The Saviour

Sermon on ‘The Saviour’

St Paul’s - Advent 2016

A man was walking along a cliff-top footpath when he stopped to admire the view at a particularly beautiful part of the walk. At this point the path was particularly close to the edge of the cliff, and it was a sheer drop to the rocks and sea below.

He stood there for a few moments, and then, as he set off a sudden gust of wind blew him over the edge. As he started falling he reached out and managed to grab hold of a small bush that had somehow rooted itself in a crevice of the vertical cliff face.

That bush had saved his life, but he didn’t have the strength to pull himself up, and he was left dangling a hundred feet above the rocks below.

In desperation he cried out… “Help, is there anyone up there?”

And to his surprise he heard the voice of God, booming from heaven…

“Yes …I can see you, and I can save you …but you need to trust me …just let go of the bush, and all will be well.”

There was a long silence …and then the man cried out… “Is there anyone else up there?”

I want to come back to that story later, because this morning we are thinking about ‘The Saviour’... But first let us pray…

So , who is the Saviour?

It’s a question that’s got more than one good answer, so can I have some suggestions that We might explore together?

Who is the Saviour?

Any answers?

(Wait for responses)

Well, the word Saviour occurs 58 times in the Bible. Over half of these occur in the Old Testament, and in nearly every case, they refer to God.

Here are some typical examples:

2 Samuel - “God is my rock, in whom I take refuge. He is my stronghold, my refuge and my saviour.”

Psalm 42 - “Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God.”

Isaiah 17 - “You have forgotten God your Saviour; you have not remembered the Rock, your fortress.”

And towards the end of the Old Testament, God speaks through the prophet Hosea with the words: “I have been the Lord your God ever since you came out of Egypt. You shall acknowledge no God but me, no Savour except me.”

(Pause)

So the message from the Old Testament is very clear. There is only one Saviour, and he is none other than God himself.

(Pause)

As we move into the New Testament, I was surprised to discover that we only find the word Saviour three times in the Gospels.

It was first used by Mary in her song of praise when she was pregnant. As we heard in this morning’s Bible reading, Mary’s Song (or the Magnificat as it is sometimes called) begins:

“My soul glorifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour.”

Luke 1:46-47

Notice that Mary is not claiming that her unborn child is the Saviour. No, she is simply repeating the Old Testament view that God is her saviour.

So that’s the first use of the word ‘Saviour’ in the gospels. Would anyone like to guess where we might find the other two references to a Saviour in the gospels.

(Acknowledge answers, but don’t say if they are right or wrong. Say this is a hard question, and I wouldn’t have guessed correctly.)

I’ll give you a clue. It’s next used on the day that Jesus was born.

(Pause)

The angel said to the shepherds, “Today, in the town of David, a Saviour has been born to you.”

This is the first ever reference to Jesus being the Saviour.

On the day of his birth, the angel announced that Jesus was the Saviour …that was an amazing claim …a claim that no human dared to say so.

(Pause)

During his lifetime, people had various names and titles for Jesus. Some called him master …lord …rabbi and teacher.

Peter even went as far as calling him the ‘Messiah’, which means ‘anointed one’ or ‘chosen one’.

However, no good Jew would have dared to call him ‘Saviour’. That would have been regarded as blasphemy.

As we have already seen in the Old Testament, God had said, “You shall acknowledge no God but me, no Savour except me.”

(Pause)

There is only one account of people referring to Jesus a Saviour during his lifetime …and it wasn’t said by his own people …but rather by a group of foreigners …Samaritans.

It’s almost a throw away comment in John’s Gospel, and you might have never spotted it before.

You may remember Jesus talking to the woman at the well in John chapter 4. And immediately after that conversation we read:

“Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I’ve ever done.’

So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers.

They said to the woman, ‘We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Saviour of the world.’

(Pause)

And so, during Jesus’ lifetime, an angel tells a group of shepherds that a Saviour has been born …and a group of foreigners recognise it for themselves. But no-one else does.

However, soon after Jesus’s death and resurrection, this soon begins to change.

The next occurrence of the word ‘saviour’ comes in Acts chapter 5.

We’ve had the day of Pentecost

Peter has healed the lame beggar

Peter and John are arrested for teaching and healing in the name of Jesus

They are brought before the Sanhedrin (the top Jewish court in the land)

But they get off with a warning not to teach people about Jesus

The apostles ignore that command, and they are re-arrested and brought before the Sanhedrin

I wonder how the apostles we feeling. How would you feel in that situation?

(Pause)

Remember, this is the same Sanhedrin that, a few months earlier, had sentenced Jesus to death on the grounds of blasphemy.

Now they are in mortal danger of being sentenced to death on similar grounds. They have already ignored one warning from the court …and courts tend to not like that!

The prosecution says: “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name. Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching”

And Peter, often the spokesman for the apostles, replies: “We must obey God rather than human beings! The God of our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead – whom you killed by hanging him on a cross. God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Saviour.”

I wonder what the other apostles thought when Peter said that?

Did they think …”Go on Peter, you tell them” …or did they put their heads in their hands and think …“Oh no, you can’t say that!”

Either way, we read that… “When the Sanhedrin heard this they were furious, and wanted to put them to death.”

(Pause)

Let’s just pause for a moment and absorb the full significance of what Peter said.

Today, we often use terms like Messiah and Saviour interchangeably, as if they meant the same thing. But that’s not how people would have seen it in first century Israel.

Back then, the Jews believed that there was only one Saviour, who was the one and only God. And that God was going to send a human Messiah (which means ‘chosen one’ or ‘anointed one’).

It was Peter who famously first recognised that Jesus was the Messiah …that was a bold claim, but it wasn’t blasphemous ...but now he is going much further. By calling Jesus the Saviour, he was equating him with God. No wonder the Sanhedrin were furious and wanted to put him to death!

(Pause)

It would be another 300 years before Christians finally agreed on the doctrine of the Trinity, in which we believe in one God, but three persons (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). And so it remains true that God is our only Saviour, …but when you look within God, you find Jesus, God the Son, who is primarily identified as the Saviour.

As I say, it took 300 years for Christians to work this through, but the origins of that doctrine begin with Peter referring to Jesus as the Saviour.

And from that point onwards, the New Testament bears witness to Jesus being our Saviour.

For example, Peter’s begins his second letter with the words:

“Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ,

To those who through the righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours.”

Paul writes to the church in Philippi, saying:

“But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ”

And John writes in his first letter:

“…we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Saviour of the world.”

(Pause)

It took a lot of courage for Peter to say that Jesus is the Saviour, and it takes a lot of courage for us to do the same today …but for a different reason.

In Peter’s day, it took courage because the claim that Jesus is the Saviour was seen to be blasphemous.

Today, it takes a lot of courage, because the claim that Jesus is the Saviour is seen to be intolerant.

All the religions of the world have their heros, leaders or prophets, whether it be Moses for Jews, Mohamed for Muslims or the Buddha for Buddhists. And no-one has any problem with Christians saying that Jesus is our hero or leader. People may think that we are deluded, …but each to their own.

However, any claim that Jesus is much more than that… that Jesus is the one and only Saviour of the World …

Well, it takes much more courage to say things like that, because such claims are deemed to be intolerant.

Are we willing to be courageous?

(Pause)

My next question is:

What does our saviour save us from, exactly?

(Wait for answers)

In the Old Testament, God is often seen as the Saviour of the nation of Israel.

God had delivered them from slavery in Egypt.

And he had saved them in battle against the Philistines.

And by the first century, the nation of Israel was still looking to God to save them.

There suffered 400 years of oppression. First by the Babylonian Empire …then the Persian Empire …then the Greek Empire …and finally the Roman Empire.

They were desperate for a Saviour. And God sent them a Saviour, …but not the type they were looking for.

In Jesus, the focus of salvation is both broader and narrower than the nation of Israel.

It is broader in the sense that Jesus is not just the savour of Israel, but the saviour of the entire world.

The theme for our Christmas services this year at St Paul’s is “A weary world rejoices.”

We live in a weary world. I hear people say “I don’t know what our world is coming to.”

But in this weary world we can rejoice, because we have a Saviour who one day will put the whole world right, and restore it to the way that God intended it to be.

A weary world rejoices because Jesus is the Saviour of the world.

(Pause)

That’s the big picture …but in Jesus the focus of salvation is also much narrower than the nation of Israel.

He is not only the world’s saviour …he is also my saviour.

He loves each individual, including you, and he wants to save you from yourself.

From your sinful habits

From eternal death

From a wasted life

A weary world rejoices because Jesus is MY Saviour.