Well, it's 75 days and counting! 75 days that is until the Millennium. And it is a time Christians should be constantly reminding themselves- not less taking the opportunity to remind others that the year number changes to 2,000 because- give or take a year or two's error in calculating our calendar, it is 2,000 years since the Lord Jesus Christ came as man to this earth.

The Son of God came to earth, and might we not expect that the religious leaders of the day; the religious élite of the day would not immediately have recognised him for who he was- the long-expected Messiah of God and would have welcomed him? Now, whether they recognised him or not we don't know. Actually the suspicion must be that they did; we find them going out of the way to deny it. Yet we also find figures like Nicodemus come on the scene who say to Jesus such things as:
  Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no-one
  could perform the miraculous signs that you are doing if God were not with
  him.
The clear inference of the Gospel account is that they did recognise Jesus as one 'who has come from God'. Yet the clear account also shows that rather than welcoming their God with open arms, they become bitterly opposed to him.  And we find that the opposition was mutual; though let’s hasten to remind ourselves that the Lord was only opposed to them because of their wilful and stubborn refusal to acknowledge him. Rather than acknowledge and welcome him, the religious élite were constantly on the lookout for ways to trip Our Lord and Saviour up. This evening's Gospel reading is but one of many such occasions. Small wonder that were we to read on into Matthew chapter 23 we find Jesus addressing them thus:
   Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!
That is the judgment of the Lord Jesus Christ upon them. Hypocrites! Play actors
  Now, the Pharisees were good, upright people, good religious leaders, and yet the God whom they professed to follow and teach about addressed them as 'hypocrites' Play actors; just playing a part and not entering into it; not living it.

The crowds, the people at large on the other hand welcomed Jesus. They followed him from town to town all round Galilee. When he rode into Jerusalem on donkey-back at the end in a fulfilment of prophecy, the popular people again welcomed him.
  Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord.
Yet, we know how fickle they could be. But days later in Pilate's courtyard, egged on by the religious leaders, they called for Jesus' blood.
  The ones Jesus specially welcomed were the real outcasts; the notorious sinners. We can find them throughout the Gospels:
-the woman at the well in Samaria; a Samaritan for starters; a woman who was an outcasts who had to go to draw water in the heat of the day, for she knew the kind of reception she would get at other times
-Matthew, a tax-collector. Tax collectors are never popular and much less so among the Jews in Jesus' day for they collected taxes for the occupying Romans and extorted extra money which they could cream off for themselves. Matthew who became one of the Twelve and who gives his name to tonight's Gospel.
  The 'publican'- the 'sinner' in the Temple.
These were the ones whom Jesus especially loved and welcomed. The crowds- well they were impressed by signs and miracles but easily became turncoats. John 6:66 we read many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. They liked the miracle-worker but not the demands his teaching made! Let's not fail to heed the lesson there! No the ones who were special to Jesus were the ones who turned in love to him without any pre-suppositions and opened their hearts to him. Let's not fail to heed the lesson there! For the central lesson here and the central lesson in tonight's Gospel is that we may fool ourselves; God we will never fool. If we come to God in anything other than utter honesty, we fool ourselves; we are being hypocrites. God doesn't require that we come to him religiously-correct. He doesn't require that we come to him morally lily-white. He doesn't require that we come to him staggering under a load of good works. What he does require is that we come to him in honesty.

So, how does this evening's Gospel reading tie in with all this? What does it say to us? The Pharisees come to Jesus with a question, which on the face of it was a straightforward enquiry. But in actual fact they were trying to put Jesus into a kind of 'Catch 22' situation. They thought they had got him in a position which either answer would place him in a no-win situation. Either they would make him unpopular with the crowd or else they could level a charge of treason against him. Jesus, having asked for the tax coin, specially minted for the purpose and, of course, with the Emperor's head on the obverse draws the sting right out of the situation and turns the question round on it's posers.:
   Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's
Now at this point we need to note that the word translated as 'give' is better translated as 'give back'  (Give back to God what is God's). This is the kernel of Jesus' reply; it is the kernel of what God's demand on us is. As the hymn-writer has it:
              I give Thee back the life I owe
And in this the Pharisees and the religious élite generally were total hypocrites. They may have been religiously and morally correct with very respectable and organised lives; they may even have been doers of good works but in heart and in the intent of giving back to God they were miles away; they were poles apart. They were fooling God and fooling themselves, and when they tried to fool God-incarnate they found they couldn't

But, of course, the question wasn't just one for Jews or for religious leaders of the first century. Here we have an issue which addresses itself directly to all who would call themselves religious; all who practice religion; all who lead worship; all who attend places of worship. It addresses all who rely upon a life of good-works. These matters can occupy a major part of our lives; be a major focus of our lives, BUT are we right with God or are we just fooling ourselves and thinking we're fooling him?
  Religion. Oh dear! That seems to have all the 'requirements'. We pray: we address prayers to God. Let's remember that incident in the Temple recorded in Luke's Gospel. Two men, we are told, went to the Temple to pray. Jesus says The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself, or as the King James' version has it, prayed with himself. Then we attend a place of worship. We sing hymns. We say the Creed. It doesn't matter whether you burn incense, sing choruses; do both or do neither. It can all be an external performance, which does carry one iota of weight with God!  Religious performance; and moral 'correctness' can have nothing to do with the living God. There are those terrible words in the Sermon on the Mount which the Lord Jesus Christ warns will be addressed at the Last Day to many who will have claimed to worked wonders in his Name:
   I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!

We can equally strive to deceive ourselves by our good-works. This indeed is the world's view of what makes a Christian: "Oh! He lived such a good, clean Christian life". This assessment of the world should warn us that a life of good deeds can be the mark of a worldly person. We can strive and struggle thinking ourselves to gain God's favour or else to be miserably failing to do so and forever pulling ourselves up by our boot-laces. In the Sermon on the Mount what does Jesus say about 'good deeds'?
   In the same way, let your light (the light of the character described in the Beatitudes) shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven. He doesn't say: Let your good deeds shine before men. Many people, especially of a sensitive nature, break themselves and burn themselves out by constant striving after good works and moral correctness. It's to such that the Lord Jesus Christ utters his famous invitation:
  Come to me, all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest

Here we come to the heart of the Gospel. It has nothing to do with 'religion' It has nothing to do with moral rectitude. It has nothing to do with 'good works'. It has all to do with coming to Jesus in absolute honesty- anything else is useless and worse anyway- and by heart-repentance giving back to God that life we owe. Jesus Christ didn't come to this earth 2,000 years ago because the human race lacked in religious observance. He didn't come because the human race was morally corrupt. He didn't come because the human race lacked good-doers. He came because each person; man or woman lives for themselves; made by God they have usurped that God-given life. Our very continuance hangs upon God's active will. And one day we will stand before him in judgment. The only matter then will be: Have we given ourselves back to him; and that way back is- and there is NO other way, though the Lord Jesus Christ
May God give us grace to examine ourselves in this light and to be totally, absolutely honest with Him, to whom be all honour and praise. Amen
 
                                                           Back to Home Page