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Grace Church
257 Kendall Street
Burlington, WI 53105

(262) 763-3021

Email:
Pastor Scott Carson

Secretary Patti Hall

PASTOR'S PENS 2006

Grace Church of Burlington March 5, 2006 “Slay or crucify or cut the hands and the feet of the unbelievers.” Koran             In recent weeks we’ve watched violent Islamic demonstrations over Danish cartoons of Muhammad. What is easily missed is that this is another clear example of the drastic difference between Muhammad and Christ, and what it means to follow each. While not all Muslims approve of the violence, nevertheless a deep lesson remains: The work of Muhammad is based on being honored and the work of Christ is based on being insulted. And this core value produces two very different reactions to mockery.             If Jesus Christ had not been insulted, there would be no salvation. This was His saving work. Our Lord was to be insulted and die to rescue sinners from the wrath of God. Both the Psalmist and the Prophets prophesied it. “All who see me mock me; they make mouths at me; they wag their heads” (Ps 22:7). “He was despised and rejected by men ...as one from whom men hide their faces...and we esteemed Him not” (Isaiah 53:3).             But when it actually happened, it was far worse than even what had been prophesied. “They stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on His head...And kneeling before Him, they mocked him, saying, 'Hail, King of the Jews!' And they spit on Him” (Mt. 27:28-29). But Jesus’ response to all of this was patient endurance. This was the work that He came to do. As Isaiah wrote, “like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so He opened not his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7).             What a contrast too, of Muhammad. And Muslims do not believe it is true of Jesus. Most Muslims have been taught that Jesus was not crucified. One Sunni Muslim writes, "Muslims believe that Allah saved the Messiah from the ignominy of crucifixion." Another adds, "We honor [Jesus] more than you [Christians] do...We refuse to believe that God would permit him to suffer death on the cross." An essential Muslim impulse is to avoid the "ignominy" of the cross.             This is the most basic difference between Christ and Muhammad and between a Muslim and a follower of Christ. For Jesus Christ, enduring the mockery of the cross was the essence of His mission. For a true follower of Christ, enduring suffering patiently for the glory of Christ is the essence of our obedience. It’s what it means to be a Christian. As Jesus said, “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account” (Mt. 5:11). During  His life  on  earth  Jesus  was  called  a  bastard  (Jn 8:41),  a  drunkard  (Mt. 11:19), a blasphemer  (Mt. 26:65),  and even a devil (Mt. 10:25). And Jesus promised His followers the same, “If they have called the master of the house Beelzebubl, how much more will they malign those of His household” (Mt. 10:25).             What we sometimes overlook is that the caricature and mockery of Christ has continued to this day. Martin Scorsese portrayed Jesus in The Last Temptation of Christ as wracked with doubt and beset with sexual lust. Andres Serrano used National Endowment for the Arts funding to portray Jesus on a cross sunk in a bottle of urine. The Da Vinci Code portrays Jesus as a mere mortal who married and fathered children.             So how should we as His followers respond? On the one hand, we are grieved and angered. But on the other hand, we identify with our Lord, embrace His suffering, rejoice in our afflictions, and say with the apostle Paul that vengeance belongs to the Lord, let us love our enemies and win them with the gospel. If Christ did His work by being insulted, we must also do ours the same way.             When Muhammad was portrayed in 12 cartoons in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, the uproar among Muslims was intense and sometimes violent. They burned flags, torched embassies, and stoned at least one Christian church. The cartoonists went into hiding in fear for their lives, like Salman Rushdie before them. What does this mean?  It means that a religion with no insulted Savior will not endure insults to win the scoffers. It means that Islam is destined to bear the impossible load of upholding the honor of one who did not die and rise again from the dead to make that possible. It means that Jesus Christ is still the only hope of peace with God and peace with man. And it means that His followers must be willing to “share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death” (Phil. 3:10). Are you willing to suffer for His sake? That, my friend, is what it means to be a Christian.