Sunday Sermon

"My Lord's Lord"
[Mark 12:35-40]
September 17, 2006 Second Reformed Church

The Sadducees had asked Jesus a question about the resurrection in the hopes of trapping Him, and they had been made to look like fools. The Pharisees chose a scribe to ask Jesus about the Law of God to trap Him, and God was honored. But Jesus was not trapped. So He turned the tables on them and asked them a question: "Let me ask you about the 110th Psalm -- the scribes teach that the Messiah, the Christ, the Savior, will be the son of David -- that is, a direct descendant of David. But 'how is it that the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David?' -- that is, how is it that they say that the Christ is merely the son of David, considering what the Psalm says about Him?"

Let's hear the whole Psalm:

Psalm 110. "A Psalm of David. The Lord said to my Lord: 'Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.' The Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies Your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power in holy garments; from the womb of the morning, the dew of your youth will be yours. The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, 'You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.' The Lord is at your right hand; he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath. He will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses; he will shatter chiefs over the wide earth. He will drink from the brook by the way; therefore he will lift up his head."

The question Jesus is asking is about the word that is translated "lord" -- or, actually, the words that are translated "lord." We have an additional problem with the English translation of the Bible, because the same work is used to translated two different Hebrew words. Unfortunately, our pew Bible, the NRSV, is of no help at all. Some translations, such as the ESV (from which I read the Psalm), puts the one "LORD" all in capitals and the other "Lord" they just capitalize the first letter. The first "LORD" is the name "YHWH" and the second "Lord" is the title "Adonai." (Bear with me: this is important!) We may remember that YHWH is the most personal Name of God that God gave to Moses from the burning bush. Adonai is not as easy -- it is a title that means "lord" and it can refer to God or a human in a position of authority -- we have to understand it by its context. Who is Adonai in this Psalm? Well, the scribes and Jesus agreed in this morning's text that "Adonai" is the Savior, the Christ. So, we see God the Father speaking to the Savior, the Christ, and David tells us this about the Christ:

1. "YHWH said to Adonai: 'Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.'" The Christ is a king and sits enthroned with God the Father and has the same power and authority as God the Father. And the Father causes all of the Christ's enemies to submit to Him.

2. "YHWH sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies! Your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power in holy garments; from the womb of the morning, the dew of your youth will be yours." By His Authority, the Christ rules with and through His people. And His people move in accordance with His Will. They are a people set apart, holy, filled with His power, ready, eager, waiting on Him.

3. "YHWH has sworn and will not change his mind, 'You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.'" The Christ is a priest, not of the priesthood of Aaron or of Levi, but of the mysterious Melchizedek. He is a priest forever with none beside Him and none to succeed Him.

4. "Adonai is at your right hand; he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath. He will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses; he will shatter chiefs over the wide earth." When the day of His Wrath comes, the Christ will see that His enemies are justly and thoroughly punished.

5. "He will drink from the brook by the way; therefore he will lift up his head." And the Christ will be victorious and rejoice in His Victory.

And Jesus asked the scribes: "Is the Christ merely a man? Is the Christ merely the descendant of David? If you say that the Christ is merely a human being, then why does the great King David submit to Him and call Him Adonai?"

Jesus was criticizing the scribes for their reading of the Scripture -- for not reading it in context, for not seeing that it so obviously said more than they had made of it. The Christ is a descendant of David, yes, He is a human being, but He is also co-equal with God the Father, an eternal king and priest, the Lord of a people, Who will meet out justice on all the peoples. And Who cannot be less that wholly victorious at the end of time. The Christ, David is telling us, is also God.

And we can be sure that the scribes understood what He was saying -- they knew that the people had called Jesus "the Son of David" and "the Christ" and He had received those titles without criticism. Jesus, in asking the question of the scribes, was subtly saying to them, "If you read and understood the Scriptures, you would understand that the Christ is a human, a descendant of David, and He is also, at the same time, the One God, YHWH, incarnate among you -- and I am He."

The angel told Mary, "He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and over his kingdom there will be no end" (Luke 1:32-33). And Paul wrote, "concerning [God's] Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans 1:3-4).

On the Day of Pentecost, Peter preached, "This Jesus God raised up, and of that we are all witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself said, 'The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.' Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified" (Acts 2:32-36).

Paul, speaking of the end of the age wrote, "Then comes the end, when [Jesus] delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet" (I Corinthians 15:24-25). And again, "[God] worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all" (Ephesians 1:20-23). "Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even to death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Philippians 2:5-11).

The author of Hebrews wrote that God said to His Son, "Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet" (Hebrews 1:13b). And "when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet" (Hebrews 10:12-13). And he also wrote, "For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, and to him Abraham apportioned a tenth part of everything. He is first, by translation of his name, the king of righteousness, and the he is also the king of Salem, that is, the king of peace. He is without mother or father or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God he continues a priest forever. ... This becomes even more evident when another priest arises in the likeness of Melchizedek, who has become a priest, not on the basis of a legal requirement concerning bodily descent, but by the power of an indestructible life. For it is witness of him, 'You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.' ...but this one was made a priest with an oath by the one who said to him: 'The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, You are a priest forever.' This makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant" (Hebrews 7:1-3, 15-16, 21-22).

They should have understood; they should have recognized Him. But instead of studying and submitting to the Word of God, they played dress-up, looking for complements about their dress. They waited in the shadows and paraded about, longing to be invited to banquets and given the seat of honor. They pretended to care for the widow, but instead prayed on them, taking as much from them as they could during their grief. The looked good, with long prayers and fancy language, but they said nothing -- their religion was empty and their faith was dead. They were the teachers of God's Word, and they will be judged more strictly.

Who is David's Lord? Whose Son is Jesus? What does the evidence tell you?

Psalm 110. "A Psalm of David. God the Father said to Jesus (God the Son): 'Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.' God the Father sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies Your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power in holy garments; from the womb of the morning, the dew of your youth will be yours. God the Father has sworn and will not change his mind, 'You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.' Jesus (God the Son) is at your right hand; he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath. He will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses; he will shatter chiefs over the wide earth. He will drink from the brook by the way; therefore he will lift up his head."

Let us pray:
Almighty God, we thank You for the writing of the prophets. We thank You that You allowed David to see the Christ and His Victory and the people that He is gathering to Himself. May none of us be lax in reading and hearing Your Word, but by Your Mercy know that Jesus is fully human and fully God, the One and Only Savior, Who is coming to judge the earth. And we plead that You would, by Your Holy Spirit, make us a people, quick to be obedient, quick to run to Your Mercy, growing daily in holiness, seeking first to bring glory to You, our Priest and King and Christ. For it is in Jesus' Name we pray, Amen.