Note: Here some
notes to the conclusion of last Sunday morning’s sermon, focusing on Luke 22:53b.
Finally,
Jesus declares to those who came to arrest him, “but this is your hour, and the
power of darkness” (v. 53b).
The
phrase “the hour” does not refer to chronological time but to kairos time. Earlier in his ministry, Jesus could say at
the wedding in Cana of Galilee: “Mine
hour is not yet come” (John 2:4). Now,
he says to those arresting him, it is your hour, your moment, to take me to the
cross. It is the time for the power of
darkness to be manifested. The Messiah must
be crucified. The wrath of God must be
poured out. Without the shedding of
blood there is no redemption; there is no restoration.
But Jesus
also knew that after the power of darkness would not prevail, in the end, over the
power of light. The hour when evil
triumphs will be followed by the hour when God triumphs, the hour when God has
the victory in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. In the High Priestly Prayer, Jesus says:
“Father, the hour is come: glorify they
Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee” (John 17:2).
I have
had interest in the impact of Jesus on our culture and society. It is an impact I often try to emphasize with
college students when teaching course on The
Life and Teaching of Jesus. Along these
lines, I recently finished an interesting book by Baylor University sociologist
and author Rodney Stark titled, The
Victory of Reason: How Christianity led
to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success (Random House, 2005).
The
book’s conclusion begins with this paragraph:
Christianity created Western
Civilization. Had the followers of Jesus remained an obscure Jewish sect, most
of you would not have learned to read and the rest of you would be reading from
hand-copied scrolls. Without a theology
committed to reason, progress, and moral equality, today the entire modern
world would be about where non-European societies were in, say, 1800: A world with many astrologers and alchemists
but no scientists. A world of despots,
lacking universities, banks, factories, eyeglasses, chimneys, and pianos. A world where most infants do not live to the
age of five and many women die in childbirth—a world truly living in the “dark
ages” (p. 233).
I
think Stark is right in his analysis, but it fails to consider an even worse
hypothetical. If Christ has not come and
the gospel not been heralded, our problems would have been far greater than our
material, cultural, or political state. It
would have been far worse than not having universities, banks, and eyeglasses. Had Christ not come and the gospel not been
heralded, we would still be living in the spiritual dark ages, under the power
of darkness.
Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle
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