with their traditions.

God prepared the way for his son by establishing this common government. It allowed the apostles to fan out quickly across the whole of the Mediterranean World with the Gospel. It protected St. Paul in Jerusalem and allowed his appeal to the Emperor. The census of Caesar Augustus brought the holy family to Bethlehem. It assured the fulfillment of prophecy by sending the true Son of God to the cross rather than to death by stoning. It placed objective guards at his tomb to witness to his resurrection.

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Pastor Emeritus

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Blog Post Series

Preparation for the Gospel: The Herods of Edom

Encore Post: When Christians think of the Herods, Herod the Great comes to mind first of all of them. He is, after all, the villain of the Christmas story. But the story of the Herods begins with his father, Antipater.

Antipater was an Idumean (Edomite; descendants of Esau) noble. When the Hasmonean rulers of Judah expanded into Edom, they forced them all into converting to Judaism. When the royal descendents fought over the throne, Antipater convinced Roman General Pompey to support Hyrcanus II. With Roman assistance, his prince won the dynastic conflict and reigned in Judea — now a Roman client state. Antipater sent his son to Rome to be educated and then put Herod over Galilee as governor and Herod’s brother over Judah. During Rome’s civil wars, Antipater first supported Pompey, then Caesar, who made him a Roman citizen, then Cassius. The result was to put Judea in the Roman orbit, but as self-ruling, prospering, and growing in size.

At his father’s death, Herod the Great assumed the throne of Judea and married into the Hasmonean family. He became a loyal supporter first of Marc Anthony, then Octavian (Augustus). He kept the peace in Roman fashion — with cruel, violent action. He was an avid builder, whose works enhanced the lives of his subjects, — Jew and Gentile. His unwavering support of Roma brought one advantage after another to Judea. His people both loved and loathed him. In his later years, he had to root out one plot after another, leading him to become quite paranoid about his throne. Convinced his wife Mariame and their sons plotted to kill him, he had them executed.

Hid greatest building accomplishment was to rebuild the Holy Temple into a wonder of the ancient world, beautiful and magnificent. God used him to prepare for his son with the bringing of Roman peace to Judea, improving its infrastructure, rebuilding the temple and by his killing of the infants of Bethlehem, propel the Holy Family to move to Egypt.

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Pastor Emeritus
Fort Wayne, Indiana