Chapter 6

TUNING IN AND TURNING ON

     When Richard M. Nixon was preparing to visit China during his abbreviated term as president a great deal was at stake. There had been no diplomatic relations with this Communist country for many years. It became necessary for the president to brief himself as thoroughly as possible on all of the political ramifications involved, as well as to take a "cram course" on Chinese customs and etiquette. Even a slight mistake by our head of state might be regarded as a reflection against the Chinese. Information bulletins were prepared by experts in Oriental thought, and the president read them avidly.

     Now suppose you became very serious about your role as the representative of the heavenly head of state in this alien world where you have been dispatched as a foreigner and pilgrim. You realize that your behavior is being observed by spies of "the prince of this world" and that any thoughtless utterance or unscrupulous act will be used, not only to hurt your personal reputation but as a reflection against Him who has sent you as His emissary. Even your life may be at stake. So you go to experts who have spent years in the service of the Sovereign and have carefully studied His declarations and instructions and ask if there is a brief summary which puts the whole thing in succinct form.

     In all probability they would unanimously suggest that you read what is popularly designated the "Sermon on the Mount." This may be a misnomer. The word sermon does not appear in the Bible. Origen has been called "the father of the sermon" and he was not born until about 185 A.D. When we hear the word "sermon" we conjure up a mental image of a man trained in the art of homiletics standing behind a rostrum on a raised platform. But Jesus simply sat down on a rocky hillside and shared with people. He was "the Way, the Truth and the Life" and what the "Way-shower" shared was truth and life. There is some evidence that the people in our day have been preached to death instead of taught how to live.

     Frequently we leave a "religious service" today unchanged and unaffected. A great deal of that may be our fault. We have been taught to be present at such events as an obligation to God. We attend as a kind of duty and when we have discharged that duty we go home and resume our routine. We have "paid our debt to society" and we are free from interference for another week. A junior High school class was discussing heaven when a boy raised his hand and asked, "Will we have to go to church when we get to heaven?" The teacher replied, "No, that will all be over!" "Hey," the kid said, "I'll bet that's what makes it heaven."

     There's no use of denying that "going to church" is a drag for a lot of people. It is something to be endured and not to be enjoyed. I know a scientist who says that the only way he can hang on is to switch his mind to another channel when the preacher gets up to speak. It was not that way with Jesus in his open air address. When He concluded the people were astonished at his teaching. They compared it to that with which they were accustomed in the synagogue and concluded there was an air of authority about it which they had never seen demonstrated by any other teacher.

     Nineteen hundred years have faded into the gray haze of history since that day but people are still astonished by what Jesus said. Books have been written about it. Classes have studied it meticulously. Sermons have been preached on its content. It is inexhaustible. The past generations have not wrung it dry. Ours will not do so either. The air of authority still clings to it. It is not an authority enforced by smoking cannon, or by what Kipling calls "reeking tube and iron shard." It is not an authority of stern looks or jutting )aw. It is not "cracking the whip." It is the pervasive authority of truth and life. With Jesus these were not just ideas to be discussed. They constituted not so much an exposition of His thinking as an exposure of His being.

     Tradition has it that the mountain on which Jesus spoke was the one called Horns of Hattin, not very far from Capernaum. For centuries it has been designated "Mount of the Beatitudes." No one can be certain of the site and it is just as well. Each one of us must toil up his own slope to sit at the feet of Jesus. For some it will be a steep and toilsome trip up the side of a mountain of sorrow, or of frustration, or of disappointment and clutching fear. It is never the mount of blessing going up. It is only after Jesus speaks that it becomes so. When the disciples walked up the mountain it was the Horns of Hattin. It was as they were coming down they realized it was the mount of blessing.

     I have been in a lot of public speaking classes. In every one of them there comes a time when you consider the construction of an effective speech. A good deal of discussion centers around the introduction. You are taught that you must secure the attention of your listeners. You must strike a match before you can build a fire. Jesus ignored all of the attention getters. He did not thank the people for their presence. That would have been too much like a shepherd thanking the sheep for gathering around the feed trough. He did not express appreciation for their willingness to travel such a distance. That would have been like thanking the hardy men who gathered at Sutler's Fort, near Sacramento, in 1849, as part of the gold rush. It is natural for people to go a long way in spite of suffering and privation when treasure awaits. I'm glad that Jesus did not open with the latest "preacher's joke."

     He began sharing with the word "blessed" and repeated it eight more times. The first nine sentences begin with this word. That is why these statements are called "the beatitudes" from the Latin original which means consummate bliss. It is not my intention here to analyze the various kinds of persons who are said to be blessed the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers and the persecuted. Other writers with far more ability than I will ever possess have already done that many times. I am indebted to them. Such writers do not create the fountain of truth but they do graciously provide cups so the rest of us can drink.

     I do want to say a little about the original for the word "blessed." It is makarios, and it appears 49 times in the new covenant scriptures. In the Authorized Version it is rendered blessed 43 times and happy 6 times. Like so many Greek terms it is difficult for us to find an exact equivalent for it in modern English. It will help us to remember that this was the word used to describe the gods who were conceived of as dwelling in palaces of dazzling splendor far removed from all of the problems and pains to which the dwellers in the flesh were subject. To those who were favored by the gods makarios was granted. It was not something one earned or deserved. It was a gift from on high, a sharing of the life of the deities.

     Jesus was the only real authority on sharing the life of God who ever lived on earth. He did not descend from the brow of fabled Olympus peopled with imaginary gods and goddesses, but from heaven itself. He had shared the life of the one true and living God. He could say, "And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was" (John 17:5). When Jesus used the word makarios as a sharing in the bliss which God alone could bestow He was speaking of something which He experienced, and which is now made available unto peacemakers and persecuted ones.

     Several years ago someone sent me a little paperback book with the title "The Secret of Happiness." Since that is a secret which all of us would like to discover I read the book through in one sitting. The author was an excellent writer and what he wrote interested me. The book was an exposition of the beatitudes and it was done in a refreshing way. One should be careful of criticising the literary efforts of others, especially when his own are often mediocre, but I want to question the use of "happiness" as a rendering of makarios.

     I have already mentioned that the Authorized Version uses the word "happy" six times. Apparently the sober scholars appointed by King James felt that it would be more appropriate to the context in other places. A good many modern translations use "happy" instead of "blessed" throughout the preamble of the talk by Jesus. A good example is the Good News Bible. One reason for that may be that everyone is "gung-ho" for happiness but few are searching for a blessing. We have swung so far that sometimes we employ the latter in exactly the opposite sense. When I asked a distraught mother what she did when her little ragamuffin tramped through her kitchen leaving a muddy trail to mark his progress to the bathroom, she replied, "I gave him a good shaking and blessed him out!" That hardly indicates a happy state of affairs.

     There is a lot of shallow thinking about happiness in our day. I recently read on a card, "The five secrets of happiness are money, money, money, money, money." But it is not our reduction of the depth of the word which makes me doubt its validity as a translation of makarios. "The word happiness comes from the root hap which means chance, or luck. There was no element of chance in the term Jesus employed. It was not dependent upon the smile of "Ludy Luck" the patron saint of gamblers.

     Happiness, as we use the term, is too greatly affected by external circumstances. If there is a fortuitious concourse of things, if they all come together, they bring happiness. If everything seems to go wrong or fall apart we are not happy and we show it. On a box of cake mix produced by a famous flour manufacturer appears the statement, "All ingredients included!" That is true of makarios. It contains all the elements of joy in itself. They constitute its essence.

     The special brand of bliss which is God's gift to us is described by William Barclay as "serene, untouchable, and self-contained." It is the lot of those whom men revile, persecute, and against whom they say all manner of evil falsely, for the sake of Jesus. Such victims of "man's inhumanity to man" are actually told to rejoice and be exceeding glad. I never read this that I do not think of Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley who were burned at the stake in 1555, during the reign of Mary Tudor, sometimes called "Bloody Mary." When the two were tied to their stakes with the faggots heaped about their feet, Latimer looked over at his companion and said, "Be of good cheer, Master Ridley, we shall this day kindle a fire in England which shall not be put out." Be of good cheer while waiting for the fire to sear your flesh!

     What an adventure of the spirit to place oneself in such a state as to prepare himself for the kind of bliss which is unaffected by false accusation, cruel suffering, or impending death. I once knew a man who craved righteousness with such hunger and thirst that his friends and relatives thought he was a fanatic. They warned me against him and said, "Don't pay any attention to him. He's off in the upper story and reads the Bible and prays all of the time." I found him a gentle soul, harmless and undefiled. He was a vegetarian and would eat no animal flesh because he did not want something to be slaughtered so he could live.

     He appeared oblivious of the slights of those about him. He prayed for his neighbors by name every night. If he forgot one of them, he would say "Father, I think I overlooked George, but I did not intend to do so. Please include him also." One day he became violently ill and when he was discovered lying in the yard he was taken to the hospital. I visited him there the day before he died. He said to me, "I'm not afraid to go. I've got my reservation. I will have my hunger satisfied and my thirst quenched. I'll be filled just like He promised."

     It has always been interesting to me that immediately after Jesus finished His comments about the bliss of those who are tuned in to God's purpose in the world. He told us what His followers were. He used two illustrations. Both of them relate to things which we merely take for granted and seldom think about. We could not live without them but we accept them, often without a second thought. The first is salt. Jesus did not say that His followers ought to be salt or should be. He said "You are the salt of the earth." Salt is not something you try to become in Christ. It is what you are in Christ.

     In the illustrations Jesus used there was always a relationship between the things employed and that which they were intended to portray. We can conclude that salt possessed certain characteristics attributed to the disciples. It will help us to list a few of them.

     1. Salt was precious in the days of Jesus. This may be hard for us to realize when we can go to the market and buy a sizeable box of the refined product for a matter of a few cents. The former value of it can be at least partially understood when we remember that our word salary literally means "payment in salt." It is derived from the fact that included in the payment of a Roman soldier was a salt allowance. To this day we say of one who does not measure up that "he is not worth his salt." One of our highest tributes to a person is to say he is "the salt of the earth."

     So precious was salt to our pioneers they often risked death from Indians by going to a salt spring or lick, where they camped out for days while boiling the water in huge kettles to evaporate it away and leave the grayish deposit of crystals in the bottom of the vat. It will help us to realize that God called us unto Himself because we are precious unto Him. In fact, it could be said of us as it was of Israel, in the days of old, "You are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you" (Isaiah 43:4). If we are so valuable in the sight of our Creator we ought never to cheapen ourselves, or take ourselves lightly.

     2. Salt was the best preservative known in the time of Jesus. Sometimes when a corpse was to be transported a long distance by the slow methods of transportation then available it was packed in salt. It was this quality, no doubt, which caused covenants or compacts which were to be enduring, to be ratified by the parties involved eating salt together. The covenant made between God and Israel was such a covenant and salt had to accompany every cereal offering as a token of it. "You shall season all your cereal offerings with salt; you shall not let the salt of the covenant with your God be lacking from your cereal offering; with all your offerings you shall offer salt" (Leviticus 2:13). In 2 Chronicles 13:5 it is said that God gave the kingship over Israel for ever to David and his sons by a covenant of salt. As the maker of that covenant God would protect and preserve it.

     Those of our readers who grew up in a rural setting in an earlier day when farmers slaughtered their own animals for the family larder know how important salt was. The meat was packed in salt which it absorbed, then taken out and smoked over a slow fire of hickory, sassafras, or some other aromatic wood.

     The righteous are the ones who preserve the earth. In the days of Noah the wickedness of man became so great that God resolved to destroy him from the face of the earth. God withdrew the salt from the mass of corruption in order to preserve life and eight souls stood between life and extinction. Noah and his family were the salt of the earth. Ten righteous souls would have preserved Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim from the desolation wrought upon them by fire rained down from heaven.

     It is the righteousness of the few and not the profligacy of the many which keeps families and nations from being blotted out. It is for this reason the "salt" should never become discouraged. Salt does not make a lot of noise. It does not whip up a lot of excitement. It works quietly, gently, but effectively, and it preserves our culture from further decay and disintegration.

     3. Salt was a purifying agent in the days of Jesus. W. E. Vine writes, "In the Lord's teaching it is also symbolic of that spiritual health and vigor essential to Christian virtue and counteractive of the corruption that is in the world." It was believed to possess antiseptic qualities and when a soldier received a spear wound the hole in the flesh was often tamped full of salt to prevent infection.

     The Jews may have come to think of salt as a therapeutic prescription because of an incident in the life of Elisha while he was at Jericho. The men of the place came to him and pointed out that the city was an attractive place to live except for the fact the land was unproductive and the spring which furnished water was dangerous. The implication is that they credited the water with the death of some individuals and with causing abortions. Elisha asked them to put salt in a bowl and bring it to him. After throwing the salt in the spring he told them the Lord declared the water would not again cause death or miscarriages. The chronicler adds, "And that water has been pure ever since, just as Elisha said it would be" (2 Kings 2:22).

     Every disciple who has not lost his saltness has experienced how his presence helps to purify conditions. I was in a state on the west coast when I was invited to talk at a Bible Club meeting at a community high school. Because the administration would not consent to a meeting during regular school hours these young people had to meet at 6:30 o'clock in the morning. I went expecting to find a dozen sleepy-eyed persons. I was surprised to find more than a hundred gathered in the music room engaged in singing lively choruses. I heard them pray for their school, the teachers and the students out of Christ. Later, when I talked to the mayor and chief of police they told me that the group had such an impact that teen-age crime and vandalism had been reduced to the vanishing point. The salt had purified the area.

     A young girl who became a committed follower of Jesus Christ became aware of how the language of her fellow-workers in a restaurant was purged by her presence. At first she endured a great deal of jesting and subtle ridicule. Gradually this ceased and when it became obvious that she was seriously in earnest the obscene and suggestive language halted.

     4. Salt increased the palatability of food. All of us have eaten attractively prepared food in which the cook had forgotten to put salt. It tastes flat and insipid. We feel a sense of compassion for one who has to be on a salt-free diet. Life without the Christian influence is also flat. I know a man who dreads to see Sunday come. He says that it gives him a first-class case of "the blahs." It seems like the longest day in the week. He is glad when it is over and he can get back to work. I do not share his feeling. Sunday is a great day for me. It is a time of spiritual uplift and rich blessing. To be able to gather in remembrance of one's dearest friend with others who also know Him, is a tremendous experience. Of course the edge is taken off when liturgy and formality kill the spark of spontaneity, but even then one can return home with his inner feelings aroused and his heart beating a little faster.

     Sometimes life becomes a little hard and difficult. One may suffer loss, or become frustrated and despondent. But if he knows Jesus, the Holy Spirit dwells in his heart for just such emergencies. I am acquainted with a man who says prayer is "opening up the valve." He lives in an older house which is heated with hot water radiators. When the temperature becomes noticeably chill he opens up the valve a little and soon the room is comfortable. In the same way when his spiritual life cools off he intercedes with God in prayer and he is soon circulating warmth to others. It is easier to bear suffering if one comes in contact with God's salt.

     It bothers a great many people that Christians seem to have so little influence upon the world in general. Sin continues unabated. Crime statistics are often frightening. Vice stalks the streets with brazen indifference. Why does the salt have so little impact? There is no simple answer. But it must not be forgotten that salt will do no good while huddling in the shaker. And a great many in our day are trapped inside of religious structures. Here they hold services rather than rendering them. They carry on religious exercises while the world is dying at the doorstep. Lewis Mumford in Faith for Living calls the institutionalized forms of religion "a mere husk of habit." The salt needs to be shaken out of its complacency and apathy.

     Jesus speaks of salt that is tasteless because it has lost its saltness. He declares it is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trodden underfoot by man. In his book New Light on the Gospels, Clifford A. Wilson says it was a Jewish tradition that when salt became unfit for use on sacrifices it was sprinkled upon the temple steps in rainy weather to keep the priests from slipping. William Barclay refers to a statement in the book Jesus of Palestine by E. F. F. Bishop in which it is said that a thick bed of salt was placed in the outdoor clay ovens to retain the heat of the stones for baking. When it was no longer fit it was dragged out and thrown on the roadway.

     It is not enough for Jesus to say, "You are the salt of the earth." The expression has become so commonplace we can mouth it utterly unconscious of any responsibility to the salt we talk about. I must say "I am the salt of the earth" and you must do the same. Then we must begin to act like salt, searching out areas of need where we can supply what is lacking. It is up to those of us who are disciples. No other provision has been made. Jesus does not say "If the salt has lost its strength, I shall have to try something else!" There is nothing else! It is you or nothing! If you fail the question is "With what shall the earth be salted?" The answer is that it will not be. You are the last divine thrust into the world! Jesus was the Son of God made flesh. You are flesh made a son of God.

     We must not terminate our little study without paying attention to the statement "You are the light of the world." Someone has pointed out that this may well be the greatest compliment Jesus ever paid to man. In it we are called to be what He was. In our day of well-lighted homes, offices, parking lots and highways, it is almost impossible for us to imagine the kind of world through which Jesus walked at night. Nothing was a greater blessing than light.

     The Authorized Version uses the word "candle" but this is incorrect. The art of candlemaking had not yet developed. Archbishop Trench in his Synonyms of the New Testament points out that the original Greek word luchnos is not a candle but "a handlamp fed with oil." Such lamps were made of clay moulded to shape. Sometimes a half of an oyster shell was drafted into use. In an emergency, a potsherd picked up at the village well or town garbage dump might be pressed into service. The depression was filled with olive oil and a wick of twisted cloth inserted into it and lighted. Such a lamp was placed upon a stand so the light would be diffused at a greater radius.

     Because of its great value light became the subject of poetry and song. In many areas of paganism it was worshiped. One thing was obvious. A light could not kindle itself. It had to be started by a power outside of and beyond itself. Mythology attributed the origin of fire and light to the gods. When Jesus came to assert that His disciples were the light of the world. He was aware of the almost superstitious respect for light. He knew they had not kindled the light by their own goodness. He was "the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." The glory for their light belonged to the Father of lights. The lamps were mere vessels to bear the light.

     It is all very well for us to talk about being modest and retiring but we must not use these terms to justify concealment of the light. A light that is not seen is not a light. Nothing stands out at night more than a city which is set on an elevated plateau. Anyone who has driven across the western plains country at night knows how far a city can be seen and how many miles must be driven before the environs are reached. God does not intend for us to cower in the shadows.

     The greatest fear in primitive times was that the lamp would become extinguished. The invention of phosphorus matches which could be ignited with friction, by the English chemist John Walker, in 1827, took away that concern. Now every restaurant of note has books of safety matches as free promotional material. But in the days of Jesus when the family was to be away from the house for a little while the lamp was taken from its stand and placed on the floor where a meal tub (as the New English Version has it) was turned upside down over it. This protected the lamp from a draft of wind if the door was opened.

     When the family was present and needed light no one would think of putting a basket or other container over it. The point of Jesus is that the world is desperately in need of light and it is no time to obscure or conceal ours under a thousand things which would render our testimony ineffective. We need to investigate everything with which we find ourselves becoming involved or preoccupied. It could be that Satan has planted a "meal tub" in our way.

     It is a rather common thing to see those who stand alone in dark places become discouraged because one light seems so inconsequential in the immensity of the enshrouding darkness. Such lack of faith is hardly justifiable. If the light goes out the scope and intensity of the darkness is but intensified. If the light is kept burning it may be used to kindle others. Recently I was present in an audience of more than four hundred persons, each of whom had a small candle at his plate at the banquet table. At a given signal all of the lights were turned off and Stygian blackness prevailed. The moderator lighted his candle and from it lighted one at the front table. The light was passed on from hand to hand until the hundreds of candles were burning and the darkness fell away. All of the light began with one tiny flame.

     A light is simply expected to shine where it is without consideration of or concern for the darkness. No darkness can ever overcome light. It is as true of us as it was of Jesus. "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never put it out" (John 1:5. Today's English Version). One who is the light of the world can go into any situation with an absolute trust that victory is on his side. Darkness is helpless against light.

     God made no provision for lamps that have burned themselves out. He did not conceive of a congregation of blackened wicks in the reflected glow of a professional "light." It was never the divine plan for lamps to contribute all of their oil to one big lamp which was expected to shine upon a house of empty ones. The fact is that every disciple is expected to have the power to ignite someone else. That we have to be "turned on" periodically or "fanned into flame" or "revived" annually is not an indication of our faith but of our lack of it. The gauge of the success of a revival is not the number of persons packed in for the body count at a special entertainment. It is simply that no other revival is ever needed.

     The very word revival is a dead give away. It literally means to restore to consciousness or life, to reanimate. It is an admission that someone is either unconscious or dead. Men trained in lifesaving techniques do not run around giving artificial respiration to healthy persons. To allow our lamps to go out or burn so low that we need to secure a lamp-lighter to come in and replenish the oil and trim the wicks is a reflection against the Father of lights. Satan has betrayed us into retreating from the scene on the ground that we are too weak and helpless to cope. It is time we rejected that spirit of defeatism once and for all.

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Next Chapter: 7. No Place to Flee