The Sanctuary Downtown / Relentless Love

One: The Supreme Power of Humility

Grandpa scared me. He drank beer and constantly smoked White Owl New Yorker cigars which he kept in the front pocket of his overalls. And Grandpa said all the words I wasn’t supposed to say, including the worst of all: “God damn,.” I’d been told that this phrase was the definition of “taking God’s name in vain,” which I now understand to be something far more subtle. But if you ever do spend some time in “hell,” you may discover that it’s filled with broken farm equipment from central Nebraska. I heard him say it time and time again. “This tractor... God damn it to hell; God damn it to hell—these damn irrigation pipes.” I thought: “Grandpa is going to hell.... and no one seems to care.” I honestly did not know what to do with Grandpa, but he seemed to always know what to do with me. In the summers when we’d stay at the farm on family vacation, in the morning or at bedtime, Grandpa would say, “Peter, you get in here, crawl up into bed with me and Grandma and let me give you a squeeze.” He’d pull me into his “kolpos” (in Greek), his “bosom” (in English), and hug me so tight that I’d say “Grandpa, I can’t breathe.” He’d say something like, “Ah hell, you’re just fine,” and squeeze me even tighter until Grandma would say something like, “Ralph, let Peter go to bed.” I honestly didn’t know what Grandpa saw in me: the neurotic preacher’s kid from the “big city.” Many years later (1978, I believe), Grandma had died and Grandpa was staying with us in Colorado recovering from a broken hip. I was now going to Young Life and youth group and had recently re-dedicated my life to the Lord. And, I felt the need to save Grandpa from God . . . our Father. I knocked on his bedroom door. He was sitting on the side of the bed, his dentures in the front pocket of his overalls, a cigar in his mouth, playing Solitaire on a TV tray. He listened to my reasoned presentation, followed by its logical implication: He needed to make a decision to save himself from the decision (Judgment) of God our Father. Surprisingly, he listened most intently, took a breath, and said, “Ah hell, Peter. The Presbyterians say one God damned thing, the Methodists say another damn thing, and the Baptists another, and then they fight over it.” And I didn’t know what to say. I had read enough of my Bible to realize that Jesus agreed with Grandpa. In John 17, God the Son (from the “bosom of the Father”), speaks to God the Father. “Holy Father, keep them (the twelve) in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one... I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that all [pas: everyone] might be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world [cosmos] may believe that you have sent me (vs. 11, 20-21).” If Jesus is praying “in Jesus’ name,” then it would appear that their will be a “oneness” in the twelve that would be so appealing that all people would see it, want to enter it, and all creation would be transformed..., as if the New Jerusalem were coming down, and so “all creation will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” “Make them one as we are one,” prayed Jesus. And he was praying for Grandpa. Oneness is what we all want. It’s why Nazis wear uniforms, march in uniform, and scapegoat Jews. It’s why people get drunk together — to lose themselves and find themselves in another. It’s why people hang out in the red-light district. We all want to belong, for “it’s not good for Adam to be alone”; it’s evil. And yet, saving ourselves from aloneness in the wrong way is even more aloneness, evil, and damnation later on. Oneness: It’s what we all want more than anything, and yet it’s the very thing that terrifies us more than everything or anyone. It all reminds me of “The Borg” (on Star Trek). The Borg is a giant alien cybernetic organism that possesses other life forms, dissolving all individual distinctives into itself. And that is seductive because individual distinctives can be quite a burden. You yourself, “Me-sus,” can be quite a burden, but the Borg is what I call “We-sus” — not “Me is salvation” but “We are salvation.” We-sus constantly tempts Me-sus, saying, “We will help you save yourself; we will help you be self-centered; if you only belong to We-sus, you won’t need Jesus. In fact, you can hide from Jesus in We-sus, which is us — we are the crowd, the Americans, the Iranians, the Republicans, the Democrats, the Presbyterians, the Methodists, and the Baptists. Paul referred to We-sus as “the Principalities and Powers of this World.” John saw We-sus in the Revelation; I think he called it “The Beast.” According to Scripture, we’re all born into “the Borg.” It’s John who writes, “The entire world is under the power of the Evil One.” That means that people think they’re free because the Borg tells them they’re free, and people think they love because the Borg tells them that they love. “On Earth, this desire is often called ‘love.’ In hell, I feign that they recognize it as hunger,” writes C.S. Lewis. “There I suggest the stronger spirit can permanently gorge its own being on the weaker’s outraged individuality... This, I surmise, is the only imitation [satan] can understand, of that unfathomed bounty whereby God turns tools into servants and servants into sons, so that they may be at last reunited to Him in the perfect freedom of a love offered from the height of the utter individualities which he has liberated them to be.” Jesus prayed, “Make them one as we are one.” So how is God One? In 312 A.D., Emperor Constantine converted and asked this very question. In 325 A.D., he convened the Council of Nicaea, which eventually produced the Nicene Creed and what is now known of as “The Doctrine of the Trinity.” I think the Creed is beautiful, true, and profound — but it’s not Scripture. And what do you do with people who don’t agree? Constantine knew. Because we thought we knew how God is one, we experienced our first “official” division... followed by more and more creeds until “The Presbyterians said one damn thing, the Methodists another, and the Baptists another,” and we’re still fighting over it. Jesus prayed, “Keep them in your name.” When Yahweh declares His name to Moses hidden in the cleft of the Rock, He says, “Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious... forgiving iniquity and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty.” I think that’s impossible to believe without the realization that God is constant forgiveness and that unforgiveness is the unforgiveable sin. On the Sixth Day of Creation, God (Elohim, also translated “gods”) said, “Let us make man in our own image.” So “in the image of Elohim he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:26-27). “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). God is one like husband and wife are to be one and a human body is one. “This mystery is a profound one,” writes Paul. “It refers to Christ and his Church.” That fills some with hope and others with terror. This longing for communion is our deepest desire and deepest terror, for we were each made for God and yet have been violated by the Borg. I think I know what Grandpa saw in me: himself, before he’d been violated by the Borg. It’s what I see in my one-year-old grandson, James. We all want just a smile and, hopefully, a hug from James, for we know it doesn’t come from the Borg but from the James that God has created — not his fig leaves, shame and fear. James isn’t quite old enough to know how to impress any of us, and so he’s free to enjoy all of us . . . if he wants to; he’s capable of a little love in freedom. Maybe that’s how God is one. He doesn’t have to be; He wants to be one — two or three (or more) but One. He wants to be, and He is, LOVE. Love is never less and always more. A chicken leg isn’t less a chicken leg for being attached to a chicken; I’m not less of a man for making love to my bride; you’re not less a person for losing yourself and finding yourself in Jesus — the Logos (logic) of LOVE. Jesus keeps praying, “I in them and you in me, in order that they might be having been perfected into one that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me... I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them” (John 17:23,26). We’ve been asking, “How is God three in one?” Perhaps we need to also ask, “How is God one in billions upon billions of ‘persons’?” The Father is in Jesus. And He just prayed, “I in them.” How does He get into them? “The first Adam became a living soul; that Last Adam became a life-giving spirit,” wrote Paul. Jesus crossed the river of Lamb’s blood, entered a garden, then on a tree in a garden He delivered up His Spirit. On that tree and at this table He is enthroned. He is not the Borg, a lion seeking someone to devour (That’s satan). He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah, AND he is the Lamb. He is absolute Power and Supreme Humility. When you see Him as He is, you will never see anyone or talk to anyone, including your grandpa, in the same way ever again. Now I know what I wish I would’ve said to my Grandpa when he said, “Ah hell, Peter. They all say a different God-damned thing, and then they argue about it.” I wish I would’ve said, “I’m sorry Grandpa... I wish you would’ve seen Presbyterians, Methodists, and Baptists fight about all sorts of damned things but then forgive each other all sorts of damn things and start sharing all things together in common — actually enjoy each other in all things, kind of like you and your friends at the bar in North Loop, Nebraska. But you didn’t see that, and I’m sorry. ” “I’m also sorry for my awkward ‘presentation’ just now. I’m just thinking that you might actually see God face to face, and pretty soon. And when you do, it’s bound to scare the crap out of you. I think He’s pretty different than me and you, and yet, I think He’s also an awful lot like you . . . Grandpa.” “Do you remember when I was little and you always wanted to hug me? I don’t think that was just you, Grandpa; that was God in you. And I think God has always wanted to hug you like you used to hug me. I hope you let Him. He’ll hug the hell out of you and all of Heaven right into you.” I wish I would’ve said that, but I didn’t. Grandpa died soon after. But don’t worry about Grandpa. God is not dependent on Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, or me. And I did love Grandpa and Jesus, at least a little bit. And nothing is more powerful, or humble, than Love. God is Love. LOVE is never in vain.

Where’s the Faith?

What Was He Thinking!??

What was He Thinking? John 13-16 spans just a few hours. These are our Lord’s last words spoken to His disciples in the Gospel of John. He uses the imperative tense just three or four times — “Don’t stress; abide; have courage.” Yet, there are many conditional statements, like, “If you ask in my name, I’ll do it; if you love me, you will keep my commandments.” P.S. — “The Devil is coming; I’m leaving; apart from me, you can do nothing.” It’s a bit terrifying, and the disciples appear to have very little control over the conditions. What was Jesus thinking? John 16:32, “’Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own [idios: pertaining to self, private], and will leave me alone.’” In the garden, they ate the fruit, hid their “privates” from each other, and hid their souls from the Voice of God walking in the garden. Why did God plant that tree in the middle of the garden? What was He Thinking? John 16:33, “’But have courage; I have conquered the world.’” What a strange thing to say right before you’re crucified. And even more bizarre are these “last words” spoken to these “disciples.” Why did Jesus pick these guys and not fire these guys? Why didn’t He leave behind an organizational system? Why didn’t He lay out the “Plan of Salvation”? Why did he leave it to Bill Bright to write the “Four Spiritual Laws” and to Billy Graham to author “The Sinners Prayer”? What was He thinking? These are the last words of Jesus spoken to His disciples as a group before His crucifixion in the Gospel of John. Last words — and yet, He doesn’t stop talking; He just stops talking to them. Next verse: John 17:1, “When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, ‘Father...’” In The Revelation given to John, we get to overhear God the Son speaking to God the Spirit, in the seven churches, about what it means to conquer. In John 17, we get to overhear God the Son speaking to God the Father about us. This is what they are thinking. And they want us to “know.” John 17:1-18:2 (greatly abbreviated), “’Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.’” [He just told us in 16:15, “All that the Father has is mine.”] “’And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent... Consecrate them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world [kosmos], so I have sent them into the world [kosmos]. And for their sake, I consecrate myself, that they also may be consecrated in truth. I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word... The glory that you have given me, I have given to them that they may be one even as we are one — I in them, you in me — in order that they might be having been perfected into one, so that the world [kosmos (Flatland)] may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me... I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.’ When Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples across the brook Kidron, where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered. Now Judas, who betrayed him, also knew the place, for Jesus often met there with his disciples.” This is such an ominous scene. John will keep mentioning “gardens.” The Passover lambs (over 250,00 according to Josephus) were slaughtered at the temple at 3 p.m., and Passover began at sundown. The Blood would flow out of the temple, down the Kidron, through its junction with Gehenna, and then on to the Dead Sea — the lowest spot on the surface of the earth. John’s readers would have known that as Jesus prayed these words, crossed the Kidron, and entered the garden just east of Eden where He would be betrayed by the Chosen, He would’ve crossed a literal river of lamb’s blood. What was He thinking? Well... John 17. Jesus wasn’t thinking about 1.) Who would make the cut. 2.) Dishing out more “knowledge of Good and evil” practical application points and organizational systems. OR, 3.) A plan that they can choose to follow. That must be why He’s praying: It’s not their choice; they’re not free to choose. I think we can’t begin to think about what He’s thinking about without the three pictures that I refer to all the time which very few Modern Western Christians think about. I think we normally think that 1.) We are the author of our own story, and that’s why we’re judged. 2.) Jesus suffered so we don’t have to suffer, and that’s the plan — to never sacrifice. And 3.) We have “free will,” which implies that Free-Will doesn’t have us (We think it’s possible to disagree with God and win the argument). The first picture is of the timeline: six days of chronological time completely surrounded by a seventh day which enters the sixth day at the point of the cross. Jesus prayed, “I in them, you in me, in order that they might be having been finished into one.” Without something like the timeline, we would think our Lord’s prayer was just a “figure of speech.” God is writing a story, and it’s not finished in spacetime, and yet it is finished in eternity, and NOW He finishes it with His Word in and through us, and so we become who we are, what I am is doing — the Body of Christ, one Body. The second picture is just that: a body. Life is a story, and Life is Love. “In this is Love,” wrote John, “that he sent his son to be an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” So, Jesus prays, “I consecrate myself.” But He continues, “…that they might also be consecrated.” The Jews knew that all life came from God and that the life was in the blood and that God gave the blood to “make atonement.” So, whenever the Israelites ate meat, they were to bring the blood to the Tabernacle. Worship was all about blood flow, and God must’ve seemed blood thirsty. But when we draw the outline of a man around all those worshippers at the temple, sacrifice no longer looks like death but life — no longer a picture of pain but ecstasy, even rapture. It’s one for all and all for one, one story in all stories, and all stories in one. It’s the seventh sign that is the substance: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” If Love is a law, the Life dies, and the temple turns to stone. If Love is a life, the Life must rise from within us; it must be freely chosen; this is the Logos (logic) of Love. God is Love, and Love is Free-Will (If there is free-will, God is Free-will). So how can we freely choose the One who is always freely choosing us? The third picture is of the man hanging on the tree in the middle of the garden. In verse 3, Jesus prays, “This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” Life is a Story. Life is Love. “The Life” is “The Good.” “God planted a garden in Eden in the East. The tree of Life was in the middle of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil... ‘Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat for in the day you eat of it, dying you will die.’” It sounds like knowledge is evil, but as Jesus crosses the river of blood, and enters the garden, east of Eden, He prays, “This is eternal life that they know (present tense) you and me.” Jesus seems to think that knowing is The Good and The Life. So maybe there’s one tree and two ways of knowing. One is evil, the other is good; one is death, and the other is life. One is bondage, and the other is freedom. Why the trauma? Why the tribulation? Why the confusion? Why that tree in the middle of that garden? What were you thinking, Lord? The Danish philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, told of a young king who spied a peasant girl working the fields. From a distance, he fell in love and longed for her to return his love in freedom. He had the power to bring her back to his palace by force, but that would be rape, and her love would not be free. He also had the wealth to dazzle her with all that adorned his soul: his money, his knowledge, and his fame. But he realized that he would never know, and she would never know if she had freely fallen in love with him. Rich and powerful people create false people all around them for none of the people around them will disagree with them. But the king wanted a real bride, not an illusion, not a robot, not “AI.” So, the king emptied himself, became a peasant, and romanced this girl in the midst of tribulation, longing for rapture. If you have ever romanced someone, you know that nothing is as effective as bleeding for them, especially if the one you romance is the one that made you bleed. And if you have ever been romanced, you know that you don’t take credit for your decision to be romanced. You don’t stand up at your wedding banquet and say, “I decided... it was tough, but I decided to love my bride.” Instead, you say “I was smitten... She captured my heart.” Kierkegaard claimed that there was more to our story. If we choose God, it’s only because we were chosen to choose, for God makes everything, and certainly the most important thing, that is our chooser — our free will. Kierkegaard goes on to argue that we can’t seek what we don’t know, and we can’t seek what we already do know, so all seeking must be remembering. On the tree, in the middle of the Garden, Jesus delivered up His Spirit. I think that must be the same Spirit that God breathed into the dust in the beginning, which we each imprison in the Sanctuary of our own soul. And that night at Supper, hHe had broken bread and poured the wine, saying, “This is my blood,” and “Do this in Remembrance of me.” They all knew: The breath, the spirit, the life, was in the blood. You were made with something in you that recognizes that something in the blood. AND have you ever stopped to think that you might be romanced by God all the time? He said, “I am the Light.” The light shines in the darkness. That’s where we fall in love with the light. He said, “I am the Truth.” You can take the truth in any statement, twist it, use it, and crucify it for your own purposes. Or you can surrender to Him and become an honest person. He said, “I am the Life.” You can take the life in any moment, kill Him, and use Him as if He were a thing. Or, you can surrender to Him and give birth to Him, which is “the Life” in you — who it is that you truly are. With every decision, you may crucify the Word of God (The logic of Love). Or perhaps with every decision the Word of God is rising in you already. If it is the former, you will be proud and lonely as hell; it’s bondage. If it is the later, you will be grateful, lose yourself, and find yourself in the great dance that is the kingdom of God; it’s freedom. And, once you hear this news, there is no point in worrying about your choices, because apart from Him you can do nothing. You, on your own, have never chosen Him, and He has always chosen you. And He wins the argument. So, what was He thinking? He was thinking about you. You are the picture in his wallet. He was thinking about you and all things with you, lost and found in an eternal symphony of Love called Life — Eternal Life. Have Courage.

The Tribulation and The Rapture

Jesus is walking through Jerusalem from the upper room to the Garden of Gethsemane with his disciples early Friday morning as He says, “You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish [thlipsis: tribulation], for joy that a human being has been born into the world... Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own [idios], and will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me. I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation [thlipsis]. But be of good cheer, be courageous, I have conquered the world” (John 16:20-21, 32-33). Then, He did NOT say, “I hope you can conquer the world, too.” Or, “I have conquered the world except those parts that don’t freely choose to be conquered.” Or, “I hope to conquer the world.” Or even, “I will conquer the world” BUT “I have conquered the world.” In The Revelation, John refers to Jesus as “The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8 NKJV). “I have conquered the world... It’s like when a woman gives birth... sorrow turns into joy, and tribulation becomes rapture.” Tribulation... then rapture, because Jesus has conquered the world. So, how weird is it that so many of us seem to think that if we conquer (choose correctly), we will be raptured and avoid tribulation, as if the prize for being a great Christian is that you won’t look like Jesus because you never had to pick up your cross and follow? Except for a few debatable references in ancient history, no one even knew what “a pretribulation rapture” was until 1827 when an Englishman named John Nelson Darby formulated the idea, which was later popularized in America through The Scofield Reference Bible. The Pretribulation Rapture is this modern idea that before “a seven-year tribulation” that leads to “the Millenium” (a greatly debated idea), people who agree to “the plan of salvation” will get raptured to heaven and avoid tribulation. And this “plan of salvation” is this other debatable and fairly modern idea — the idea that God spent his wrath on Jesus so that he wouldn’t have to inflict his wrath on us. So, if you have this knowledge that God the Son saves you from God the Father as a “penal substitute,” and you agree with this plan by saying “the sinners prayer,” then you will avoid suffering as Jesus suffered. And you will get to return to earth with Jesus and help Him lead a civil government based in the nation state of Israel. This is the basis of all the Left Behind books and movies. I once prayed with the sweetest young woman who had unwittingly befriended a demonic spirit that told her that when Jesus came back, He would leave her behind.” Of course, that lie filled her with despair, and her life began to unravel until she brought the deception out into the light; we prayed together; and God the Father gave her a vision of Jesus. Jesus had her sit on His lap as they swung on a swing, and He told her, “I would rather be left behind than leave one little girl behind.” Movies like “A Thief in the Night” may be good for getting frightened teenagers to raise their hand at the end of the movie and agree to “The Plan of Salvation.” But they may be even better at getting those teenagers to distrust Jesus. We’re not saved by “knowledge of good and evil” even if we call that knowledge “The Plan of Salvation.” We’re saved by a Savior, whom we trust, for He is the Good and He gives us Life — His own Life, the Life — and so, we know because we’ve been known. He does come as “a thief in the night,” but He’s not a thief in the night; He’s our Bridegroom, and so we keep our lamps burning. Salvation is “loving His appearing,” for you know that He is the Good and so, don’t run from Him when you see His face shining like the sun. “We rejoice in our tribulation [thlipsis],” writes Paul. “This slight momentary tribulation [thlipsis] (beatings, imprisonments, floggings) prepares us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.” Just as sorrow creates a space for joy and, actually, becomes joy, tribulation creates a capacity for glory and is transformed into rapture. The word “rapture” doesn’t show up in most English Bibles. I could only find it in two translations — once in each, and both in the Song of Solomon. The English word “rapture” can refer to the experience of being taken out of yourself in a moment of ecstatic communion with God, or another person, or it can refer to this strange idea that certain Christians will be taken out of a group of people that are about to suffer... a lot. In 1 Thessalonians 4 (The classic rapture proof text), Paul uses the Greek word “harpazo,” usually translated “caught up,” but translated as “rapiemur” in the Latin Vulgate. In 1 Thessalonians 4:15-18, Paul is writing to baby Christians who are worried about loved ones who have died before the return of Jesus. He writes, “For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. [literally: “the dead, in Christ, will stand up first”] Then we who are alive, who are left [“the left behind”], will be caught up [harpazo: “rapiemur”] together with them [literally: “at the same time”] in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore, encourage one another with these words.” NOT “Freak each other out,” BUT “Encourage each other.” The Thessalonians are obviously asking, “How can Heaven be Heaven if my loved ones aren’t in Heaven — Mom, Dad, brothers, sisters, neighbors, friends?” I think Paul is answering as clearly as possible (Remember he’s the one that tells us twice, ‘As in Adam all die, so in Christ will all be made alive.’)... He’s answering, “Although we may all die at different times in the world, we are all caught up into Heaven in the same moment, for Heaven isn’t Heaven if anyone is left behind.” Of course, this can only be true if spacetime is not the same in “Heaven” as it is “here.” Paul was raptured [harpazo]. He describes it in 2 Corinthians 12, except that he can’t describe it, for there are no words — human words, that is. John was also caught up on the Island of Patmos. Jesus appeared with a face shining like the sun. John dropped as though dead, until Jesus touched him and dictated seven letters (weird huh?). Then a door opened in Heaven, and Jesus said, “Come up here and I’ll show you what must become with these.” In Revelation chapter 10, just as the seventh angel is about to blow the seventh trumpet (The last trumpet when “the dead are raised imperishable”), John sees “a mighty angel,” who is described just as Jesus is described, who does just what Paul predicted in 1 Thessalonians 4. He stands on land and sea and literally swears (look it up): “Chronos [chronological time] will be no more, but in the days of the 7th trumpet call, the mystery of God will be fulfilled.” According to Paul, the “mystery of God” is “faith, godliness, Christ, Christ in us, the hope of glory” (all different ways of saying the same thing). Having published a commentary on The Revelation and having preached it twice, I’ve often used Edwin Abbott’s fictional story of “Flatland” to help explain its contents. Flatland is a two-dimensional world in which Flatlanders can only perceive two-dimensional objects, — like squares and circles — until one of the Flatlanders is “raptured,” caught up into the third dimension where he encounters three-dimensional objects — like cubes and spheres. When he returns to Flatland, he can’t find the words to describe his revelation, for what’s obviously true in three dimensions seems to be impossible in two... just as “already, not yet,” “three in one, one in three,” “The Father in me, I in you and you in me,” seems impossible to us here in three and a half dimensions. If I we reduce Flatland to “Lineland,” we can picture people stuck in chronological time, where one moment must follow another moment in a string of cause and effect. Imagine a timeline on a poster board. And then imagine that I’m Jesus (just pretend). If I spoke into Lineland with the voice of a trumpet saying, “Behold, I come,” and then slammed the posterboard into me, I would’ve come to Lineland at an infinite number of moments in Lineland, but in only one moment for me. And if the people of Lineland were then raptured out of Lineland in me, they might each be “caught up” in different moments and yet arrive in one moment in me. Many years ago, I was raptured, and I saw that Jesus was everywhere and everywhen loving me. My sorrow became joy, and my tribulation had prepared me for the rapture... but in this world I forget. In contemplative prayer, I remember. I suppose that we experience something like rapture every time we read a great book. While you’re reading, you’re stuck in chronological time; you have to read one page after another, but when you get to the end, you know the Plot — and if the plot is good, you want to go back and enjoy every page. The Lord who descends and says, “Chronos will be no more,” is the plot to every story that’s any story. And when you trust Him, He changes your experience of every moment in your story. Walking by faith through grace in the author and His plot is always rapture. In Revelation 12:5, John sees Jesus get raptured. He sees a woman crying out in “anguish (Tribulation) to deliver.” The woman is us. She gives birth to the “Son of Man.” The dragon attempts to devour him, and he is “caught up (harpazo) to the throne.” And that’s right where we are at the end of John 16 as Jesus walks to the garden early Friday morning. He will soon lift His head on the tree and deliver up His Spirit — the Spirit that falls on the church at Pentecost, filling us with faith. “This is the victory that conquers the world,” writes John, “our faith” (1 John 5:4). Faith, hope, and love in you is Christ in you. The Revelation ends with a Party descending to earth, “Every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth worshipping the one on the throne.” She is a bride, a body, and the living temple of the Lord. His story is your story, and your story is His story. You are the greatest story ever told, and so am I. We will lose ourselves and find ourselves living in each other’s stories, and it will all be Jesus’ story, the Gospel. It will be rapture. Tribulation in this world doesn’t mean something is wrong, but that we are at the edge of everything that’s right. Satan will tell you to run and hide in the dark, for you’ve been left behind. Look to Jesus and He will tell you, “Everything is going according to plan; your tribulation will turn into rapture; and none will be left behind.” He’s the One that doesn’t leave the one behind. First Thessalonians 4: “Encourage one another with these words.” And that’s all I’m trying to do, for Heaven isn’t Heaven without you.

The Fullness of Joy

John 16:14-15, Jesus says to the 11 on their way to the Garden of Gethsemane, “He [The Parakletos, the Holy Spirit] will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” “Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven,” said Jesus in Matthew 12. To blaspheme is to “speak against.” So, to blaspheme the Holy Spirit would be to say, “The Holy Spirit can’t or won’t do what He is called to do.” If it’s not forgiven, then it’s not allowed, right? If you’re not forgiven a debt, you have to pay it back. And so, apparently, one day every soul will have to agree with the Holy Spirit, glorify Christ, and inherit our Father’s kingdom. Until then, the Truth may burn. John 16:16-24, “’A little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see me’.... So, they were saying, ‘What does he mean by “a little while”?... Jesus said, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. So also, you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name [Yeshua: “God is Salvation”], he will give it to you. Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full [literally “That the Joy of you may be having been filled”]. What is Joy? I find it to be rather hard to define. If I seek joy, I find it almost impossible to obtain. And once I think I have experienced joy, it’s already gone. In his autobiography, Surprised by Joy, C.S. Lewis writes, “Joy is never in our power, but pleasure often is.” Joy is hard to define and impossible to grasp, so maybe we’re always surprised by joy because Joy is forever new. But what is the fullness of Joy? Wouldn’t that be the joy of every creature ever made and the joy of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? How could we ever contain that much Joy? “Ask that your joy may be full,” says Jesus. He talks as if Joy is a vessel waiting to be filled, or perhaps we are that vessel — like an earthen vessel. But... “In this world you will have sorrow,” says Jesus. We all have sorrow. And you have a particular sorrow — a shape to all of your sorrows. Can you name it? What is sorrow? Perhaps it’s like an empty cup. Perhaps Joy is the wine in our cup? Or maybe that’s despair; it’s possessing everything and being unable to enjoy anything. So, what’s joy? Maybe it’s drinking the cup? And yet that lasts for only a moment. Everyone drinks water. But who in all the world has most enjoyed water? Wouldn’t that be the one who has been most thirsty? Perhaps joy is that moment at the edge of being thirsty and then full and, therefore, being unable to experience the joy of drinking. Maybe joy is the knowledge of absence and the experience of presence which can only happen in the “now.” Perhaps Joy is the knowledge of evil and the presence of the Good, who is eternal — the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Joy is the moment you see the Light in the darkness; the moment Life is born in the midst of chaos, suffering, and despair; it’s the moment you hear a newborn baby take a breath, and cry. Few times have I witnessed such sorrow as when my bride thought that she couldn’t have a baby; and perhaps, never have I seen a person in as much anguish as when she did. It took us a year to get pregnant (no complaints on my end), but Susan began to worry, and that turned to sorrow…and then wrath (that’s what happens to sorrow that’s been bottled up.) A friend of ours got pregnant out of wedlock. Driving home from work, my bride began yelling at God: “It’s not fair! it’s not fair! I did everything right, and she did everything wrong.” And then she heard the Lord. He said, “Pull this car over right now... Who are you to tell me that I cannot bless her with a child? It doesn’t matter who the father is; I am the Father and this is my child. You must forgive.” Then in a fountain of tears, on the side of the 405, she did. A vessel of wrath became a vessel of Mercy. Not all women are called to have biological children, and many of those women are the most fruitful of all (See Isaiah 54.) It doesn’t always work this way, but soon after that day on the freeway, my wife conceived and gave birth . . . in anguish. I had never seen a person in such anguish! In the 35th week, she ruptured her placenta, and her water broke. It was a nightmare. If the baby stayed in the womb, mother and baby would die. But the tribulation (“anguish,” same word in Greek) would prepare the baby to expel one world and inhale the next. So, the doctors prolonged labor for a full day. It felt like a thousand years. We kept asking “how long,” and they kept saying “a little while.” I so clearly remember thinking to myself, “Peter, if this baby lives, you had better love this baby, for this is the only baby you’ll ever get. There is no way that Susan will ever agree to go through this again!” I watched him come out — the head, first and then the body. The doctor held him up. He took a breath and let out a huge cry. I looked at Susan’s face. She was radiant. And then, at the top of her lungs she just cried out, “Oh, I want another one!” All Susan’s sorrow had literally turned into Joy. Her tribulation had literally turned into rapture. And a day that seemed like a thousand years was now only a little while. She hadn’t made the baby, but she had labored for the baby. It was obvious that God had made the baby, and — with the baby and the labor — God had made her. . . and she was grateful. I had never, ever seen such fullness of joy! I remember thinking, “I don’t understand this, but this is ‘Holy.’” Now think about your sorrow. “Your sorrow will turn into joy.” So, are you pleased? “If I knew for certain that all my stones should be changed into gold,” said Meister Eckhardt, “the more and larger the stones I had, the better I should be pleased.” “So, also you have sorrow now,” says Jesus to these 11 men, early Friday morning as they make their way to Gethsemane and then travel on to a tree in the middle of a garden on the Holy Mountain. Who’s being born, and who’s giving birth? Jesus seems to think that these 11 (or 12) men are giving birth... and He’s about to be born. He’s “the Firstborn of all creation, Firstborn from the dead, Firstborn of many brothers (and sisters).” He didn’t call himself, “Son of Mary” but “Son of Man.” We give birth to God incarnate every time we love, or should I say, Love gives birth to us. “How I am in travail... until Christ is formed in you,” writes Paul. “There is one body.” The head comes first, then the body. And “This is the plan for the fulness of time to unite (bring together under one head) all things in Christ.” John calls him “The “Only Begotten,” then records Him, saying that we must also be “begotten.” Paul writes, “The whole creation is groaning in birth pains until now (that point that eternity touches time and time becomes eternal).” “The earth will give birth to the dead,” prophesies Isaiah. According to Matthew, at least some of the dead came out of their tombs and went into Jerusalem (old or new?) as Jesus cried, “It is finished,” and the curtain ripped. The Church Fathers described Jesus as “eternally begotten,” (The uncreated created?) Perhaps all things are “eternally begotten” in Him? He just told us “The Father is in me... I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.” It sounds as if God and all creation is giving birth to God and all creation. That must be an unspeakable amount of sorrow. Could it all turn into Joy? And Jesus said, “No one will take your joy away from you (not even you).” How is that possible? “Until now you have asked nothing in my name,” said Jesus. His name is literally “God is Salvation.” How could you believe that God cannot save some or does not want to save all and also ask anything in the name of “God is Salvation”? But if we sincerely prayed, “Father save us all,” what would we be asking the Father to save us from? We’d be asking Him to save us from our sins — which we have come to think of as ourselves, which is actually self-righteousness — that is actually no righteousness but just illusion, lies, and the work of the Devil. If God saved everyone from themselves, it would be the death of every false self, and the liberation of every true self which is Christ’s self. It would be the union of all selves in one man and that one man in all selves; it would be the resurrected body of Christ; The 7th sign that is the substance; “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” It would be billions of “Me-suses” giving birth to Jesus, billions of members in one body with one heart, having been transformed from vessels of wrath into vessels of Mercy. That is, blood vessels constantly losing “their life” and finding it — “The Life (The Spirit is Life) is in the blood.” . . . Do not blaspheme! “Ask and receive that your joy may be full,” said Jesus. Perhaps your sorrow is the shape of your old man. It’s how you want to be God but can’t make yourself God. At the foot of the cross, surrendered sorrow turns into joy. For in that place in which we attempted to make ourselves God, we discover that God is always making us Himself. In that place, the shape of your sorrow becomes the shape of His Joy in you. But not a little joy — an endless river of Joy — the river of life flowing in and through you as you constantly drink. You will have knowledge of evil, but with the constant ever flowing presence of the Good. God is the Good whom you constantly choose in perfect freedom. In that day, your temporal self is revealed to be an eternal vessel for the fullness of Joy, which is all the fullness of God. In a healthy body, every member is distinct, and yet there is no division. So, although there may be memory of pain, there is no sorrow; AND the joy of one is the joy of all; and the joy of all is the Joy of one. In my body, my foot is not jealous of my tongue, and when my foot gets a foot rub, my tongue says, “thank you.” Just think: Their will be no more sorrow or pain, and you will experience the joy of billions of hungry children eating pizza, the lost being found, the light shining in the darkness, Jesus finally getting His drink, the Father hugging all of His lost children, and the Spirit of God delighting in them all. Some say “Blasphemy! Impossible!” . . . Is it? Or would it be blasphemy to suggest that this is impossible for our God?

When God Ran

Truth You Can’t Handle (Which Handles You)

“You can’t handle the truth.” That’s an iconic line spoken by Jack Nicholson in the movie A Few Good Men. Jesus says something similar in our text for this week: “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot handle them now” (John 16:12). It’s a little surprising since He just told them, “All that I have heard from my father, I have made known to you” (John 15:15). It seems that they know, but not as they ought to know. And that does seem applicable to the situation. Jesus and the eleven are walking to the Garden of Gethsemane. Each of these disciples has vowed fidelity to Jesus. And in a few hours, each will flee and “go to his own” (John 16:32) — his own abode, rather than abide with Jesus. In a few hours, men — trying to make themselves God — will take the life of Christ on a tree in a garden. It’s not the first time it’s happened. Making yourself God is making God “not God.” It’s the “original sin” and every sin. To sin is to judge the Judgment of God with your own judgment. They take “the Life” on the tree, and the World goes black, literally. “The day you do it is the day you die,” said God in Eden. And Jesus talked as if we were already dead (John 5:24). That might be a truth that’s rather hard to handle. Brad was my best friend as a young boy. We caught bugs together. We took art classes together. Over the years, we grew apart. In high school, Brad seemed to have lost his faith. I used to witness to Brad about Jesus. He’d smile and walk away. About 30 years ago, he died of AIDS. At his funeral, his sister pulled me aside and said, “Peter it was so weird. Before Brad died, he was delirious, and he used to lie in bed muttering over and over again, 'I can’t be God; I can’t be God; it’s so hard to be God.” Shirley MacLaine once wrote: “I was my own universe. Did that also mean I had created God and I had created life and death? Was that why I was all there was? A chilling wave of loneliness rippled through me...” Yes. I would think so. And yet, due to the implications of quantum mechanics, some physicists speculate that this might be true. It’s a horrifying thought, for it would mean that each one of us is thoroughly alone and utterly insane — trapped in our own logos, our own logic, our own reason, our own truth . . . “Was this what was meant by the statement I Am that I Am?” asks Shirly MacLaine. Is God infinitely lonely? John 16:8-15, Jesus says, “When [The Helper] comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; 10 concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; 11 concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. 12 I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 When the Spirit of [the] truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth [that’s Jesus], for he will not speak on his own, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14 He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15 All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you. NOW, read that last line over and over again. Scripture is clear that all that the Father has is all that there is, including all souls. He has all judgment, which has been given to the Son (John 5:22); it’s the ability to make a world with just a word; it’s a thoroughly free will. The Father has a name, “I Am.” He gives it to His son “I Am is Salvation.” It sounds like an identity. Is it given to us? To be God is an attractive idea at first, then utterly terrifying. There’s an old Twilight Zone episode in which a six-year-old has the power to create his own world with just a word. Of course, everyone’s terrified of him and so cannot love him, but they all pretend to love him. All that he actually wants is Love, although he doesn’t yet know Love, so he repeatedly demands Love, and so crucifies Love, and so becomes more and more angry — a little vessel of wrath. He ends up willing everyone away and willing himself into darkness, utterly alone, which is “hell (hades). “It’s not good for the man to be alone,” says God; it’s evil. Yet Jesus already told us (and the Pharisees) in John 10:34, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’?” He’s quoting Psalm 82, in which “gods” is the Hebrew word, “elohim,” normally translated as “God.” He’s just said, “I and the Father are One.” Is each of us is to be one with the Father as Jesus is one with the Father? The Pharisees accuse Jesus of being “a man that’s made himself God.” But Jesus is God having made Himself man. When a man makes himself God, he does the work of the devil, traps himself in outer darkness, and brings death to everyone he meets. When God makes Himself man, He looks just like Jesus — The Way, The Truth, The Life, The Good in flesh, the perfect image of the invisible God. “You are gods” and “The Spirit of Truth will take what is mine and declare it to you,” says The Truth. That’s a truth that’s rather hard to handle, and perhaps we really can’t handle the Truth until the same Spirit of Truth convicts us concerning sin, righteousness and Judgment. 1. “Concerning sin, because [or “that”] they do not believe [trust] in me (v.9).” I don’t think we have any idea of just how evil this world actually is. And any idea of how often, and how much, each one of us sins. And how horrid it is when we do sin. And that all we do and can do, apart from Jesus, is sin. He just told us, “Apart from me, you can do nothing.” Sin is a nothing that we think is a something that produces tremendous pain. Sin is a lack of faith in Jesus, which traps us in Me-sus. And righteousness is the faith of Jesus, which annihilates Me-sus and liberates us to be the image and likeness of God... which is Jesus. 2. “Concerning righteousness, because [or “that”] I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer (v.10).” Jesus just told us, “The Father is in me... In that day, you will know that I am... in you...If anyone loves me... we will make our abode in him (John 14:12, 20, 15:23).” We are the Father’s house. We think it can’t be true, because we’ve been convinced that life on this timeline is all that there is. We have no idea of the depths of evil in this world and ourselves, but also no idea of the glory of the righteousness of Christ in us and through us in the world. 1. He is the Truth that we haven’t “handled”; we — each and all — took His Life on a tree. 2. And yet, He rises from the dead in us; He is every right decision in and through us. 3. And this is the Judgement of God; His Choice given to each one of us. Perhaps this needs to be more than knowledge gained in a book, but instead, a life lived in this world and then born into the next. 3. “Concerning judgment, because [or “that”] the ruler of this world is judged.” It is the ruler of this world who whispers, “He can’t save you, and He doesn’t want to save you... So, you better save yourself. Take the fruit of the tree and make yourself in the image of God; make yourself God.” All of the accuser’s power is based on a lie that is annihilated by the revelation of the Truth. Me-sus is the prison. Jesus is the Truth. His superpower is humility. Humility is knowing that you cannot make yourself God, for God has already made Himself you. He is our Helper, made fit for each and every one of us. The lie of the evil one is that you must exalt yourself to get what you want. The Truth is that when you humble yourself, you will be exalted, for all that you really want is Love... and God is Love. Life is a communion of Sacrifice called Love, which is the Judgment of God that is God; it’s one for all and all for one; it’s the 7th sign that is the substance. “All that the Father has is mine. The Spirit of Truth will take what is mine and declare it to you.” — That would include my old friend, Brad. I did his funeral. Being a young evangelical pastor, it made me rather nervous; it wasn’t a “normal” Sunday morning church crowd. But I spoke of the many ways I had encountered the Righteousness of God in Brad — their Honesty, Beauty, Kindness, and Love. After the service, Brad’s old girlfriend said to my wife, “One day, toward the end (when he’d lie in bed moaning, ‘I can’t be God. It’s too hard to be God.’), I asked Brad what he wanted for his funeral. I said, ‘Have you talked to your old friend, Peter?’ And Bradley said, ‘Oh Peter, I talk to him every week.” I hadn’t talked to Brad in years... but maybe he had been talking to Jesus, whom he met in me. And maybe he’ll recognize him when he stands before the throne. Maybe he’ll say, “I know you,” as Jesus replies: “And Bradley, I know you. We used to catch bugs together down by the ditch. We drew pictures together at your house after school. Now, this is our Father’s house. Welcome home. Would you like to come in?” Many years before his funeral, when we were both in Los Angeles — Brad, making art in Hollywood, and me, attending Seminary in Pasadena — Brad called me at church. He said, “Peter, I’m having a party, and you have to come. I’ve got a communist, a physicist, a lesbian, a rabbi, an atheist, and you’re a pastor – it’ll be perfect if you would only come.” I said, “no.” I think I thought it would be a little too much for me to handle. I said “no.” But I expect to one day say “Yes!” for Jesus said, “All that the Father has is mine.” That would include communists, physicists, lesbians, rabbis, atheists, even pastors and Brad. “Therefore, I said,” said Jesus, “The Spirit of Truth will take what is mine and declare it to you.” We can’t handle the Truth, but the Truth is handling us and will bring us all home to Him. He broke the bread and blessed the cup, saying, “Eat of it and drink of it, all of you.” This is the Revelation of sin: Each and all took His Life. And when you see it, it is utterly devastating. This is the Revelation of righteousness: To each and all He gave His life, and when you see it, it is equally devastating…to your ego. This is the Judgment of God: You cannot make yourself God, but God is making you Himself with Himself, that you would sit with Him on His throne and will the Universe into existence. Not ONE verse, but billions and trillions of verses, joined as One in one symphony of Love called Life — wherein you will never be alone. I Am that I Am is entirely NOT alone.

The World Hates You…Surprised?

“Don’t be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you,” writes John in 1 John 3:13. In our text from the Gospel of John, Jesus just tells his followers, “The world hates you.” This raises some questions: “Why does the world hate me? And why have I found it to be surprising?” I thought of four occasions upon which I was genuinely surprised to be hated. The first was about 51 years ago playing basketball in P. E. in seventh grade. I genuinely loved shooting hoops with my friend David after school. But playing basketball in school was another matter. For some reason, someone passed me the ball, and I didn’t immediately pass it away which was my normal tactic (I had learned this from Matt L. in the second grade — Matt from our last message). For some reason, this day, a lane just opened up — nothing between the basket and me. And so, I seized my opportunity for glory; I dribbled down the court, shot a layup, and it went in; it was beautiful! I turned around, ready to receive adulation and congratulations . . . and all I received was hate, absolute disdain. I thought that the name of the game was shooting baskets, but apparently you have to shoot them for a particular team; I had scored for the wrong team. John 15:16-20: Jesus says, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit... If the world [kosmos] hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.” Thirty-two years ago, when my church was the fastest-growing church in my denomination, I wrote this in my journal: “I’m more respected than Jesus was. I’m more honored than He. People speak better of me, and I live in a far nicer house than He. I’m more popular than Jesus was when He hung on that cross for me. And that ought to concern me. Because a servant is not better than his master. And He said, that if the world hated Him, they’d hate me.” “The world will hate you.” I used to think “world” meant drug dealers and pornographers, but those persecuting Jesus were actually his “church,” Israel. And “world” meant more than tax collectors and sinners, or even priests and pharisees. John uses the Greek word “kosmos,” which means cosmos. He already told us, “In Him (the Word) was Life, and the Life was the Light of men... [He] was coming into the cosmos. He was in the cosmos, and the cosmos was made through Him, yet the cosmos did not know him.” The cosmos is all of space and time. In Scripture (see Gen. 2:4), time is like six days of chronological time on a timeline surrounded by an “eternal” seventh day, the unveiled presence of “I Am.” And space is like an explosion of nothingness in the somethingness of “I Am” that is currently being filled with “I Am” as He speaks His Light into the Void as a Word. Space and time are like a womb in Yahweh (I Am that I Am). The cosmos is nothingness being filled with the somethingness of God; it’s the realm of “becoming” encased in “Being.” “In Him we live and move and have our being.” The Cosmos is a temporal thing surrounded by eternity, and yet that eternity already exists in every human soul like a seed. In the message, I shared a great picture of my 10-month-old grandson, James. When he was born, I held him in my arms and he didn’t know that I, or he, existed. Now he recognizes me, and I recognize the eternal in James. In the picture, he’s looking under a park bench for me, delighted to find me, and see himself reflected in my eyes. I pray they speak the Truth: “No matter the choices you make in space and time, you are God’s choice, and all His choices are Good. You are the Choice of God, the Chosen.” James hasn’t done much, but he is much. He is the presence of I Am in a pile of dust named “Adam,” and becoming “the last Adam,” Jesus. “You didn’t choose me; I chose you.” As we preached last time, “I am God’s choice or nothing.” So maybe the point of “election” is not that some are chosen and others are not chosen but that God is the Chooser and each of us are the chosen... or we are nothing — incapable of any actual choice at all. From Scripture, it seems clear to me that we are all chosen to experience the illusion of not being chosen, to then awaken to the reality of being the Eternally Beloved, The Chosen One, in whom we are all chosen — the Eschatos Adam. It’s only in a cosmos like ours, where one moment in space and time can be hidden from another moment of space and time, that we could be tricked into believing a lie and so trap ourselves in the illusion that we are each our own creator. John 15:21: “All these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.” His name is literally, “Yahweh (I Am) is Salvation.” “Beingness” is salvation. So, what does He save us from? Non-being. In other words, ALL SALVATION is CREATION. He just told us, “Apart from me, you can do nothing.” Evil is a nothing that we think is a something. So, if we think we have created ourselves, that self is evil and an illusion from which we must be saved. John 15:22: “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of [the] sin (So much for the idea of inherited guilt!), but now they have no excuse (no cloak, no fig leaves) for their sin... Now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. But the Word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: ‘They hated me without cause.” Jesus is the Torah (Law or Way): He is the knowledge of Good and evil. God is the Good, and His apparent absence is the evil. Jesus is the Good in flesh, hanging on a tree in a garden; He is “The Way” and “The Life.” To take the fruit to make yourself God is evil. But to receive the Fruit, for God is making you Himself, is something else entirely. It’s Grace revealed as Faith. It’s His Choice. John 16:1-2: “I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away [scandalizo: being scandalized, being offended]. They will kick you out of the synagogues.” And that reminds me of the second time that I was utterly surprised to be hated. In 2005, in a sermon, I asked if we had been trying to capture Jerusalem in the very way that Jesus refused to do so. Then I suggested that we are the New Jerusalem and True Israel. It utterly infuriated a Christian man of Jewish descent. I told him, “I’m not anti-jew. I am a Jew. The King of the Jews is my husband. His Dad is my Dad. His blood is in my body. I’m not taking anything away from Jews; I’ve just been grafted into your family tree.” Then he would really get furious. I thought he might try to kill me. Synagogue means “assembly” or even “team.” He didn’t want me on his team. John 16:2-3: “Indeed the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor Me” — Yeshua, Jesus, Yahweh is Salvation.” And that reminds me of the third time that I was utterly surprised to be hated... I never expected to be hated by “Christians” for preaching that Jesus wins. Reading Romans 11, I realized that “all Israel” would be saved, but I kept reading and realized that “God consigned all to disobedience (Bad choices) that He may have mercy on all (His Choice).” Jesus means “God is Salvation,” which means “Me is NOT salvation.” I had to realize that when I preached Jesus, I was crucifying “Me-sus.” Of course people hated me: I was insulting their idol, and they assumed that I was evil, because they thought that I was scoring points for the wrong team. They didn’t know that God is the Good who saves us from our own evil, that it’s His Good Choice that saves us from our bad choice, that Salvation is Creation, and we are still being created. They didn’t know that Salvation is always the name of His game, at least until all of space and time is filled with Love, and we are all one team. Imagine that you’re playing in the NBA championships, and Jesus is on your team. Nobody can shoot baskets like Jesus. You’re down by one, five seconds are left in the game, and you pass to Jesus. He plants, and just as He’s about to shoot, He spots someone on the other team that’s sad, and so He passes the ball to them . . . or maybe He turns and makes a half-court shot for them. Would you be offended? Would you yell at Jesus? “What the hell Jesus? You sacrificed the game! Beating our opponents is the name of the game?!” And what if He said, “I’m sorry, I don’t play that game.” Would you still want to be on His team? Or would you judge yourself out of His Vineyard? John 16:4: “I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you.” A couple of hours after preaching the last sermon, You are God’s Choice or Nothing, I said to my wife, “You know, while I’m preaching about Jesus, looking at Jesus, I feel so good. But within a few minutes of stopping, I feel like I’m dying. What’s wrong with me?” And without skipping a beat she responded, “You hate yourself.” That surprised me.... I think she’s right, but in a weird way. I hate myself, because I love myself, but I can’t save myself. I’m trying to say that I’m just like my grandson James, EXCEPT that I’m trying to be me. I am God’s choice, but I’m trying to make myself the Savior, unaware that the Savior is constantly making Himself me. You know, little children learn and grow in a way that’s very different than older children and adults. James looks at me, sees himself in me and me in himself, and so does whatever I do without even thinking about what he’s doing. When I try to learn and grow, I take knowledge of Jesus and then hate myself for not being Jesus and then try to be Jesus without Jesus. And I hope you recognize that for what it is: It’s evil. “Take the fruit, and make yourself in the image of God.” It’s the work of the devil, whom Jesus called “the ruler of this cosmos.” I hate myself when I strive to make myself in the image of God and so surrender myself to the ruler of this world — the devil. But I lose myself and find myself when I make my home in Jesus as Jesus makes his home in me, and I look out of His eyes into the eyes of our Father and hear Him say, “You are my beloved son in whom I am well pleased, the Chosen.” Don’t be surprised when the cosmos hates you, but be grateful. For you will be born out of this cosmos into a New Cosmos. And when you open your eyes in the New One, you’ll realize that the New One is this old one, except filled with Love, the Choice of God that is God. Love is not your choice; it’s God’s Choice in you. And when you receive it, you will be overjoyed that it’s given to all. One for all and all for one. That’s not a game; that’s a party! That’s The Kingdom of God.

Face to Face

Are You Alive!?!

I Am God’s Choice (or nothing)

I have a memory burned in my flesh and haunting my psyche. Every day, around about 1968 or ‘69, Mr. Johnston would gather all of the seven- and eight-year-old boys for PE, assign captains, and then make them pick teams. I was never picked first. Sometimes the captains would publicly argue over who would have to be stuck with me... Never first, but also not last. That was usually Matt, or maybe Duncan. Matt and Duncan always played Batman and Robin at recess, and even then, Duncan always got to be Batman and Matt always had to play Robin — but at least Batman likes Robin. Routinely, someone would yell, “Get Matt and Duncan,” and a crowd of little boys, all trying to be the chosen, would chase Duncan and Matt behind the backstop, knock them down, and start kicking — only to walk away when Batman and Robin had been humiliated and left in the dust whimpering. I remember standing on the side of that crowd, utterly frozen. I wanted to be chosen; I wanted to be one of the guys. And yet I wanted to choose Matt, to go lie in the dust next to Matt. And I began to wonder, “How does God choose?” How does God pick His friends? Do we have to try out for His team? Does He choose us based on our choices... and if so, who made those choices? Choices are made by choosers, so who makes all the choosers? And what is Hell? Behind the backstop in 1968, it already felt like hell. John 15:12-14, Jesus is walking from the Upper Room to a garden named “Gethsemane” and then on to a garden on Mt. Calvary. He’s just told them of the True Vine, Vinedresser, and Branches, when He says, “This is [the commandment of me], that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends IF you do what I command you...” This must be how He picks His team. In our worship service this week, I said. “Let’s pick teams.” I asked those who do what Jesus commands, to raise their hand and then go to the right side of the room at my command. Then I asked those who don’t do what Jesus commands to raise their hand. We ran into a problem, for most people raised the same hand both times. We hope that the Judgment of God would judge between people, but it seems to cut people, all people... cut each one of us in two. John 15:15, “No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.” I hate being a boss, but love being friends. So, I’ll often explain myself to “employees,” because I want them to trust my intentions; I want to be friends. I want them to agree with me because they trust me (That’s called, “faith.”) Jesus doesn’t want robots, slaves, or employees; He wants friends. And did you notice in the passage that Jesus just called them “Friends”? And yet at dinner, He had told just them, “You will all fall away [scandalizo: be scandalized, sin] because of me this night.” And yet again, He will soon tell them (just 13 more verses), “I have said these things to you to keep you from falling away [scandalizo: ‘being scandalized,’ sinning].” They do fall away, yet they all come back, as if His word in them were some sort of homing beacon or imperishable seed. For three years, they had chosen to leave everything and follow Jesus. At times, it seemed like the best choice they had ever made. As the chant of the crowd changed from “Hosanna” to “Crucify, Crucify,” they would each re-evaluate all their choices and choose to abandon their friend. Jesus knows this. He turns and says... John 15:16, “You did not choose me, but I chose you...” That must’ve sounded so strange and yet so familiar. God chose Abraham. God Chose Israel. God Chose Judah. And they all had a tremendously difficult time choosing God. God tells the people of Israel to choose but informs them that they cannot, for their hearts have not been circumcised. Joshua tells them to choose to serve but then tells them they are unable. He and his house will choose and serve, but to be part of Joshua’s house (His Bride or children) is not their choice. It’s Joshua’s choice. “Joshua” is the Hebrew form of the name “Jesus.” John 15:16, “You did not choose me, but I chose you...” I think that means that He controls the “IF.” “There is no greater Love than to die for your friends.” Jesus dies for “the sins of the whole world.” He must consider all the sinners in this world to actually be His friends. John 15:16, “You did not choose me, but I chose you...” He is the Logos, the Logic of God. He is the Light, the Way, The Truth, and the Life. Maybe you can’t choose Life unless the Life has chosen you. Maybe you can’t tell the Truth unless the Truth is telling you; you can’t find the Way unless that Narrow Way has found you. You can’t choose to turn on the Light unless the Light has chosen you and decided to turn you on to Him. Maybe you can’t even think unless you are being thought. Maybe you can’t choose the Good unless the Good is choosing you, and choosing you from the inside out, as you choose the Good — and even as you choose the bad and regret it later on. He controls the “IF.” And yet, He doesn’t want robots, slaves, or employees; He wants friends. How does He do that? Perhaps He just told us, His friends... John 15:1-5 (what we preached last time), “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he lifts up, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes [kathairo], that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean [katharos: pruned] because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. [Maybe each one of us is a bunch of branches, just as each person is a bunch of choices.] The one abiding in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” If you define “free will” as a choice that you make apart from God, which determines the choices of God, then your “free will” is nothing. It’s a nothing that you think is a something, which is worse than a mere nothing; it’s an illusion that the devil inhabits. John 15:10-12, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” I woke up at 4 a.m. last Wednesday morning, wrestling with this Word from God: “Abide in the vine.” Then suddenly, the obvious hit me: Branches don’t choose to abide in the vine, prune themselves, or grow fruit. I realized, “I Am God’s choice or I am nothing.” And then, it felt like I began to abide — I was at home, at home in “me.” And when branches abide in the vine . . . FRUIT just happens. It is what Jesus commands: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, the Good, etc. Jesus will soon be hanging on a tree in the middle of a garden on the Holy Mountain. There’s a reason that we all chose evil, and God chose the Good: mercy on all. God wants all the children of Adam to see: His decision is Grace; He is Grace; He chose you, long before you could even begin to choose Him. When I believe the snake and so take the fruit in order to create myself in the image of God, I take the Life, crucify Christ, choose death, and produce “the works of the flesh.” That’s My choice: Self-righteousness, fake fruit, and sour grapes. And I become a tree of death. But when I believe the Truth and so surrender to Christ, it is Christ in me giving His life to me and rising from the dead within me as every good choice born of me: New Wine, the Fruit of His Spirit in me, His Life through me — our eternal life. The Tree of Life, the True Vine, now grows in me. I am a temple, and the Holy of Holies in me is the inner man in me, Christ in me, the True Vine in me. The Outer Man must be dead branches: the form of life but drained of life, like a corpse — or nothing. My consciousness can abide in either place: God’s something or the nothing I pretend is something 1.) I can’t grow fruit by trying, for then I’m not abiding in the vine, and so all the fruit I grow is fake.2.) I can’t prune my own vine; I can’t judge my own choices, for that would just be more of my own bad choices and create more dead branches. 3.) A branch can’t just decide to abide in a vine unless the vine has already decided to abide in the branch, in which case the branch actually becomes the vine. 1.) The Eleven had tried to Love as Jesus loved for three years and would utterly fail this night. 2.) In a few hours, they would each re-evaluate all their choices; they would attempt to prune their own vine. 3.) Jesus would turn and say, “You didn’t choose me; I chose you.” That Word must’ve sat in them like a seed, root, or stump. It was our Lord’s Choice in them. At the cross, the Vinedresser pruned them down to Jesus (“God is Salvation”). They fell away, and yet they came back, for they just wanted to be with Him; they wanted to abide with Him even when He seemed to be good for nothing... just good. And in case you didn’t know, those 11 guys bore fruit. When I see that I didn’t choose Jesus, but Jesus chose me, I trust the vine in me, and He trusts us both to the Vinedresser. And then I abide, and FRUIT (Good Choices) just happen. I don’t have to prune the branches, and I don’t have to fake the fruit. I just need to know: “I Am God’s Choice or Nothing.” Jesus said, “Apart from me you can do nothing.” When I see it, my ego disappears, the vinedresser prunes my branches (I can let stuff go; it’s nothing), and it changes all my nothings into His something. And then, I’m free to be “me.” But in 1968 behind the backstop, I was frozen. I wanted to be part of that crowd, that was my choice, and yet, I wanted to go lie next to Matt in the dust — that was another’s choice in me. That was the Chosen choosing me, and so telling me who I am. I was frozen, but He is setting me free to be “me” . . . and Him. You have been chosen to be you and no one else except Jesus, the Chosen One in you. My greatest memory from South Elementary: In PE playing basketball, someone passed the ball to Matt just to be mean. Matt freaked out, and in a spasm, just hurled the ball from half-court . . . and it went in! Everyone froze and stood in awe. I thought, “There is a God.” But the angels were unimpressed. Half-court shots are no big deal for the Creator. It was just a sign. But for that same Creator to choose to go lie in the dust with Matt, and in every adam, even in hell (“Even if I make my bed in hell,” wrote David), that’s THE SUBSTANCE. So, don’t be surprised, if in the Age to Come, you look to the throne of God and see Matt sitting next to Jesus and their Dad, ruling over all things in perfect freedom. For that’s how God our Father picks His team. And in the End, we’ll discover that everyone that’s anyone is on His team, for the other team is nothing.

Authenticity in Worship

Prayer That Doesn’t Work

In John 5:1-11, Jesus says, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser... Abide in me... you are the branches. Whoever abides in me... he it is that bears much fruit.... If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” As I prepared to preach on these verses, I found myself getting angry. I think I must assume that Jesus is saying, “Have your ‘Quiet Times,’ do your devotions, say your prayers and everything will go your way.” Nineteen years ago, I had never been more faithful in prayer, diligent in doing good deeds, and devoted to the practice of communion. And in the span of a few weeks, everything (or it felt like everything... my accomplishments) was stripped away. Perhaps you’ve been there? Whenever I get mad at God, everything changes when I step into Jesus. Did Jesus say His prayers? Did Jesus do good deeds and celebrate communion? Actually... He had just instituted communion and washed the disciples’ feet and was about to pray the godliest of prayers when He said these words. No one has ever been more devoted than Jesus on this day, and yet on this day He will appear to be utterly fruitless, debased, and cursed. This is the beginning of “Good Friday.” According to the definitions of this world, no man was ever, or could be, more cursed and unfruitful than this naked man nailed to this tree in a garden on the Holy Mountain. And yet, according to God, no man was ever, or could be, more fruitful or a greater blessing. Maybe we’re confused about what fruit is and where and how it grows... 1) I think we often assume that Jesus suffered and died so that we don’t have to — which makes it rather hard to abide in the vine during certain seasons of the year. 2) And we assume that some branches go to heaven, and some are endlessly burned in Hell — which makes it kind of hard to be at home in the Vine and with the Vinedresser. 3) And we assume that the Vinedresser chooses to prune particular branches based upon the choices of those branches, our choices — which makes us all judgmental, competitive, and angry... which is the opposite of the Fruit of the Spirit. That’s called “the work of the flesh.” In John 14:30-31, just before John 15, Jesus says, “I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim in me, but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go from here.” It reminds me of Job. Satan asked God, “Does Job respect you for no reason?” That is, “He only says ‘Yes’ to you for what you give him, not because of who you are.” Job is stripped of all and left sitting on a pile of dust and ashes. Job gets no explanation, and “NO” seems to be the only answer to his prayers. God appears in the end and asks, “Can you conquer Leviathan (Satan in the form of a dragon)?” God says, “Who has first given to me that I should repay him? ...Leviathan is king over all the sons of pride.” Job sees God, worships God, and confesses, “I uttered what I do not understand... but now my eyes see you.” Job had asked for knowledge of God, and God gave no answer but himself, and Job became even more fruitful; he had faith while sitting on a pile of dust and ashes — that’s fruit. Job was God’s champion, conquered the dragon, and became even more fruitful. And, of course, he is a picture of the one speaking in John 15. He just said, “Rise, let us go from here.” They’re on their way to a garden. In the Garden of Gethsemani (“olive press”), in great distress, Jesus prays, “Abba, Father... remove this cup from me.” And apparently the answer is “No.” Jesus is the Word and Will of God the Father! So... is Jesus asking, “in Jesus’ name”? Apparently not. I think He’s asking in my name and your name and hearing “NO” on our behalf. He did say, “Abide in me, and I in you.” He then prays, “Yet not what I will but what you will.” I find that to be incredibly hard to pray (to will what I don’t will), but perhaps I can pray it in Jesus’ name. My grandson, James, is beginning to learn the word, “No.” It kills me to say “No” to James. I love saying “YES!” but I know that unless a child learns “No,” they will always be alone and incapable of saying “Yes” to Love and Life and Joy. I think there’s a part of me in James, so I don’t want him to hear “No,” for I know how much that hurts. Yet, I long for the day that James comes home and I can say, “James, all that’s mine is yours. Lick the light sockets if you want to! Drink from the toilet if you want to! Eat the dirt in the garden if you want to! No more rules; everything is ‘YES!’” Paul wrote, “In the Son of God it is always ‘yes.’ All the promises of God find their ‘Yes’ in Him.” The role of a good dad or granddad is to not only impose your will from the outside, like a law or prison, but to grow your will from the inside until your will becomes your child’s will — a good free will. From the garden of Gethsemani, Jesus is taken to the Garden on the Holy Mountain, where he is hung on a tree and from which He prays, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do,” and “Why have you forsaken me?” He says, “I thirst,” quoting David in Psalm 39, and as with David, they give Him sour wine to drink. Like Job, David heard “NO.” And in the place he heard “NO,” God answered with Himself. Jesus is literally born of David’s sin and grief. One Son of David dies. David knows Bathsheba in a new way, and another Son of David is born. Jesus is the Son of David that dies and is born (actually is resurrected) and builds the temple of living stones. In the garden on the tree, Jesus hears “NO” on behalf of all humanity (Adam). He drinks the sour wine and delivers up His Spirit. That’s the Holy Spirit that descends into us and rises within us, crying “Abba” from the garden sanctuary of the soul. “Rise let us go from here (to the Garden: John 18:1, 26, 19:24). I am the true vine.” This is the seventh and last “I Am statement” in the Gospel of John and the seventh sign that is the substance. In the Hebrew mind, a vine was a type of tree (ets). “In the middle of the garden there was the ‘ets’ of Life and the ‘ets’ of the knowledge of Good and evil.” The Dragon tempts each of us to justify ourselves with the knowledge of Good and evil and so trap ourselves in an illusion that is our own arrogant, lonely, and competitive ego. And at that, God says “NO” and drives humanity from the garden, in order to save us from ourselves in the hope that we would come back to the garden, eat from the tree in a new way, and God our Father could finally say nothing but “YES! YES! YES!” “I am the true vine,” said Jesus. It does imply the existence of a not-so-true vine. The 12 disciples knew that Israel was God’s Vine and Vineyard. Isaiah 5:1-4, “My beloved had a vineyard... and he looked for grapes and it yielded, ‘baushiym,’ sour grapes.... ‘What more was there to do for my Vineyard,’ asks Yahweh?” I watched several videos on “Vine dressing.” The goal of the “vinedresser” is to dress the Vine in delicious fruit from the inside out. Scripture claims that we will each be dressed in the Righteousness (the right decisions) of Christ from the inside out. I learned that absent pruning, a vine will send most of its energy into growth and produce sour grapes that make sour wine, but when pruned — the same vine will produce abundant and delicious fruit. Perhaps we all eat from the tree of knowledge and become a tree of death, and we will all be pruned, right down to the root and become a tree of life. I learned that the best wine comes from old vines pruned numerous times (kind of like people). “What more was I to do?” asks Yahweh. In the next chapter, Isaiah is told to preach Israel down to a stump that is a root and the Holy Seed. Isaiah continues in Chapter 27: “Israel will blossom... and fill the whole world with fruit... therefore the guilt of Jacob will be atoned for, and this will be the full fruit (harvest) of the removal of his sins.” John 15:1, “I am the true vine, and my father is the vinedresser (“georgos,” from which we derive the name “George.”) It makes sense of the legend of St. George and the dragon. Our Father cuts away everything dead and diseased in which the dragon abides. In the words of CS Lewis, Jesus was “un-dragoned” on the cross. In the words of Paul, He was circumcised on the cross. I’m saying that Jesus was pruned on the tree in the garden on the Holy Mountain. Pruned of what? Our sin... in His flesh. The Devil has nothing in Him, but on the cross, He was wearing our sin; He’s the Scapegoat that becomes the Sin Offering. He’s also the Burnt Offering (Olah). Jesus is the goat and the sheep; Jesus is the sin offering and the burnt offering. Jesus is repentance in you, and He is righteousness in you and dressing you from the inside out. We die with Him and rise with him. To abide in Him is to be at home in Him and look at the Father through His eyes. The Self that’s hearing God and looking Him in the eye is eternal. The self that we judge in the past and try to create in the future is an illusion — the product of the dragon’s lie, the body of sin. We must all be pruned; we must all hear “NO” to our arrogance, in order that we would say “YES” to our Father in Freedom. Our Father knows that this process — growing up — hurts. So, He comes to us in Jesus and says, “Get into me; we’ll do this together. Abide in me and my love for our Father.” It’s called Faith. When my daughter, James’ mom, was a little girl, she cracked her head on the fireplace, and I took her to the emergency room for stitches. To keep her still, they tied her down. It was Hell. Every scream seemed to say “Daddy, why have you forsaken me?” A few months later, she did the same thing, and I drove her to the same hospital once again. But this time I asked permission, and the doctor agreed to give it a try. I said, “Honey, I know it’s scary, but if you look into my eyes and believe what I say, they won’t need to tie you down.” She said, “OK, Daddy.” Then she locked her eyes on mine as I locked my eyes on hers, and she didn’t even whimper; she didn’t move a muscle. And now that moment feels eternal. Far from feeling forsaken, both of us felt closer than we had ever felt before... and that fruit abides. Her faith in me and mine in her is an eternal treasure. John 15:11, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full,” says Jesus. When prayer doesn’t “work,” He’s working me into Him; it’s working me into the image of God. “All the Promises of God find their ‘YES’ in him.” The Vine is the Way home. 3) Your choices do not give you Heaven, but Heaven is constantly giving you your choices. 2) It’s not that some people go to Heaven and some go to Hell, but that all have chosen Hell, and all must surrender to Heaven. 1) It’s not that some hear “NO” and others hear “YES,” but that we must all hear “NO” in order to all say “YES” to God and everyone else in Freedom. Heaven is a communion of Sacrificial Love in Absolute Freedom in which the Joy of one is the joy of all, and the joy of all is the joy of one. Abide in the Vine. The Vine is within you. The Vine is I Am. Soon you will see an entire universe filled with fruit, and you’ll be entirely at home in I Am that I Am. There’s no place like Home.

Greater Works

In John 14:12, Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.” Greater works — what does that mean? Jesus walked on water, and Peter did too... at least for a few steps. “Greater works than these will you do.” It’s the bane of every pastor. People say, “Pray for my healing, pastor; Jesus said, ‘Greater works will you do.’” The disciples healed everyone... sometimes, and also no one, sometimes. They healed... sometimes. And they cast out demons. I’ve done that, in Jesus’ name; it really freaked me out the first time! Jesus said to the 70, “Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” After his chapter on “Gifts of the Spirit,” Paul wrote about “the still more excellent way.” So... Maybe the Greater Works are not “signs and wonders,” but greater churches built by greater pastors. At one time, I was esteemed by many as a great pastor because my church grew greatly from a few people to a few thousand people. At times, I felt like I was walking on water . . . but not very far, AND only because I was running as fast as I possibly could. We watched a video of young men trying to walk on water by running really, really, fast... It seemed to be working (15 million views), but the video — even a few steps — was a hoax. John 14:13, Jesus says, “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.” Jesus said this to The Eleven at the last supper. All 11 died martyr’s deaths, except John who was exiled to a prison colony. Don’t you think they would’ve prayed, “God, please — put out the flames; please give my executioner the flu; please don’t let Jesus die on a cross... in Jesus’ name”? In two chapters and in this same monologue, John 16:24, Jesus says, “Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask that your joy may be full.” Isn’t that incredible? They had cast out demons and healed the sick BUT had never asked anything in Jesus’ name. WOW! In Jesus’ name, would you pray to get rich when He said, “Blessed are the poor”? Would you pray to crush your enemies when He commanded you to “Love your enemies”? Would you pray for the best seat at the banquet when Jesus commanded you to always take the worst (Luke 14:10)? I bet I know one prayer that none of the disciples had ever prayed at any dinner party, and so, of course, could not have prayed in Jesus’ name. I bet that none of them had ever prayed, “Father let me be the one to wash the feet, everyone’s feet, including Judas.” It’s important to be aware of context and the danger of refrigerator magnets that can only contain a few words. When Jesus said these things — “Greater works than these, etc.” — He had just taken the form of a slave, washed everyone’s feet, and said, “Now is the Son of man glorified... A new commandment I give you, ‘love one another as I have loved you.’” It’s new but old, because it’s eternal. And it’s old but new, because Jesus just showed them what it meant.” John has written extensively about “The Bread of Life,” and the entire Revelation is about the Blood which is Wine. But in his Gospel, instead of retelling the words of institution, John recounts how Jesus washed everyone’s feet — as if to say, “This is what communion with Him looks like in your everyday life.” If you went to a party and started washing everyone’s feet, people would be very annoyed and rightly assume that you were a sanctimonious religious nut, trying to justify yourself by shaming everyone else. But what if you went to that party, and silently prayed, “Our Father, let me see Judas with your eyes; let me see those who are disappointed in me with your compassion. Let me forget myself and get lost in them. Let me sit in the worst seat, that they would sit in a better seat. Father, let me see my world and the people you have made with your eyes, the eyes of Christ, and so tell them what they long to hear: ‘I love you!’ In the name of Jesus, Amen.” The name Jesus (Yahweh + yasha), Yeshua, literally means, “God is Salvation.” What could “praying in the name of ‘God is Salvation’” mean except praying for the Salvation of all of the Father’s children — the people that He has made? And what prayer would the Savior be happier to answer than that one? And how could He better answer it than by giving you His own Spirit that would look through your eyes out upon a Judas with infinite compassion, wash His feet, and even call him “friend,” while being betrayed in a garden? What if the greatest work so far was washing feet, and “the work, greater than these” was not only washing feet, but clipping toenails or some such thing? What if greatness went in that direction? You know, as I thought about that this week, I was surprised by this amazing sense of relief and peace. It’s incredibly stressful, trying to exalt yourself at every dinner party, always trying to be the best and the first. It’s incredibly hard to always defend yourself, justify yourself — that is, always make yourself right. It all feels so wrong; it feels like hell. But maybe I could actually wash someone’s feet... if only for a moment. And for that moment, everything would be perfect, and my soul would rest. AND YET, that moment would be an absolute miracle. I couldn’t get there by trying, for the harder I try to love, the more I try to justify myself with works of love, and the less I do love. On that day, many will say to Jesus, “‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And He will declare to them, ‘I never knew you.’” (If He does not know them, He didn’t make them, and they must be an illusion of their own making.) He will say to others, “’I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me...’” or maybe, “I was in the least of these, like Judas, and you washed my feet.” They’ll say, “I don’t remember that.” And He’ll say, “That’s because you weren’t trying to be that; you just were that; LOVE has become your nature. I Am Love.” Love holds the Universe in His hand. He holds you in His hand. And Jesus is His hand. And so, what separates us from Him? How about the illusion that Love is an idea in our head and a great work that we can do, when Love is the One that does everything — including us? Perhaps the greater work is not only washing feet, but clipping the toenails of people who despise you, while looking up into their face with the eyes of Christ — not because you have to, but because you want to? John 14:9-11 (Just before 12-13), Jesus said to Philip, “Have I been with you so long, and you still don’t know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (It was Yahweh that just washed your feet, Philip)... “The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own, but the Father abiding in me does his works.” HIS WORKS! If I go to a party, thinking that I have to save everyone, I won’t be able to love anyone, and I sure as hell won’t wash anyone’s feet. But Jesus knew something that I’m just barely beginning to know, and that is: “Yahweh, (Our Father) is Salvation.” On His own, “The Son can do nothing (John 5:19!),” but at home in the Father, with the Father at home in Him, He was literally Yahweh incarnate, saving “the world.” But it wasn’t “His work” to do; it was Love at work in Him, through Him, and as Him. It’s such a relief to know that I’m not asked to save everyone at the party. And yet, I can wash their feet, and The Love in that moment will save them. And one day, The Love will say to me, “Look at the fish that you caught, Peter.” John 14:12, “Greater [megas] works than these...” “Megas” in Greek often refers to quantity rather than quality. So, the same Coke that’s in a Mega Cup is the same Coke that’s in a Mini Cup, like the Faith in a Mustard Seed is the Same Faith that becomes a kingdom, and the same Love in giving a drink to a child is the same Love that will fill all things with Himself. John 14:15-23, “If you love me” [“If” you do, it is a miracle, for Love is the Uncaused Cause] — “If you love me, you will keep my commandments, and I will ask the Father and He will give you another Helper [parakletos — It means “One Called Alongside.” It’s a Helper made fit for us. We, each and all are made from the wounded side of the Last Adam] ...even the Spirit of The Truth... You know Him, for he abides with you and will be [or “is”] in you... In that [the] day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. Whoever has my commandments [like, “wash each other’s feet”] and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father and I will love him and manifest myself to [“in” or “by”] him... and we will come to him and make our abode with him.” John Powell taught the course Theology of Faith at Loyola University. One year, Tommy was the resident atheist in his class. “Do you think I’ll ever find God?” asked Tommy with a sneer as he handed in his final exam. “No,” replied Professor Powell... “but I’m certain that He’ll find you.” John Powell was relieved when Tommy graduated but grieved when he got the news: Tommy was diagnosed with terminal cancer. One day, he showed up in Professor Powell’s office. His body had been wasted away, but his eyes were bright. He said, “I got serious about looking for God and nothing happened. So, I decided that I didn’t care about God or some sort of afterlife... But I remembered something you said in your class: ‘The essential sadness is to go through life without loving.’ I figured that it would be equally sad to leave this world without telling those you love that you have loved them. So, I began with the hardest — my dad... Here I was in the shadow of death, and I was just beginning to open up... Then one day I turned around and God was there. He didn’t come to me when I pleaded with him... He found me after I stopped looking for him.” Professor Powell gasped and said, “Tommy, you’re saying that the surest way of finding God is not to make Him your own private possession or instant consolation in time of need, but rather by opening up to love.” Tommy soon passed, but only after he asked John Powell to tell the world: Love had found him. John 14:31, “Rise, let us go from here.” They’re going to a garden (18:1, 19:41). We will all take His Life as our own private possession, and He will give His Life — the Life of Love. This is the Seventh Sign that is the Substance, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” Stop seeking signs and surrender to the Substance in the garden sanctuary of your soul. Let Love make His home in you, through you, and as you. “My peace I give to you (John 14:27),” says Jesus, at home in you.

Good Grief

The Way Home (to I AM)

I’m troubled about my nation. I’m troubled about broken personal relationships. Mostly I’m troubled about being troubled; I don’t feel at home in myself or in the world around me. It wasn’t that way in 1969. I lived with people who knew me before I even knew how to impress them or disappoint them. I was getting picked on by kids at school — but if I could just get home and sit on my father’s lap, I could rest and be who it is that . . . I am. I hope my nine-month-old grandson, James — who lives with his mom and dad at my house — is starting to feel at home. I think he does; he doesn’t even know how to put on an act. He has no pretense and no private life but seems to be very much at home. The cover picture for this message is James on Easter Sunday in our cry room at church, reaching for me on the TV as if I belong to him. Recently, praying with my wife in our kitchen, I told the Lord, “Everything here just feels so strange...” After a time, Susan said, “Peter, I just heard Him very clearly. He said, ‘Of course it feels strange. This isn’t your home.’” And strangely, I didn’t find that troubling. By the end of John 13, Peter must have been quite troubled. John 13:36-38, “Simon Peter said to him, ‘Lord, where are you going?’ Jesus answered him, ‘Where I am going you cannot follow me now, but you will follow afterward.’ Peter said to him, ‘Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.’ Jesus answered, ‘Will you lay down your life for me? Truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times.’” Peter was troubled by his nation; they wanted a king (messiah), but not Jesus. Peter was troubled by his personal relationships; Judas had just been possessed by Satan and then left to betray Jesus. But mostly, Peter was troubled about himself: Not long ago, just after Jesus said that he would build His Church on Peter, Jesus looked at Peter and said, “Get behind me Satan”; Jesus had just washed Peter’s feet, when it should’ve been the other way around; and worst of all — when Peter publicly vowed his undying allegiance to Jesus, Jesus informed Peter that he would deny Him three times. If I’m Peter (and I suppose I am), I’m bracing for a massive rebuke at this point, like, “You should be troubled as hell! How am I to build my church on you?” John 13:38b-14:1a, “... The rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times. [NEXT VERSE (The chapter divisions were added 1500 years later)] Let not your heart be troubled.” “Let not... be troubled” is in the imperative tense; it’s the Commandment. …And I find that to be quite troubling. I’m a pastor; I’m supposed to be Mr. Peace and Patience. However, when I’m encountered with troubling situations, I not only “don’t let my heart be troubled,” I trouble it until I attain more knowledge, have applied that knowledge to the situation at hand, and have no more troubling situations. Troubling my heart is how I get things done! And weirdly, John has just informed us (John 11:33, 12:27, 13:21) that Jesus was troubled, after three years of seeming to be so untroubled. When I’m troubled, I feel forsaken by Logic (I don’t know how to make things work), Goodness (I don’t know what’s good), Life (I think someone might die), Truth (I don’t know where it is), or the Way (I don’t know which way to go). I feel forsaken by “I Am”; I feel that I am not enough. On the tree in the garden, Jesus cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” That’s troubling. Yet, Jesus is “I Am that I Am” in human flesh. And Jesus is quoting David in Psalm 22. So, if you feel forsaken, and you tell God that you feel forsaken, maybe it’s Jesus in you, feeling forsaken with you, and helping you talk to His Father — the way He talked to His Father through David, 1000 years before He died on the cross. He’s made all of our troubles His own. St Augustine wrote: “If there is faith in us, Christ is in us. For what else says the Apostle: ‘That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.” John 14:1, “Believe (‘pisteuete,’ the verbal form of ‘pistis,’ that is ‘faith’) in God. Believe also in me.” [Or, “You believe in God. You believe also in me.” It can be translated in both ways — as a command or statement of fact. Maybe it’s both: A command, like “Let there be faith in Peter” and a statement of fact; we know that Peter had at least a little faith. “If we have faith as a grain of mustard seed,” wrote Karl Barth, “it suffices for the devil to have lost his game.”] John 14:1-2, “Y’all, let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God. And you believe in me. In my Father’s house are many abodes [mone].” [“Mone” is the noun. “Meno” is the verb, translated “abide.”] An abode is where you abide. And if you want to know what it means to abide, Jeff Lebowski is a fairly good definition. This was his catch phrase: “The Dude abides.” In the opening sequence of the movie, The Big Lebowski, The Dude goes to the grocery store in his bathrobe and just starts drinking the half in half in the aisle. He has no pretense; he just makes himself at home wherever he goes. So, if Jesus were to ever say, “Abide in me as I abide in you,” He’d be saying, “Make yourself at home in me, as I have made myself at home in you... my abode.” Are you at home in Jesus, OR are you always on your best behavior, always trying to impress and so acting your very best? John 14:2-3, “In my Father’s house there are many abodes. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go and prepare a place for [or ‘in’] you? And if I go and prepare a place for [or ‘in’] you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also.” This is so strange. Jesus is leaving them to come back to them to take them to Himself, as if they’re not with Himself or themselves already. Some remind us that this is what a bridegroom would say in that day, after a bride had accepted his proposal by drinking the cup. And this is what he would do: He would go and prepare a room on the side of his father’s house and then return to take his bride to himself and a marriage feast. And, of course, according to The Revelation, this is also what’s happening to all of us. We are the Bride AND the Father’s House. “In that day,” says Jesus in just a few more verses, “you will know that I am in my father and you in me and I in you (He’s leaving, and yet not leaving, and will not forsake them.)” “In that day, you will know.” —And yet, this is Friday... In just a few hours, they will think He’s gone. Why would He even let them think that? Why would He let any of us wonder, “Is everything lost? Is everything a lie? Is death all that there is?” Why would He let us yearn for the Light in the dark, or Logos in chaos, Life in a graveyard, Truth in lies, the Way in confusion, or Love in the depths of our own isolation and hell? Susan and I started dating in high school but were separated for the first year of college. One night, she prayed a desperate prayer and stuck her finger down on this verse: Philemon 1:15. “Perhaps he was parted from you for a while, that you might have him back forever.” That year, I yearned for Susan like I never had before. I think I was parted from her, that I would want to be with her forever; I wanted her to be my home, and I wanted to be hers. Now, think of all the broken relationships in your life: friends, relatives, your ex-wife or ex-husband. Perhaps you were parted from them for a while, that you might have them back forever . . . Or would you rather not go home? You have to want to go home to actually go home, because home is your abode where you abide. In other words, the Father’s house must become your home in order to go home. One day, James will take knowledge of good and evil, try to please me — which will make him hide from me — but that will create a yearning for me. And one day he’ll come home to me — in this age or the next — and he’ll know me for the first time... thinking, “There’s no place like home. No place like home.” And I will be thinking exactly the same thing. Perhaps God was parted from you to make a space in you for Him, and a space in Him that is actually you — happy to be home in Him forever. John 14:4-6, “’And you know the way to where I am going.’ Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I am [ego eimi] the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’” The Way, the Truth, and the Life, who is “I Am,” is hanging on the tree in the garden like fruit. What do we do with it? What do the principalities and powers of this world do with it? Don’t we try to own it, use it, maybe sell it? Don’t we say that it belongs to us so that the only way to the Father is through us? Don’t we take the Way and turn Him into a map, take the Truth and turn Him into laws, take the Life and place Him in a tomb that is ourselves? We consume the fruit to make ourselves live… and everything dies. The Book of Philemon is a letter, written by Paul to a slave owner named Onesimus. “Perhaps this is why he was parted from you for a while,” writes Paul, “that you might have him back forever; no longer as a slave but more than a slave, as a dearly beloved brother.” Human religions reduce Jesus to laws, programs, principles, body broken and bloodshed... our slave. But what does Faith do with Him? We surrender to Him and worship Him, and He makes us His Bride, Body, and Temple; He makes us His home, that we would forever make our home in Him. The false self gives birth to the true self, and I become who it is that I forever Am; I go home. The distance between who I am alone in darkness and who I am alive in Jesus is the width of Me-sus, my arrogant and self-righteous ego. The Journey from one to the other is the journey from earth to Heaven. And the Way from one to the other is the Truth. Truth in me is a Life in me, and I think we call him HONESTY. I cannot recognize the Truth out there until I commune with the Truth in me. I surrender to the Truth when I see that the Truth is a friend to me — when I see that He has made himself at home in me, so I can be at home in Him in the garden sanctuary of my soul. I used to do this because I thought I should, but now I do it, for it’s become my life, and without it, I think I’d be so troubled and lost that I would not have the will to live. I get up, put on my robe, grab some coffee, and just abide in my abode — like the Dude. Maybe I’ll recite a prayer or read some Scripture. Maybe I’ll imagine what’s true: I’m in Jesus in the “bosom of the Father,” sitting on my Father’s lap. Whatever the case, I’ll just expose my soul to God in “the naked now.” Or maybe it’s Jesus in me, exposing our soul to our Father, for Jesus is my Faith in “Our Father.” I can’t trouble myself into being not troubled, but when I abide in Jesus, we surrender our troubles to God our Father and find ourselves at home in Him. Your unique experience of the absence of God in space and time will become your unique experience of the presence of our Father in eternity. John 14:7, “If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From NOW you do know him and have seen him.”

The Giving Tree

“Good news: Christ is risen!” — That’s what we say on Easter. “Christ is risen!” But that’s one guy out of one hundred billion or so... since Adam. The preacher says: “No! Christ is risen, and you will rise too... If you believe. But is that “news”? Is it “news” to me if the news depends on me? “Good news: Christ is Risen!” So, is it small? Is it news? And is it good? Dan Barker was an evangelical pastor who now professes to be and atheist. At “Skepticon 4” in 2011, he proposed an interesting scenario: “Suppose you were walking by my house…and I were to go up on the porch and say, ‘Hey... I’ve got some good news! You don’t have to go down in my basement... You’ve been ignoring me and it’s made me so... horribly mad. So, I built a torture chamber down in my basement... But you don’t have to go down there! I sent my son down there. And it was gruesome... But that satisfied my anger... All you have to do [is] come up here... and tell my son that you love him and hug him, and then you can move in with us... And you can tell me how great I am... won’t that be great?’ So, would you keep walking?” Ouch . . . And good question. 1 Corinthians 15:1-2, Paul writes, “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel [euangelion: “Good News!”] I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you...” What does Paul mean by “if”? Does he mean that Jesus didn’t die for you 2000 years ago if you don’t believe today by the end of the sermon? I once took my children on a giant inflated banana ride behind a motorboat in the Sea of Cortez. When we all fell off (as planned), my daughter Becky (terrified of sharks) began to freak out. I swam to her and said, “Good News! I was a lifeguard in high school. Do you confess that you need to be saved? And do you trust that I can save you?” She just yelled at me and didn’t answer the questions. So, I let her drown in the sea. That was her choice. We’ll miss her, but all the other kids said, “Dad, you really validated my free choice and my own sense of personal agency by letting Becky drown in the sea. You’re a good Dad.” Actually, that last part didn’t happen. This did happen: Becky tried to climb me, stand on top of me, and I began to drown. So, I consciously chose to express anger; I pushed her away and began yelling, “Stop. Stop it. Just stop it, Becky!” When I was a lifeguard, I learned that frightened drowning people will often seize control and endanger you both. So, to save them, you have to “NOT save them” but just watch them drown until they’ve exhausted themselves. And then, you can save them and swim for them. While they’re drowning, they’re not actually being saved, they’re being prepared to be saved. But then, once saved, they tend to trust their savior, and everyone can enjoy the giant banana ride on the sea of Cortez. Even if you were a Lifeguard with Superpowers, like God, nobody that you saved could “receive” salvation, know salvation, or know you, the Savior, if they thought that they had saved themselves. Maybe your faith doesn’t create the Good News, but your faith enables you to enjoy the Good News — kind of like enjoying a ride on a giant banana on the Sea of Cortez. Maybe salvation isn’t a reward for believing, but believing is literally salvation. Paul taught that all sin was “not believing,” that “whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.” We are “being saved” from “not believing.” 1 Corinthians 15:3-6,17, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time. [He appeared to ‘the twelve’! Taken literally, this means that Jesus appeared to Judas in Gehenna. I doubt they stayed there.] And if Christ has not been raised your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.” You are not forgiven because Jesus died (Paul just said so: verse 17). You are not forgiven because Jesus was a “penal substitute” or because God was working out his anger issues or satisfying some distorted notion of “justice.” You are forgiven because Jesus ROSE from a tomb, and that tomb is you — He is the righteousness of God in you: Faith, Hope, and Love rising in you. 1 Corinthians 15:22-28, “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. [That’s Big News!] ...For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. [The wrath of God is not “death,” but the destruction of death, which is Life. And Jesus is the Life. He is God’s wrath upon the basement in which we have all trapped ourselves.] ... When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.” Big News! God is Beauty, Reason, the Way, Truth, Life, and Love. So, what’s missing in the picture of God that Dan Barker is painting? God. God is missing. So, this is Good News: The God that Dan Barker doesn’t believe in, doesn’t exist. And Dan Barker doesn’t believe in that God because something in Dan Barker does believe in: Beauty, Reason: “the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” Love, and the Good. “God alone is Good,” said Jesus. 1 Corinthians 15:45 “Thus it is written, ‘The first man Adam became a living being’ [psyche: soul]; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.” Do you remember how it happened? He hung on a tree in a garden, cried “It is finished,” and delivered up His Spirit. We take Christ’s life on the tree, and everything dies; Christ gives His life on the tree, so we receive His life from the tree, and everything lives. If love is taken, we call it “rape,” and we don’t know love. If love is given and received, we call it “life” and sometimes “a baby.” If life is taken, we call it “murder.” But if life is given, we call it “Grace.” And it fills our sin with Faith. God didn’t take Christ’s life on the tree. He gave Christ’s life (His own life) on the tree. We took Christ’s life on the tree. People ask, “Why did Jesus have to die on the cross?” Answer: He didn’t have to; he wanted to. God doesn’t have to do anything; He wants to do everything. He doesn’t have to create anything; He wants to create everything. God is the Giver of all that is. And Jesus is how He does it; He is the Word through whom all things are created. The Cross is a giving tree that we thought was a taking tree. The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein was one of my children’s favorite books. A tree loves a boy, and a boy “loves” a tree, but he uses the tree to make himself happy, until all that’s left of the tree is a stump. As an old, tired man, the boy returns and sits on the stump. And the tree is happy and the boy is Happy. The End. 1 Corinthians 15:53-57, “For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’ ‘O death, where is your victory? O death where is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” “This is the victory that overcomes our world,” writes John. “Our faith.” God gives it. For Christmas one year, my daughter Becky, gave me one of her favorite books, The Giver by Lois Lowry. I also saw the movie. In the story, Jonas is a boy who lives in a futuristic dystopian society. At first, it seems pleasant, but gradually we realize something is missing: No one dances. There is no music. They reproduce, but no one makes love. And perhaps, Love is making no one... And one other curious thing: Everything is in black and white. It turns out that the elders had outlawed the memory of love, for love is hard to control, and with love comes pain. The Elders believed that when people have a choice, they always choose wrong... And that’s true: People do. But Faith, Hope, and Love are not our choice; Love is God’s choice, born in us and then rising from within us. In fear, the Elders had built a high-tech wall around the city to protect the city from the memory of Love. It gave them the ability to eliminate the sick, the old, and unwanted without feeling any pain. However, the Elders had appointed a “receiver of memories,” whose task was to remember Love in order to gain Wisdom, and so advise the council who would then take Wisdom — the Spirit of Love — and turn Her into laws. The Elders knew about Love, but in fear, they turned Love into Law —that’s The knowledge of Good and evil written in stone or a book . . . it’s dead. We all lust for law, for it feels safe. With enough laws, we think that we can judge everything, build walls, and so protect ourselves from pain. That is, protect ourselves from The Story of Love: also called “The Gospel.” In fear, we protect ourselves by judging everything as simply in or out, good or evil. We see everything in black and white, and so create hell on earth. But when we fear only God, who is love, He casts out fear, and we can begin to see in color; we can see the Revelation of Love in creation all around us. “For you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in his wings” (Malachi 4:2). A sunrise, with all its shadow and color, is the story of the revelation of Light. And your life, with all of its challenges and struggles, is the story of the revelation of Love... told in order that you would fall in love with Love, freely surrender to Love, and even give birth to Love — You are the Revelation of Love in human flesh. In The Giver, the old receiver and Jonas decide to give what they’ve received to everyone: the experience of Love. They sacrifice everything, break down the wall, and the old world is flooded with color and life. And the story ends at a Christmas tree. At His tree, God: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, turn Takers into Givers, who give birth just as Mary gave birth to Love in human flesh — The Son of Man and all things with Him. 1 Corinthians 15:58, “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” “Good News: He is Risen.” Is it Good? YES: We cannot imagine anything better. Is it news? YES: You can’t change the news, but this news will change you. Is it small? NO: It’s the story of all creation... in and through you. Happy Easter!

Who’s Trial is this Anyway?

Don’t Change Your Life; Give Birth to It (Him)

After washing all of the disciple’s feet and offering Himself as body broken and blood shed, after Judas leaves to sell Him for thirty piece of silver, and after saying ‘Now is the Son of Man glorified,’ Jesus says: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (John 13:34). How did He just love them? If you are like most of us, you should be screaming, “How am I going to do that? How am I going to genuinely love my enemies because I want to love my enemies, be broken for them and bleed for them? How am I going to love in freedom? The harder I try to do that, the more I won’t do that, and the more I’ll resent Jesus for telling me to do that. How can I make myself Jesus?” Perhaps the answer is rather simple and yet as complex as every relationship that you’ve ever had. For you can’t truly know another until you allow yourself to be known, and no one is born knowing this; it requires an intervention, a miracle. And on top of everything else, Satan works day and night to create diversions and triggers in you, so that you’re unwilling to even consider the answer. I need to remind you of our last three messages. In the first message, from John 12, we learned that “The commandment is Eternal Life (12:50),” that is “laying down your life (psyche) and taking it up again (10:18),” which is “to love as Jesus has loved us (15:12),” which Jesus just said is “a new commandment.” According to 1 John 2:7-8, it is “the Word that you heard, old and new (eternal)... which is true in Him and in You.” In the first message, we asked, “What is the Commandment of the Father?” And the Answer is Jesus. In the second message, we asked the question of the Son: “What are you so ashamed of?” The Commandment is Love, and sometimes I think I actually do love — and this must be who it is that I truly am. But the Commandment is also to Love like Jesus — but I don’t love like Jesus, and so I pretend to love like Jesus. That distance between who I actually am and who it is that I think I should be (and so pretend to be) is my false self — the shadow man, the imposter. And so, I protect who it is that I am, truly, with who it is that I am not. I trap myself in a prison of falsehood that I feel as shame and try to mitigate with accomplishments, good deeds — and of course, fashionable clothes. The theology, psychology, and sociology of shame is profoundly complex and hard to understand, except that God has built it into our very bodies. We know how it feels. In 1977, Ms. Rydberg sat me next to Susan Coleman in Masterpieces of American Literature at Heritage High. I immediately thanked God. I wanted to know Susan, but I didn’t really know if I wanted to know her, because I didn’t know her — I just knew that she appeared to be “good for food, a delight to the eyes, and to be desired to make me look cool.” And I wanted to be known by her, but I didn’t want to be rejected by her, so I worked really hard at impressing her with things that weren’t really me. I wore my jacket with all the ski tags, pretended to be cool, and tried to act like I didn’t care what she thought of me. I hid myself in a false self, terrified to be touched and yet longing to be touched by her. And she did the same. To be honest, she caught my attention with her body, but she captured my heart with something far greater: the Spirit that God had placed within her. One day, after dating for about a year, I broke up with her. The following day, I went looking for her, for once I had lost her, I wanted her again —which only reveals the problem with me: I thought she was a commodity (The Bible calls this “playing the whore.”) I found her in a park by a tree and weeping over me. I just “beheld” her. She had allowed herself to be broken by me, and then I just broke for her. She captured me with the fluid that spilled from her broken heart. It was Life — her life, our life, my life. After five more years, we became one flesh. And now, 42 years later, I think we are one spirit in one body. “God jealously yearns over the Spirit that He has made to dwell in you” (James 4:5). Bodies come and go; the Spirit is eternal. In the third message (last week’s message), titled, “What has God been hiding?” We asked, “What has God been hiding?” I noticed that Jesus “laid aside his garments” when He washed the disciple’s feet. We know that, according to Scripture, we wear clothes because of our shame. But why did Jesus wear clothes? Did He have shame (unless of course, He wears me or mine)? Why did the Word of God hide himself in the body of a carpenter? Why did God hide Himself (eternity) behind the veil in the Temple (in space and time)? In eternity, He sees all of you, every moment in time. What would happen if I (64-year-old Peter Hiett) were to travel back in time to Ms. Rydberg’s American Literature class in the fall of 1977 in my 16-year-old body and sit next to 16-year-old Susan Coleman and tell her how I really feel about her now? What would’ve happened if I were to say, “Susan Coleman... Hiett. You are my temple; you are my home. Your body is my body, and my body is your body. I am you, and you are me; me is we, and I honestly would have no idea who I am without you. God creates me through you. You are literally my life; you are Jonathan, Elizabeth, Rebekah, Coleman, Sweet Baby James, and everyone in their world that is now our world. You have no idea how beautiful you are and how easy you are to love.” If I had said that to her, in September of 1977, that would’ve been the last conversation that we ever had. She would’ve been “triggered.” And now you may be “triggered,” for you may be thinking, “I’m gay, or transgender, or married and divorced,” or “I’ve been abused and violated; I want that to be my story, but that is not my story!” Respectfully, I would insist that you are wrong. For every day, in every way, in every place, in every moment in time, Jesus is sitting next to you, burning with Love for you. And so, you may say, “Why doesn’t He just tell me?” Well, maybe it’s because that is the way He feels about you, but that is not the way you feel about Him... yet. And so, He is romancing you. He’s taking you on a journey and inviting you to talk with Him, commune with Him, every day in the sanctuary of your soul. Why doesn’t He just tell you? Maybe He is, all the time (that’s why He made time). You’ve already seen that He is “good for food and a delight to the eyes,” and so you have consumed Him like fruit taken from a tree. You’ve already seen that He is “to be desired to make one wise,” and so you’ve already used Him, trying to impress Him, which just kills Him and makes everything die. And You’ve already seen that He is “the Life” that you took, and so you’ve already run from Him and hidden yourself in fig leaves, shame, and fear. What you may not have yet seen is that He’s with you all the time; He’s the Seed in the fruit. And so, in your place of shame, He will show you that He is always Grace — Grace, which creates Faith, that is Life in you. #1. What is the Commandment of the Father? Jesus. #2. What are we hiding? That we cannot fulfill the Commandment. #3. What has God been hiding? That He is the Commandment. #4. Our question for our message today: How do we fulfill the Commandment? It would be helpful to reread John 12:31-13:30. In John 13:31, John writes: “When [Judas] had gone out, Jesus said, ‘Now is the son of man glorified.’” We want to say, “No, now is the Son of man shamed... And why do you keep calling yourself ‘Son of Man?’” If God is Jesus’ Father, what does that make Man? His Mom! He said as much, “Whoever does the will of my Father... is my mother.” He’s also “The Son of David,” the prototypical man. “Against you, you only, have I sinned, Oh God,” wrote David in Psalm 51, after being confronted by Nathan the prophet in 2 Samuel 12. David knew that it was the Lord he had violated in Bathsheba and murdered in Uriah. Having heard the Word, David repents. The Son of David dies. David “comforts” Bathsheba, and the Son of David is literally conceived in the place of David’s shame. Jesus is the Son of David that dies. Jesus is the Son of David that is born, builds the temple, and makes all things new. In each and all of us, Christ is conceived in our place of shame. I think of it this way: The Word that is heard (Seed: Zora in Hebrew, Sperma in Greek) meets the Breath breathed into your soul in the beginning (Seed: Zora in Hebrew, Spora in Greek, the feminine noun), and the veil in the temple of your soul rips, and the Life in the Holy of Holies begins to fill the whole temple until the day that you are born out of this age and into our Home. In this way, the false self gives birth to the true; the old adam gives birth to the New; “I am not” gives birth to who it is that “I am” and you are. Nothing is wasted, and then I am free of me, and you of you, for all the glory goes to Him — Him in us. “All times are present to God,” writes C.S. Lewis. “It may be that salvation consists not in the canceling of these eternal moments but in the perfected humility that bears the shame forever, rejoicing in the occasion which it furnished to God’s compassion and glad that it should be common knowledge to the universe. Perhaps in that eternal moment, St. Peter — he will forgive me if I am wrong — forever denies his Master. If so, it would indeed be true that the joys of Heaven are, for most of us in our present condition, ‘an acquired taste’ — and certain ways of life may render the taste impossible of acquisition. Perhaps the lost are those who dare not go to such a public place.” It’s all in Scripture, but I learned most of it praying for a friend who had been a harlot, but God revealed to be His Bride. He once told her, “You have no idea how beautiful you are and how easy you are to love.” I have realized that her story is my story and our story. #4. How do we fulfill the Commandment? He must fully fill us with Him. So... We must each freely surrender to Love in the Sanctuary of our own soul. We must sacrifice our fig leaves, flesh, lies, and ego. We must receive the Word of Love in every moment of our space and time. We must give birth to the Life of Christ, which is Who it is that each of us, and all of us, actually are: The Last Adam, The Living Temple, The Bride and Body of Christ. We must... and we will, for the Romance of God is that powerful. “Now is the Judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will romance all people to myself,” – said Jesus, John 12:31-32. Don’t change your life; give birth to it (Him).

What Has God Been Hiding?

Why did Jesus die for you on the cross? Was it to shame you into being good? In the movie, Private Ryan, as Captain Miller (played by Tom Hanks) is dying — just having saved Private Ryan — he says to Private Ryan, “Earn this.” And then, he breathes his last. But we’re not sure if that’s a curse or a blessing. Did Jesus say, “Earn this,” then breathe his last? Why did the veil in the temple rip from the top to the bottom? What was behind the curtain in the Holy of Holies? What was “uncovered”? What has God been hiding? What are the intentions of His Heart? John 13:1-9, “Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them into the end. And becoming supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, [‘is raised from the’] supper. He laid aside his garments, and taking a towel, he girded himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel in which [‘he was having been girded’]. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, ‘Lord, do you wash my feet?’ Jesus answered him, ‘What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.’ Peter said to him, ‘You shall never wash my feet.’ Jesus answered him, ‘If I do not wash you, you have no part with me.’ Simon Peter said to him, ‘Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!’” I think I understand Peter. He’s saying: “Oh, I get it now! If it’s about humility, I’ll win the humility contest; I’ll earn your love.” He still doesn’t understand. He’s projecting his psyche on to Jesus, who is literally the Psyche of the Lord. Peter gets religious. John 13:10-12, “Jesus said to him, ‘The one who has bathed does not need to wash (except for his feet) but is completely clean. And y’all are clean, but not all of y’all.’ For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, ‘Not all of y’all are clean.’ “When he had washed their feet and put on his garments and reclined again, he said to them, ‘Do you understand what I have done to you? ...If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. I am not speaking of all of you; I know whom I have chosen.’ [He’s already told us that he has chosen all 12]. ‘Nevertheless, the Scripture will be fulfilled, “He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.”’” Jesus must be saying, “My close friend has lifted his heel against me as if I am the serpent.” This close friend is projecting his own psyche onto the Psyche of the Lord. It’s the psyche of the snake. John 13:21-26, …“’Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.’ The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he spoke. [Jesus washed everyone’s feet, and Judas looked just like everyone else.] One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was reclining at table at Jesus’ bosom, so Simon Peter motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking. So that disciple, leaning back against Jesus, said to him, ‘Lord, who is it?’ Jesus answered, ‘It is he to whom I will give this morsel of bread when I have dipped it.’ So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot.” He gave this morsel to Judas, just as His great-grandfather, Boaz, had given the morsel to His great- grandmother, Ruth, who then dipped it in his cup, before she uncovered his feet, and Boaz became her kinsman redeemer. Christ was born of their communion. Now Christ offers this morsal to Judas. John 13:27, “Then, after he had taken the morsel, Satan entered into him.” Paul wrote that if we drink the cup in an unworthy manner, without discerning the body, we drink judgment on ourselves. Judgment can be very painful, but the Judgment of God is always good. In Corinth, Paul tells the church to deliver (betray) a man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh in order that his spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord. John 13:30-31, “And it was night. When Judas had gone out, Jesus said, ‘Now is the Son of Man glorified.’” Quite a story! For me, two questions emerge: #1. Why did Jesus take off His garments... and why did He have them on? Last time, we remembered why we wear clothes. We wear clothes to cover our shame. And we need to wear clothes because we abuse the nakedness of others to gratify our own desires, which only leads to more shame. But Jesus does NOT abuse the nakedness of others to gratify His own desires. Jesus never sinned. If He has something to hide, it certainly isn’t sin. #2. Why is Judas not “blessed,” but “cursed”? It seems that Judas did not “know these things” (13:7), and so was cursed when “he tried to do these things.” Perhaps “these things” were the very things that God has been hiding — “The Mystery.” “This mystery” is a profound one, writes Paul, “And I am saying that it refers to Christ and his Church... ‘Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.’” In Colossians 1, Paul writes that we are “now reconciled in Christ’s body of flesh.” The Risen Christ has flesh, but it’s a different kind of flesh; it’s not isolated to one point in space. It travels through time, and in Him are all things. So, what’s the problem with our flesh? It’s not that it’s flesh, per se, but that it’s alone, like Adam was alone before the fall — your flesh only feels its own pleasure and its own pain. Just imagine, if all of humanity was one body, each serving all and all serving each, and you could taste everyone’s pizza. And imagine if anyone’s pain was everyone’s pain, then everyone would rejoice in the salvation of anyone and, most of all, everyone. But because my body only feels its own pleasure and pain, I compete with other bodies for the best piece of pizza. And I use other bodies as a means to get pizza. In other words, my relationships are transactional and people are commodities. And — because we live in a world of limitations — I will actually take pizza to gratify my own desire, at the expense of another’s desire — that is, their pain. As a newlywed, I discovered that there was this moment in which my wife’s pleasure was my own pleasure, as if we were one body but an even better body than my lonely old body. I mean that she could eat the pizza, and it would taste better to me than if I ate it myself — I don’t mean to be crude, I’m trying to point to a miracle. Two bodies actually became one flesh, and that flesh was blessed with a new psyche: this knowledge that I was no longer just me, but “me” was “we” and “we” is “me.” In this old body of flesh trapped in space and time, I can only give myself fully to one other person in this way. “In Heaven, they neither marry nor are they given in marriage,” says Jesus. Is that because no one’s married at the wedding supper of the lamb, or is that because everyone is married and the very body of the Lamb? Understandably, people panic and ask, “Are you suggesting that Heaven is an orgy?” And I want to scream, “Absolutely not!” An orgy is rampant unfaithfulness that leaves everyone dead and alone. Heaven is a communion of absolute faithfulness in which no one is ever alone, and the pleasure of one is the pleasure of all, and the pleasure of all is the pleasure of one. In Heaven, we have lost our psyche and found it in Jesus. The problem that the Bible has with sex is not in the uniting, but the dividing. So, in Old Testament Law, the penalty for pre-marital sex is marriage. And the penalty for adultery is death, for by uniting with another that is already married, you break another’s body and harden everyone’s heart. So, in Scripture, sexual communion in space and time is bound by an unconditional covenant that you don’t actually make, but that you enter into with the act of sex, and then publicly acknowledge with a wedding banquet. If you are truly bound to another person in an unconditional covenant, it means that your relationship is entirely non-transactional. You can no longer do anything to earn the other’s love, for you already have it. So, if you love, you can only love in freedom. Good things can run wild. There are two ways that we can relate to God: #1. Harlotry, and #2. as the Bride. Peter was a harlot becoming the Bride, for the Word had found a place in him. Judas was a harlot who did not know, for he would not allow himself to be known by the Word of Love, and so he hung himself on a tree in the valley of Gehenna. And Jesus didn’t blame him, for “being known” is a gift. We cannot “take it” like fruit from a tree; it must always be given. So, what did Judas not know, and what had God been hiding until just the right time? How about this? He (God) is not a harlot, nor does he play the harlot; He is our Helper. He does not gratify himself at our expense; He sacrifices himself, for our pleasure is literally His pleasure, and He suffers all of our pain. He touches us in our place of shame that we would know His Grace; He touches us in our faithlessness, for He wants to give us Faith; He touches us in our hopelessness, for He is our Hope, “the mystery hidden for ages and generations: Christ in you, the hope of Glory”; He touches us in our lovelessness for He is Love — one hunk of burning, absolutely free and unconditional Love. Watch the message if you disagree, but it seems clear to me: Jesus descended into hell to wash the feet of Judas. And Judas let him, for there he would finally see: He couldn’t pay for anything and so God could give him everything, including his own heart: Jesus from the bosom of the Father. To “drink the cup in an unfitting manner” is to think you could pay for Him, your Life. The Curtain rips. And behold, a lamb is standing on the throne, bleeding for one and for all; He is your husband. This is what God has been hiding until NOW, the Beauty of His own Heart. NOW you have left the Great Harlot; You are the Bride, Body, and Temple of the Living God.