PASTORAL CHAT
My dear Readers
Prayer Changes Things
Since Thursday Feb 23 we received the bad news that though Jordan allowed the main body of our Pilgrims to enter the country they put a halt to six of our students plus his father, a Vietnamese, seven persons altogether from entry. When we received the news we turned to the Lord in prayer.
Immediately I wrote an appeal letter to the Jordan Ministry of Security explaining our students of Theology were harmless people including the Vietnamese pastor of one student. Besides, the purpose of their coming was academic. By making a study report of their trip to Jordan and Israel they could earn 2 credits towards their graduation. We and our Travel Agent Guiding Star pleaded together.
We have learnt a new lesson and that is put it to the Lord in prayer. This matter is brought up to the Lord at our Church’s Friday Prayer Meeting. But time is flying. We are leaving Singapore for the Holy Land early morning March 9 and returning Thursday March 23.
On Thursday March 2, we received good news from our Travel Agent Guiding Star that the Intelligence in Jordan has given us approval for the seven persons to enter Jordan. Praise the Lord!
Another matter we should specially bring to the Lord is to pray for beloved Elder Mahadevan. Though he is resting at home now, he is under chemotherapy treatment. May the Lord have mercy upon him and his wife. Let Elder Mahadevan return to Church and chair the service.
We are living in the very last of the last days before our Lord comes. Let me remind you to live expectantly. Our Bible Camp to be held in Malaysia at Bukit Tinggi with Deacon Beng Lee as Camp Master and Rev Stephen Khoo and Rev Errol Stone as speakers has an appropriate message, “Accelerated Missions Hastens To Bring in Christ’s Kingdom” based on Matt. 24:14, “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.”
Beloved I therefore urge you not to amass money on earth but to send it up to heaven.
Your affectionate pastor
T. T.
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THE GOSPEL OF LIFE: Chapter XVIII
John 18:24-40
“Suffered Under Pontius Pilate” – Apostles’ Creed
Although the Sanhedrin had found Jesus guilty of blasphemy, a capital crime under Jewish law by stoning, they had no power of execution under Roman jurisdiction. The process of law required them to arraign Him before Pilate the Imperial Procurator. The judgement hall was the Praetorium, his official residence in Jerusalem.
Note that John says “it was early”, signifying how relentless was the Jews’ pursuit of their quarry to the death. They literally pulled the Governor out of bed. This they were able to get by because of Pilate’s misgovernment and need of reconciliation (cf. Luke 23:12). Politics is always ticking in the affairs of men! Another reason for pulling the Governor out was that the Jews could not enter “the judgement hall” at this time, for if they did they would be unclean and the Passover season was on.
Chafing at the indignity of being awakened at such an hour, Pilate tried to throw the case back to the Jewish court. The Jews clamoured for his attention and ratification, because while they had found Jesus guilty they needed his sentence “to the gallows”. John remembers at this point Jesus’ prediction sometime before Palm Sunday on the manner of His trial and execution (Matthew 20:18, 19). “He who is prepared to die is not afraid of death.”
Compelled by law to try the case, Pilate examined Jesus in the judgement hall. The case against Jesus before the Roman Governor seemed twisted to suit its purpose, injecting into the new accusation “King of the Jews” an element of sedition against the Roman government. Under Jesus’ counterquestioning if that was Pilate’s accusation or the Jews’, Pilate tried to evade, knowing he was serving the Jews’ wily wishes.
Testifying fearlessly to His mission and to the nature of His kingdom, Jesus stated, indeed, He was a king, a royal witness to the Truth. All lovers of Truth were His subjects. Pilate was familiar with philosophic language: here’s that Stoic aphorism that the Wise Man is a King and the Platonic saying that philosophers are kings and kings should be philosophers. Laughing at Truth and its King, he turned to placate Falsehood.
Chapter XIX
Before Caesar’s Governor Who Tries Him Jesus Christ Royally Stands the King of Life
John, in conjunction with Matthew and Mark, relates the scourging of Jesus and how He was mocked as King of the Jews with purple robe and thorny crown.
As all the other disciples had fled and Peter was remorsefully hiding for shame of his denials, it was John who kept a continuing vigil over his Master’s movements to the end. As his purpose is to supplement what the other Evangelists have missed, particularly his own eyewitness accounts, he gives us a briefing of Pilate’s argument with the Jews outside the judgement hall at the Pavement, called Gabbatha in the Hebrew. Were you there when they screamed for Jesus’ death?
With the other Evangelists John takes us to Golgotha (in Hebrew, place of a skull), Calvary in Latin (Luke 23:33). While John omits what the other Evangelists have emphasised, he tells his tender personal story of a new relationship conferred on him and Mary, the Lord’s mother. John stayed to the very last till he heard the Saviour’s Victory Cry, “It is finished!”
John lingered on with his account of Jesus being pierced in the side. A marvellous thing happened – there was an immediate release of blood and water! John trebly restates the truth of this mysterious phenomenon.
Let the Water and the Blood,
From Thy wounded side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure,
Cleanse me from its guilt and power.
Jesus having died so quickly, there was no need for the practice of crurifragium or leg-breaking.
John concludes with Jesus’ burial in the new tomb of Joseph Arimathaea, a secret disciple, with the addition of Nicodemus’ loving part. How it ties so beautifully with him who came to Jesus by night. You never can tell what fruit will be borne from the witnessing of a single hour!
And He made His grave with the wicked,
And with the rich in His death,
Because He had done no violence,
Neither was any deceit in His mouth. (Isa. 53:9)
John 19:1-13
“I Find No Fault inHim”
In the preliminary session with the Jews after examining Jesus in the judgment hall, it is significant to note that weak as his hand was in yielding to the cry for Barabbas, Pilate declared, “I find in him no fault at all.” (John 18:38)
Troubled by a guilty conscience of momentarily giving in to mob-violence, Pilate had Jesus scourged. This the vacillating judge did in order to placate Christ’s accusers with some measure of punishment: “Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him.” (John 19:4) This the more aroused the ire of the chief priests and officers. “Crucify him, crucify him”, was their blood-curdling demand.
Calvin comments, “When he strives so earnestly and unsuccessfully, we ought to see in this the decree of heaven by which Christ was appointed to death. Yet his innocence is frequently asserted by the judge’s testing, to teach us that, free from all guilt, he was substituted as guilty for others, and bore the punishment due to the sins of others.” Here is dramatised the doctrine of the substitutionary atonement that Christ died, the just for the unjust to pay for the penalty of our sins. When Pilate at last would let the Jews take away to crucify, he declared for the third time, “For I find no fault in him.” (John 19:6)
Overpowered by that troubled conscience Pilate fought a last-ditch delaying action. He wanted to know more of the Jews’ accusation that He had made Himself the Son of God. He thought he could still rescue this innocent man, and it tugged strongly in his heart that he must rescue him. With quickened assurance he asked the Prisoner, “Don’t you realise that I have power either to free you or to crucify you?” The Theologian-in-crisis however saw a Higher Power: “Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin.” Though events leading to Christ’s death were decreed of God, each actor on the stage of destiny was accountable for his act, whether good or bad. This is a high mystery of the doctrine of predestination taught by the Master Himself. (Read Mark 14:21)
Pilate, though having washed his hands of the blood of the Just Man (Matthew 27:24) must one day stand trial before Him who was delivered to the Jews by his vacillating act. Don’t ride two legs on two boats is good Chinese advice!
Adults Fellowship’s First Anniversary, Feb 18, 2006
