COMMAS & PERIODS: A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH

(The following post is an inspired by a statement my wife made to me after Sunday school.  Man, I married a smart woman.)

John chapter 11 is the story of the death and resurrection of Lazarus.  Lazarus, Jesus’ friend and follower, became gravely ill.  The sickness was so serious that Lazarus’s sisters sent a messenger from their home just outside of Jerusalem in southern Judea to find Jesus in (northern) Galilee and ask Him to come heal their brother.  With the disciples watching and listening, Jesus sent the messenger back --- alone --- with an optimistic reply, “This sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it.” (v.4) 

Two days later, Jesus assembled the disciples (the 12) and announced that they were all going to Bethany so that He could wake up Lazarus.  Of course, this didn’t make sense to the disciples.  First, Bethany was Temple territory and the leaders of the Temple had already tried to kill Jesus (John 10: 30-33).  Second, if Lazarus’s fever had broken then the brother needed to rest and regain his strength. 

So Jesus then said to them plainly, “Lazarus is dead.”

Or maybe:  So Jesus then said to them plainly, “Lazarus is dead,”

See the difference? 

Depending on the translation, John 11:14 ends with a period or it ends with a comma.

The oldest manuscripts of the New Testament were written in Greek, in all capital letters, with no spaces between words, and very little punctuation.  Translators of the Bible, including the King James translators, added modern punctuation where context and their best-educated reasoning/ guess indicated punctuation was needed.*

It doesn’t matter whether you write John 11:14 with a period or with a comma, but makes a HUGE difference whether you READ John 11: 14 with a period or with a comma.

If you read it with a period, you hear that the last word on Lazarus is death.  You can hear death as the last word on your unfixable situation.  You can think, “I was so optimistic.  I believed on the promises of God.  I spoke it into the atmosphere.  By faith, I declared that this situation was not unto death, but for the glory of God; but now my hope, like Lazarus “is dead.”  Period.

But, what if it’s not a period.  A comma can end a verse, but it can’t end a sentence.  So, if you hear a comma, it means that dead is not the last word on your situation.

So Jesus then said to them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, and I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, so that you may believe; but let us go to him.”

 

Jesus went to the dead man and brought him back to life (John 11:38-43), and Lazarus’ sisters were shocked.  They had gotten Jesus’ message that “This sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it,” but it had sure looked like the end was death.  Period. 

What about you?  You prayed, didn’t you?  God replied, didn’t He?  What?  You think God was playing?

Jesus meant what He said when He told you that the END would not be death.  Jesus meant it when He told you that the end would be glory. 

Right now, your hope may be dead, but it’s not dead-period.  It’s only dead-comma. 

Resurrection is on His way.

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves 

#Awordtothewise

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

You can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his personal blog and clicking the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

*For a brief but helpful explanation of Biblical punctuation,  visit http://theaquilareport.com/punctuating-the-bible/

GOOD GUYS GONE BAD

The hero in the zombie series “The Walking Dead” is Rick Grimes, a former sheriff.    When the series began Rick had a strong moral center, a need to protect, and a desire to build something good in a world gone very, very wrong.  Often, Rick was placed in scenes opposite ruthless villains so that the audience could hear Rick’s hopeful lines in contrast to the slick, manipulative, self-justifying monologues of the villains.

But our hero Rick has changed.

The bad guy this past season was a cannibal named Garrett, whose response to one his victim’s plea for mercy was, “There is no going back, Bob."

In the mid-season finale a handcuffed, unarmed police officer begged Sheriff Grimes to take him back to the group’s camp.  Rick replied, “There is no going back, Bob.”   Then he shot him in the face.

It didn’t have to be that way.  Rick didn’t have to take it that far. 

Like the real-life Biblical figure Jephthah.

Jephthah is one of the most inspiring characters in the Bible.   He was the progeny of his father’s adulterous liaison with a prostitute.  As soon as his father died, his brothers kicked him out, and he became the leader of a street gang.  (Judges 11: 1-3)

God raised Jephthah up out of the gutter and made him the leader of the Jewish people, one of the great Judges of Israel.  Under Jephthah’s leadership, a minor clan on the neglected side of the Israelite nation freed the children of Israel from 18 years of oppression under the pagan Ammonite nation. (Judges 11: 4-33)

But along the way, Jephthah did something terrible.  He made a hasty and unnecessary promise to God, though surely it seemed like a good idea at the time.  It certainly sounded holy and pious when he said it.

And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord, and said, “If You will indeed deliver the people of Ammon into my hands, then it will be that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the people of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord’s, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering.”  (Judges 11: 30, 31)

God didn’t ask Jephthah for that promise.  God didn’t offer victory in exchange for a burnt offering.  Right before Jephthah made the vow (verse 29) God had given Spiritual assurance to Jephthah that the battle was God’s will.  He didn’t have to take it that far.

Under Jephthah's leadership, the Gileadite clan of Israel won the battle, but when Jephthah came to his house at Mizpah, there was his daughter, coming out to meet him with timbrels and dancing; and she was his only child. Besides her he had neither son nor daughter. (Judges 11:34)

In Leviticus 18:21, and Leviticus 20 God explicitly and repeatedly prohibited human sacrifice, even making such practice a capital offense; but Jephthah the man who came of age on the streets where nothing is free and you live or die by your word; Jephthah could not back down.

He killed his own daughter.  And something in this great man changed.   Jephthah had long been a warrior, but something changed.  He became a harder, morally compromised, ruthless, and broken version of the hero he had been.

In chapter 12, a group from the powerful Ephraimite tribe of Israel crossed the Jordan and confronted Jephthah.  They insulted him and his clan.  They laid claim to the treasure the Jephthah had taken in battle, and they attacked.  Jephthah’s Gileadites won the battle, but for Jephthah victory was not enough.

He set up checkpoints along the Jordan River, and had his soldiers question every man trying to cross over to the Ephraimite side. 

And when any Ephraimite who escaped said, “Let me cross over,” the men of Gilead would say to him, “Are you an Ephraimite?” If he said, “No,” then they would say to him, “Then say, ‘Shibboleth’!”

And he would say, “Sibboleth,” for he could not pronounce it right. Then they would take him and kill him at the fords of the Jordan. (Judges 12: 5, 6)

Jephthah ordered the slaughter of anyone----armed, unarmed, fighting, or surrendered------anyone who even sounded like one of the people who had dared to insult him.

They killed 42,000 fellow Jews that day.  He killed more of his people than the people he had been protecting his people from.

Did it have to be that way?  Did Jephtah have to go so far?

No.  

But each of us, like Jephthah and Rick Grimes, are just a few moral compromises from going too far.  Each of us may be just one or just one more terrible, pointless human sacrifice away from becoming the villain we thought only other people were.

“We push ourselves and let things go. Then we let some more go and then some more. And pretty soon, there's things we can't get back. Things we couldn't hold on to even if we tried.”   
--- Bob Stookey, “The Walking Dead”

Stop and remember why you started fighting in the first place.  Remember what you were supposed to be building.  Remember how you were supposed to make it better. 

Don’t let that go.

Don’t let the means dictate the end.

Don’t let yourself become the villain.

And if you already have, contrary to what some characters say, you can go back.

That’s the chapter left for every lost hero or villain to write themselves:  Redemption.  And you don't play that scene alone.

“Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the Lord, “Though your sins are like scarlet, They shall be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They shall be as wool.  (Isaiah 1: 18)

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

You can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his personal blog and clicking the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

ARTICLE 3: THE RESURRECTION

Article III - Of the Resurrection of Christ

Christ did truly rise again from the dead, and took again his body, with all things appertaining to the perfection of man's nature, wherewith he ascended into heaven, and there sitteth until he return to judge all men at the last day.

Why should it be thought incredible by you that God raises the dead?--- Paul (Acts 26: 8)

Seriously.  Why?

Christians believe in God existing infinitely without beginning or end, in God creating everything from nothing, in God enabling salvation for all people in all times through the events of a single torturous day, in God knowing everything and being everywhere all at the same time.

But some of those same “Christians” think the Resurrection is too much to be taken literally.

So God can create a body and give it life, but He couldn’t put His life back into a body He’d already created?

Really? 

Even though He’d done that kind of thing before?

You see, Jesus’ resurrection wasn’t the first.

When a Zarephathan widow’s son died, the prophet Elijah brought the child back to life (1 Kings 17:17-24).   Elijah’s protégé, Elisha, resurrected a Shunamite woman’s son when he died from an apparent brain aneurism (2 Kings 4:20-37).  In 2 Kings 13:21 a dead man revived when he was dropped on the bones in Elisha’s tomb.

During the 3 ½ years of His public ministry Jesus personally resurrected at least 3 dead people, including one who’d been dead and buried for 4 days. (Luke 7:11-16; Mark 5:35-43; John 11:1-44)

Well before that first Easter weekend, God had well established a record of physical resurrections.

Yet, In 1 Corinthian 15: 20, Paul called Jesus the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.  Colossians 1: 8 calls Him the firstborn from among the dead.

Not ”first” because resurrection had never happened before, but first because it had never happened like this.

Jesus’ resurrection, The Resurrection, was unique and precedent setting.

No one prayed over Jesus’ lifeless body.  No one touched His corpse, took His hand, or breathed onto His face.  No one dropped Him onto the bones of a prophet.  No.  His followers sealed Him in an empty, unused tomb and left.

Jesus got up from death all by Himself.

… I lay down My life that I may take it again.  No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. (John 10: 17, 18)

When He carried our sins on the cross and the rest of the Trinity had to look away. 

Now when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.

  And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” which is translated, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Mark 15: 33, 34)

Jesus carried our sins to His grave---- and left them there. 

Having dealt with sin, Jesus proceeded to kick Death’s butt.

 “O Death, where is your sting?

O Hades, where is your victory?”

The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15: 55-57)

The oneness of the Trinity remained and Jesus rose in the fullness of glory.

I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death. (Revelations 1: 18)

Jesus’ resurrection wasn’t metaphorical or “spiritual.”  He really came back in His real body.  This point is so important that Jesus went out of His physicality to the disciples.

In Luke 24: 36-43, Jesus appeared (like Bam!) to the disciples while they were hiding out from the Jews.   But they were terrified and frightened, and supposed they had seen a spirit.

Jesus wanted them to know that He wasn’t just a spirit of Himself, He was really, really Him.

So, He said to them, “Why are you troubled? And why do doubts arise in your hearts? Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.”

When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet.

But while they still did not believe for joy, and marveled, He said to them, “Have you any food here?”

 So they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish and some honeycomb. And He took it and ate in their presence.

Before Jesus, all of the people who had come back from the dead later died again.

But Jesus ?  Knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. (Romans 6: 9)

So, if we are by faith joined to Jesus Christ, then we get to participate in the same unique resurrection process.

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him. (Romans 6: 8)

Peter called Jesus the Author of life (Acts 3: 15).  By His death and resurrection, Jesus wrote us into His-story.

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live” (John 11: 25)

Like Jesus, our ultimate resurrection will not simply be a rising of the soul; it will be a resurrection of the body.

Our corrupt forms will be raised in incorruption.

Our dishonorable forms will be resurrected as glorious.

Our weak flesh will rise in power.

This made-for-death natural body will be a made-for-eternity, spiritual body. (1 Corinthians 15: 42-44)

The eaaarrrrly Sunday mo’nin’ testimony of the empty tomb is where our hope and faith begin. 

This is why with great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And great grace was upon them all (Acts 4: 33)

Jesus really, literally, physically died on the cross.  3 days and 3 nights later, Jesus really, literally, physically rose from the dead.  The 2^nd person of the Trinity, the Word of God, re-entered the mummy-wrapped body lying in another man’s tomb.  (Matthew 27: 57-60)

Approximately 33 years earlier, God formed an earthly body in Mary’s womb and made Himself the life in that body.  On Easter, God redeemed the earthly body He had worn those 3+ decades and walked the world again.  This time, though the body was perfect, like the original form made for Adam. 

Resurrected Jesus was the same Jesus who had walked and talked and eaten with his mother and siblings and disciples.    But, like Adam in Genesis 1 & 2, Jesus’ post-Resurrection body was without any taint of original sin or corruption.  As Adam and Eve could once walk safely in the direct, unfiltered presence of God (Genesis 3: 8), so now Jesus ascended bodily into the throneroom of Heaven.

And because He arose, if we have faith in Him, one day, we will, too.

Now that I think about it, that IS pretty incredible. Better yet, it’s pretty AWESOME!

---Rev. Anderson T. Graves II   (email:  atgravestwo2@aol.com )

Anderson T. Graves II is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church (5220 Myron Massey Boulevard) in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my blog at www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com  

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves