Filter – Tawa Baptist

Scripture: Luke 24:36-49

Title: A New Filter

Structure:

Introduction
From fear to joy
From doubt to understanding
From disbelief to witness
Conclusion

Introduction:

I’m thinking of a word ending in ‘R’ – six letters. Can anyone tell me what it is?

– You find these everywhere: in sunglasses, in car engines, in coffee machines, swimming pools, fish tanks and cigarette butts.
– You even have one in your brain. Any guesses?
– I’ll give you some more clues: purify, refine, sieve, sift, strain, winnow
– That’s right, the word I’m thinking of is ‘filter’

The purpose of a filter is to remove or separate that which is not wanted

– Ideally a filter lets the good things through and keeps the bad things out

We might not be aware of it but each of us has a filter, in our mind, which automatically accepts some things and excludes others

– Having a filter is not a bad thing – we need a filter, we can’t let everything in all the time
– When we are young we tend to have less of a filter – we accept most things without question
– But as we get older our filter gets blocked or dirty, with bad experiences, and we become a bit fussy about what we accept – more things are automatically excluded. When that happens we need a new filter

Our Scripture reading this morning comes from Luke 24, verses 36-49

– This passage describes what happened when the risen Jesus appeared to his disciples the evening of the first Easter Sunday
– Already it has been a long day for the disciples – Earlier that morning the women had gone to Jesus’ tomb and found it empty
– Two angels appeared to them and explained that Jesus had risen from the dead – the women reported this to the other disciples
– Later, the same day, the risen Jesus himself appeared to two of his followers on the road to Emmaus
– These two disciples didn’t recognise Jesus at first – they had seen Jesus die just three days before and so their filter excluded the possibility of talking with Jesus now
– It wasn’t until Jesus broke bread with them that they suddenly accepted that Jesus was alive
– Then Jesus disappeared and the two disciples returned to Jerusalem to tell the eleven. It’s at this point we pick up the story…

While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in their presence. He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.” Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate this Scripture.

In this reading the risen Jesus gives his disciples a new filter

– He helps them to move from fear to joy
– From doubt to understanding
– And from disbelief to witness

From fear to joy:

Some of you may be into Snap Chat – I’m not but each to their own

– With Snap Chat you are able to put different filters on your photo to change your appearance – give yourself glasses, make yourself look like a dog or a gangster or a cartoon character, or whatever
– Normally a filter takes things out – it excludes things – but Snap Chat filters seem to add things in and distort the true picture
– The unconscious mental filters we have in our mind are bit like Snap Chat – as well as taking things out, they add things in.
– We call that stereotyping or prejudice
– For many years women were excluded from voting because men had a filter which said women were not competent to vote
– Most of us don’t cope well with the unknown and so, to prevent the vacuum from being filled with fear, we add in our own assumptions and beliefs which are often untrue.

Sometimes I wonder what kind of filter people apply to us when they learn we are Christian

– Do they see us as a person of light with angel eyes and a halo of golden butterflies fluttering over our head
– Or do they see us as a bit scary, judgemental and angry
– Neither of these pictures are fair or true

Verse 37 (of Luke 24) tells us, the disciples’ initial reaction to seeing Jesus in the room with them was one of shock & fear – they thought they were seeing a ghost, a spirit without a body

– They had seen Jesus killed and so their mental filter excluded the possibility that he could be alive and blindly adopted the prevailing cultural belief of the day – that the human soul is released from the body when a person dies and floats around in a disembodied state
– Their assumption was false but they lacked an alternative.

Jesus deals with their fear by engaging the disciples’ senses

– He speaks so they can hear him and recognise his voice
– He identifies himself by his scars – showing them his hands and his feet where the nails had been
– He offers his body for the disciples to touch if they want to
– And Jesus eats some fish in their presence so they can see he has an actual body – that he isn’t a phantom
– In doing this Jesus is giving his disciples physical evidence that he is alive and well.

Jesus is also doing some very practical things to calm his disciples’ fear

– When someone is having a panic attack you can help them by speaking calmly to them, pointing out something in the environment that is real, gently touching their arm, and offering them something to eat or drink
– Anything really that engages their physical senses and puts them in touch with the reality around them so they stop focusing on the fear inside.

Jesus’ strategy works – he manages to calm the disciples down so their fear gives way to ‘joy & amazement’ – but their unconscious filter is strong and they struggle to accept the fact of Jesus’ resurrection – ‘doubts rise in their minds’

From doubt to understanding:

Now doubt sometimes gets a bad rap in Christian circles and while doubt certainly has its downside, it also serves an important purpose

– If our filter becomes blocked – if it excludes too many possibilities – then we run the risk of going through life convinced we are right only to learn, at some point, we were wrong
– Doubt is a good thing when our filter is too narrow – doubt causes us to question and test our assumptions.

The fact the disciples can’t believe Jesus is alive, at first, proves they were convinced of his death in the first place

– The prerequisite to believing in Jesus’ resurrection is believing in his death
– So the strength of the disciples’ doubt proves Jesus’ death, which paves the way for believing in his resurrection

Doubt clears a path for faith – doubt actually makes room for understanding

– If we are too firmly fixed in our ideas & beliefs then those ideas & beliefs have no room to grow
– Robyn bought me a kowhai plant as a present one year
– It came in a small plastic container about 15cm’s in diameter
– That little pot was fine for a while but it didn’t allow the roots to spread or the plant to grow
– So I transplanted the kowhai to a barrel about a metre wide and it took off, until that became too small and now it’s planted in the backyard.

If we think of our understanding of God as a growing tree then, inevitably, our faith’s understanding will get to a point when the little pot it was planted in is too small and needs more room to put out roots and grow

– Doubt is what tells us the pot is too small – doubt challenges (perhaps even breaks) the little pot of our fixed ideas and beliefs
– Sometimes we mistakenly think the little pot in which our faith was first planted is all there is and we ignore the voice of doubt which is prompting us to transplant into a more spacious understanding of God.

Having said that, not all doubt is good – when doubt is intentional or leads to worry or paralysis of faith then it becomes a cruel master

– But when doubt challenges our presuppositions about what is possible
– When doubt dismantles our filter, removing the blockages to belief and enlarging our perspective on the truth, then it is our servant
– Perhaps this is why Jesus asks, ‘Why do doubts arise in your minds?’
– By acknowledging the presence of doubt and bringing it out into the open Jesus puts doubt in its proper place – he makes it serve his disciples

Verse 41 tells us the disciples still did not believe (even after seeing Jesus) because of ‘joy and amazement’

– In other words, they liked the thought that Jesus was alive and wanted to accept this but were being cautious because the idea seemed ‘too good to be true’
– This implies the disciples’ doubt was not cynical or sinister
– Their doubt was simply a form of self-preservation – they didn’t want to get their hopes up too quickly and have those hopes disappointed again
– After all their hope had just recently been crushed by Jesus’ crucifixion

It’s strange isn’t it how we often find loss & pain more convincing than joy – bad news is easier to believe than good news

– When we drill down into it we discover that trusting ourselves is actually more difficult than trusting God
– It was in the disciples’ interest to believe that God had raised Jesus from the dead, which is precisely why they struggled with it
– How can they trust themselves?
– How can they know their belief is not based on wishful thinking or self-interest?

Well, Jesus seems to understand this and so he points to the Bible as an objective independent verifier of the truth

– If the disciples can’t trust their own judgment then they can at least trust the testimony of Scripture – in verse 44 we read…

“This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”

– Which is another way of saying, ‘This was God’s plan all along’

If we think of the Bible as a map book or a Satellite Navigation System or GPS, then Jesus is the destination

– The purpose of the Bible is to point to Jesus – to help people find Jesus
– Jesus’ coming into the world fulfils the purpose of the Bible, just like reaching your destination fulfils the purpose of a map or a Sat Nav device

Verse 45 tells how Jesus then opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. In other words, Jesus gave his disciples a new filter

– He transplanted the kowhai plant of their faith into a much bigger pot

– He showed them a larger portion of the map so they could see how all roads of Scripture lead to him

He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem…”

Before Jesus died the disciples’ filter excluded the possibility that he would be crucified, then after he had died their filter excluded the possibility he would be raised from the dead to eternal life – theirs was a kind of ‘either / or’ thinking

– If he is crucified then he can’t be the Messiah

– If he dies then he can’t live again

– But Jesus helps his disciples to think in terms of ‘both / and’

– Jesus can be the Messiah and be crucified

– Jesus can die and be raised to life

– It’s not ‘either / or’ – it’s ‘both /and’

– Both repentance and forgiveness will be preached in Jesus’ name,

– Both Israel and all the other nations will hear the good news preached

So what does this mean for us?

– Well, we are faced with essentially the same sorts of questions

For example, ‘How can God be love when there is so much suffering in the world?’

– Or to make it more personal. ‘How can God love me when I’m suffering?’ It’s not either / or – it’s both / and

– God loves us and allows us to suffer

– The Bible doesn’t offer any explanation as to why a God of love allows suffering – it simply maintains that both are true

– So if we are suffering in some way it does not mean that God doesn’t love us anymore – but it could mean we are entering into a greater intimacy with God, we are getting closer to Him

– When we consider how much God suffers it is little wonder that we would suffer too as we draw closer to Him

Repentance & forgiveness also go together

– Forgiveness is about letting go – it’s about being set free from something

– And repentance is a change of attitude which leads to a change of behaviour

– We can’t have forgiveness (or freedom) without repentance

– If nothing changes, then nothing changes

Some people want forgiveness without repentance but it doesn’t work like that

– I can’t expect to be free from a hangover if I keep drinking too much, just like I can’t expect to get fit by lying on the couch

– Once I repent though, I can expect the release of forgiveness

In contrast to those who want forgiveness without repentance there are some who do the repentance but then don’t forgive themselves

– Sometimes we are slow to let ourselves off the hook

– How long are you going to carry your guilt around?

– Jesus died so we wouldn’t have to do that

From disbelief to witness:

In verses 48 & 49 Jesus says to his disciples…

– You are witnesses of these things. I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”

Just as Scripture is fulfilled by Jesus, so too the purpose of the disciples’ lives is fulfilled by Jesus

– They have heard Jesus’ message of repentance & forgiveness, they have witnessed Jesus’ ministry, his suffering, death and resurrection – now it is their job to tell others what they’ve seen and heard

– But before they bear witness they need to wait for power from on high – they need to wait for the Holy Spirit in other words

– Here we have another ‘both / and’

– Our witness for Jesus and the Holy Spirit go together – without the power of God’s Spirit our witness falls flat

For a number of years I thought my job as a Christian was to convert people – to get people to believe in Jesus and become like him

– What I learned is that by myself I can’t change a hair of my own head let alone anyone else’s heart

– It is not our job to convert people – the most we can do is bear witness to the love & truth of Christ

– It’s the Holy Spirit who converts people – it’s the Holy Spirit who brings repentance and change, and who convinces people they are forgiven

Let me tell you a true story, from New Zealand’s history [1]

– In the 1820’s the Nga Puhi tribe (from Northland) came down to the East Cape (near Gisborne) and raided the Ngati Porou

– During the raid they captured a young man called Piripi Taumata-a-Kura

– The Nga Puhi took Piripi back to Northland and made him a slave

– While he was there Piripi met the English missionary Henry Williams, who taught Piripi how to read and introduced him to the stories of Jesus

– At the time no one really thought much about Piripi – he was a slave, which meant he was on the bottom rung, so people filtered him out.

About ten years passed during which time the Spirit of Jesus was opening Piripi’s mind to understand the Scriptures

– Then one day, in 1833, a vicious storm off the East Cape blew a ship from Piripi’s hometown all the way up to Nga Puhi territory in Northland.

– The ship came ashore near where Piripi was held captive

– The Nga Puhi captured the Ngati Porou leaders, intending to make them slaves, but Henry Williams talked the chiefs out of that idea

– Instead they were allowed to receive instruction from the Waimate mission station, just as Piripi had

– The influence of the gospel softened the hearts of the Nga Puhi captors and after eight months the Ngati Porou leaders were released

– Piripi sailed home with the leaders from his tribe

When their ship arrived back at Rangitukia (on the East Cape) the people were completely stunned – after 10 years they had assumed Piripi was dead (their filter had excluded his survival)

– Getting all the men back alive was like a miracle of resurrection

On the first evening of his return Piripi Taumata-a-Kura held a prayer service and sent word throughout the area, inviting people to come and hear his story

– The very next day Piripi preached the first sermon on the East Coast, sharing the good news of Jesus with his tribe

– Piripi and those who had returned with him preached the gospel up and down the East Cape years before any Pakeha missionaries arrived

When the English missionary William Williams came to the East Coast in 1838 he saw the effects of Piripi’s witness and wrote:

– A great work has been accomplished in which the hand of the Lord has been… manifest. It has not been through the labour of your missionaries; for the word has only been preached by Native teachers. We had literally stood still to see the salvation of God.

Piripi is someone who wouldn’t make it through most people’s filters

– He was someone no one would expect and therefore perfect for dismantling filters

– Piripi suffered like Jesus suffered

– Piripi’s story is one of slavery and redemption, suffering and new life

– He bore witness to the truth he had received and the power of God’s Spirit did the rest

Conclusion:

Easter Sunday is the day we remember anew the miracle of Jesus’ resurrection

– It is a day to change our filter – to reset our assumptions about what is possible and let God open our minds to the largeness of his purpose

Let us pray: Loving Father, move us by your Spirit from fear to joy, from doubt to understanding and from disbelief to witness. In the powerful name of Jesus we pray. Amen.

Questions for discussion or reflection:

1.) What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon?

– Why do you think this stood out to you?

2.) Why do we need a (mental) filter – how does this help us?

– When does a filter become detrimental and need replacing?

3.) How did Jesus move his disciples from a state of shock & fear to joy & amazement?

– What are some practical things we can do to help someone who is having a panic attack?

4.) When is doubt a good thing?

– When is doubt not a good thing?

5.) Has God ever transplanted your faith’s understanding into a larger pot?

– What happened? How did God do this? What change took place in you?

6.) Discuss (or reflect on) the relationship between repentance and forgiveness

7.) What does the story of Piripi Taumata-a-Kura teach us?

– How might God give us a new filter?

[1] From Jay Ruka’s book, ‘Huia Come Home’, pages 47-49.