Incarnation: The God-Man

    John 1: 14

 

 

          In our study of the Essential Tenets of ECO, we now arrive at Incarnation. This is the term we use to refer to that which happened in Bethlehem a couple thousand years ago. It was the night when Mary gave birth to her first child. She named him Jesus. She gave birth to the God-Man. Matthew 1:23 calls him Immanuel: God with us.

           The Apostles Creed tells us that Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.          Think about that. God the Holy Spirit is the father of God the Son? Jesus has no biological father, as least not in the way we humans define biology.  Jesus is. He never was not. He is God’s only son, but he is begotten, not created or made. The gospels of Matthew and Luke record a virgin birth; that is, birth of the child Jesus, to a virgin named Mary. The father was not her future husband Joseph; he was God the Holy Spirit. And yet, though those two gospels testify to a virgin birth, the genealogies of these gospels trace Jesus not to Mary, but to Joseph. So if their aim was to prove Jesus the Son of God, born of the many prophecies of the Old Testament, didn’t they miss their mark?   Mary is not of the stump of Jesse that Isaiah proclaims. Joseph is in that line, but Jesus does not come from Joseph. The other two gospels don’t even mention the birth of Jesus, nor does the apostle Paul. But John does tell us that

Jesus was there from the beginning of creation, that in the Incarnation, he became flesh and dwelt among us. So what is the virgin birth about? Maybe we should see it for what it is—just one fact of a much bigger picture. So—just what do those stories mean?

          God came down, came down as one of us and stepped into the chaos and the mess and the hate and the injustice and the poverty. He came barefooted and bled with us. He came in a stable in a cave in a one donkey town. The Incarnation could not have had more lowly beginnings and yet, Jesus is the only one of us who can trace his roots to the Trinity of God, Son and Holy Spirit.

          It’s really hard to get your mind around God being human. Maybe that’s why we have some facts, some witness from the gospels. Jesus came on a date. The gospels are specific enough for us to be able to pin down when. We can even pin down where. It was in Bethlehem at census time. There’s geography and politics. His “socio-economic” background? Poor probably covers it nicely.

          Now this is history. No question about it. But there was other history being made at the time, and Jesus didn’t ring the history bell very hard on entry. This is not cellphone video history. It’s not admissible in a court of law. It’s evangelistic history. The shepherds never swore out affidavits. It’s one of those belief things. If you believe, there is a lot of proof. If you don’t, well…there’s room for that too.

            As beautiful as it is, why would God, the God of creation, of the universe, choose to arrive as human on earth, much less aa a helpless baby? Here is one of those God moments from which we can begin to see our Creator. The story of the Incarnation is the story of a radical invasion of God into our world! At least one thing is clear in all the gospels, and perhaps even more particularly in Matthew and Luke, who choose to cover the birth event. The thing is this. Jesus was flesh and blood. He was a baby boy who grew to manhood around other boys and girls. He ate the food, drank the water, even cried, just like the rest of us. John’s gospel reminds us that he was the Word, and that the Word became flesh and lived here, right down the street from you if you were living in the north country of Israel back then.

          Jesus was a Jewish boy growing up in a Jewish household at a time in history when being a Jew was often something to be joked about. In fact, except for that short golden age of David and Solomon, there are few times in history when the Jews have not been laughed at or scorned or mass murdered. In other words, he belonged to a people group. Just like we identify ourselves as southerners or Scots Irish or African American or Hispanic, Jesus our Savior was also a Jew. And he came as a man. He could have come as a woman. The only reason I bring this up is to more completely prove his humanity. It doesn’t matter that Jesus lived on earth as a male rather than a female. What matters is that he was flesh and blood and flesh and blood comes generally as either male or female.

          Jesus was not a spirit. He was as real as you and me. Did he get hungry? Did he get thirsty? Read the gospel accounts of his temptations in the wilderness at the beginning of his ministry. Did he get tired? Read those same accounts about Jesus trying to get away from the crowds to rest. Did he experience emotion? Read the account of the death of his friend Lazarus. Jesus wept for him.

          Jesus didn’t know everything. He couldn’t. For the only time in eternity, Jesus was separate from God, separate from the Trinity. He had to be. He was a man. He was the God-Man, but he was a man. Luke tells us that he grew in wisdom. He didn’t arrive as an infant with the full package.  Jesus tells his disciples in Mark 13 that only God knows the day or hour; that not even he, the Son of Man, knows that time.  In the 15^th chapter of Mark, Jesus suffers on the cross and calls out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Yes, Jesus was fully man!  

          And yet, in thirty three years on this earth, fully exposed to every temptation, Jesus did not sin. As an adult, he sought out sinners and ate with them, partied with them. He counted political zealots, tax collectors, social outcasts and harlots among his friends. How did he do this? How could he be constantly exposed to the underbelly of civilization and yet live without sin? He could because he lived it in obedience to God. Theologian Shirley Guthrie says Jesus “fulfilled his true humanity in the image of God.” Think about that. When we do something wrong and say I’m only human, we are dead wrong. What we mean is we are disobedient and selfish. Being human, really human, is acting out in the image of God. That’s how we were created. That’s how Jesus lived on earth without sin.

            If that were the end of the story, it would be a great story. Jesus could take his place among the greats of history as a revolutionary political activist, a moral hero, a role model like no other. But it is not the end of the story. It is, rather, the beginning of the greatest story ever told. The Incarnation, the miraculous birth, of Jesus is a sign. You can’t explain the birth of Jesus, his origin, his life, in ordinary human terms. That is where the Incarnation becomes this powerful engine for driving one of the great supernatural events of history. It is the bookend to the passion story. It is as powerful as the Resurrection. Jesus comes from God! In his own words in John’s gospel, Jesus says to a questioning Philip: “To see me is to see the Father.” He is Emmanuel: God with us.

          The gospels, indeed all the New Testament and the Reformed Confessions and Creeds, make it clear that Jesus was both divine and human, fully God, fully man. That is high theology. We can’t get there from here. No one else has ever been that, ever done that. No one else ever will. The essential tenets of ECO remind us that “His divinity is not impaired, limited or changed by His gracious act of assuming a human nature, and His true humanity is not undermined by His continued divinity.” They state further that, as the Bible tells us, the risen Jesus ascended to heaven “in His resurrected body and remains fully human.”  Lastly those tenets state that it is only through the Holy Spirit’s work in us that we can make these confessions of faith.

          It’s not the virgin birth that is the miracle, though that certainly is miraculous. It’s not that Jesus came to earth with the power of God within him, though that can certainly be assumed.

We can see God in the way Jesus performed so many mighty works and deeds. We can see God in the way Jesus spoke, not by referring to a higher power, but by claiming to be that power, by speaking with the authority of God himself.

          But even these things, these mighty deeds, the claim to divinity, the authority with which Jesus spoke, were imitated by others. How can we tell he is the real deal? Guthrie suggests that we should consider something he calls the great reversal. Look at what Jesus did. Look at how he acted. Look at what he said. He didn’t seek earthly power or acclaim or even recognition. He sought relationship with those he met. He sought connection with who they were and he sought it where they lived. Jesus affirmed our humanity in everything he said and did. He told us in his life that we matter. We matter! He became small so that we come become exalted. That is the great reversal. He is exalted not in his power, but in his humility, his meekness. He can and does accomplish his will not only in his might, but also in his voluntary weakness. Who else has ever done that! Jesus challenges us not only to look for his coming, but to live in his presence!

          Incarnation. Fully god and fully man. Thank them both…for who He is.

                                   Trinity; a Divine Linkage

                                           Romans 14: 17, 18

 

 

          What do you know that’s three things in one? Three identities that are linked, but separate; together but apart? Is there such a thing? I can think of one from the movies and from the toy world and Marvel Comics. There are Transformers that are called Triple Changers. One of my favorites is Broadside. Broadside starts out as an Autobot, but he can convert into an F-18 Hornet (That’s a military fighter plane) and an aircraft carrier. That’s some pretty serious transforming.

          I’m sure there are other 3 in 1 things, but for the life of me, I can’t think of any more. Can you? The thing is, from one set of joints and parts, they can change and morph into something entirely different. Not separate, but different.

          I do know one other 3 in 1 entity. It’s God. Actually it’s way more mysterious than Broadside or any of his Triple Changer friends. For instance, Broadside and his friends, even though they can be three different things, can only be one thing at a time. Not a problem with God. Broadside has to pick where he is at any given time. Not so with God. In the Trinity, God is community. God can be anywhere he wants to be. The Holy Spirit can be in me and you and you and in Joe Smith in Venezuela, all at the same time.

          God is our one and only God. There is no other. Remember the Shema, the centerpiece of prayer for God’s people in Deuteronomy, that says Sh’ma Yisrael  (Hear, O Israel),  Adonai Eloheinu (The Lord our God),  Adonai Echad (the Lord is one).  But our one God is Trinitarian. He is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. ECO, our new denomination, states that “with Christians everywhere, we worship the only true God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—who is both one essence and three persons.” We call that the Trinity.

          All Reformed Protestant traditions recognize a Trinitarian God, but not all Christian denominations recognize God in that way. For instance, among those who do not are the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons), Jehovah’s Witnesses and Christians Scientists, to name a few. Of course, the other main Abrahamic religions, Judaism and Islam, do not recognize the Trinity either. Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, Methodists, Episcopals, Anglicans, Lutherans and most Baptists acknowledge the Trinity, most often in their recitation of either the Apostles or Nicene Creeds.

          Both the Apostles and Nicene Creeds state the triune nature of God. In the case of the Nicene Creed, the co-existence and co-importance of God and Jesus was hammered out in the First Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. Some sixty years later in 381 in Constantinople, the Holy Spirit was given equal status by adding something called the filioque clause to the Nicene Creed. In essence, it said that the Holy Spirit emanates from both the Father and the Son. Seminary students study such things in great detail in Church History courses. For us, it’s probably sufficient to realize that the church fathers argued over such details for hundreds of years.

          Why did the church fathers argue? Because they were trying to find the truth and frankly, even today, great world religions divide over what that truth is. For those who find their home in the Reformed tradition and mainline Christianity, the Trinity is well accepted doctrine. And the working understanding behind the language of the Trinity is that the three are one, a single, but Trinitarian, God.

          So let’s take a few minutes to trace some of that line of reasoning. We just looked at the Shema, the line from Deuteronomy that says the Lord our God is one God. Doesn’t that seem to say that God is one? Yes it does, and that theme is uniform throughout the Old Testament. But there are hints along the way that the “one God” arguments don’t completely answer the identity of our Creator. For instance, in Gen, 1: 26, God says to “make man in our image, in our likeness.” In Genesis 3: 22, God says the “the man has now become like one of us.” Or Genesis 11: 7 in the story of the tower of Babel, God says “let us go down and confuse their language.”  There are places that seem to refer to the Spirit as a person (Gen. 1: 2, Neh.9: 20-30, Is. 63: 10). They aren’t conclusive, but they seem to create hints of God as plural in some way.

          In the New Testament, there are clear indications of a Trinitarian God consisting of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Here are a few:

 

               2 Cor. 13: 14: The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of   

                            God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

 

               Luke 1: 35: And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit  

                            will come upon you, and the power of the Most High

                            will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born

                            will be called holy—the Son of God.”

 

               Matt 28: 19: Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,

                            baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the

                            Son and of the Holy Spirit.

 

               Matt 3: 16, 17: And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went

                            up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to

                            him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove

                            and coming to rest on him, and behold, a voice from

                            heaven said, This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well

                            pleased. (Also in Luke 3: 21, 22)

 

               John 14: 16: And I will ask the Father, and he will give you

                            another Helper, to be with you forever.

 

              1 Peter 1: 1, 2: To those who are elect exiles in the

                            dispersion…according the foreknowledge of God the

                            Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to

                            Jesus Christ…

 

               2 Cor. 1: 21, 22: And it is God who established us with you in

                           Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put his seal

                           on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.

 

          As you can see, the concept of a Triune God is sprinkled regularly throughout the New Testament, and the above list is not exhaustive, just representative. It’s great mystery. We humans have no counterpart for this, unless you want to count Triple Changers Transformers and, as we have already seen, even they come up short.

          ECO refers to our Trinitarian God in “co’s,” saying the three persons of the Godhead are co-substantial, co- equal, co-eternal, such that there are not three gods, nor are there three parts of God, but rather three persons with the one Godhead. Theologian Don Fairbairn puts it this way: “The biblical idea is not so much that there is one divine essence in which Father, Son and Spirit participate. Rather, it is that there is one God, the Father, but there are also two other persons who are equal to him and united to him and each other in such a way that they are one being, one God” [Life in the Trinity, 44].

          If this is heavy sledding for you, don’t feel bad. The great minds of the church argued over these points for hundreds of years. Even then, they only convinced some, for as we have noted, even today the great religions of the world conflict with one another. But for me, perceiving God through the Trinity is fundamental to my relationship with him. I think this is the way he meant it to be. You see, God is already in relationship. He is in relationship, perfect unity, with the other properties of the Trinity, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Each of those persons seeks relationship with us in profound but different ways. God is Creator, Father, the lover of his creation. God the Son Jesus is begotten but not created. We are the created, created by God and Jesus, and Jesus is also fully man, ascended bodily to the Father, interceding with the Father in our behalf with his unbounding grace. God the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, indwells us, guides us, pricks us, holds us, binds us, brings us to God.

          Listen to this. In the 15^th chapter of John’s gospel, Jesus is in the middle of a long, upper room discourse with his disciples. It is Passover, in the future to be called Maundy Thursday. Just a few hours later, Jesus knows he will begin the long night of arrest and interrogation leading to the cross. Jesus talks to his disciples. He says much, and much of what he says is confusing to them. But what he says connects the dots of humanity from the beginning to right now for those who would follow him. Jesus says in part: “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love…My command is this: Love one another as I have loved you.”  Jesus doesn’t say imitate me. He doesn’t say emulate me. He says remain in me, in my love, just as I have done with my Father. Jesus is in relationship with God. Jesus is in relationship with us. And Jesus asks: Will we be in love? Will we be in relationship with him? To do so is to solve the great mystery. To do so is to cross the bridge from reaching to being. In Acts 2, the Helper that Jesus promised showed up. The Holy Spirit came to rest in the hearts of the disciples. Then they understood! And that is the last puzzle piece. The Father sends the Son. The Son lives in the Father. The Son gives that love to us. The Holy Spirit connects us to the Son, who lives in the Father. And we are one. We are part of God. In the words of my old professor (Fairbairn), “Jesus is tying our human relationships to his relationship with the Father.” I would add that the binding he uses to do this great love act is the Holy Spirit.

          And who is God? He is them and they are he. It is the deepest mystery of Christianity, but it is the warmest: Love, grace and fellowship, all from the most high, sovereign, Creator and ruler of all.

          This is our Triune God: Creator, ruler, lover. Sovereign, father, brother. Forever. Right now. Most powerful. Most meek. Human. Spirit. Trinity! Our divine linkage.

The Book and the Son

                                 2 Peter 1: 19-21, John 1:1, 14

 

 

          Sometime in the next few weeks, we will be shifting over to ECO, our new denomination. It will come with a new set of buzzwords and acronyms to learn as we begin to incorporate the business of our church into compliance with this new denomination. First, let me say that I have been working with ECO for about a year now at one level or another, and everything I have seen so far makes this affiliation not only a breath of fresh air, but a re-charging of my spiritual batteries. I really believe it will be the same for this church as well.

          ECO - A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians - is our new denomination, and it acknowledges a small list of principles it has labeled as its essential tenets. In the next few weeks, we will be looking at those essential tenets. If you find yourself familiar with the spiritual ground, you should. You will hear nothing that Presbyterian and Reformed Christians haven’t been saying for a long time. This is not new ground, but it is fertile ground, and it is at the heart of ECO. What I am finding so far is that ECO says nothing new, but it does say a lot of things well. And unlike some other denominations that seem to want to appeal to everyone, ECO seems satisfied to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ in the most powerful and clear way that it can find by planting that gospel in every place it can, and let the harvest belong to God.  It is in that spirit that today we look at the first of the essential tenets of ECO, God’s Word.

          ECO states in its literature that God’s Word is the “authority of our confession,” that is, God’s Word is our set of marching orders. It is our authoritative source for what we believe. Everything else is built around that. So what is God’s Word? Before we even answer that question, let’s back up. What is the chief end of man? Think of what you learned in your catechism so long ago and you will be right on point. The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. ECO says it this way: The great purpose toward which each human life is drawn is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. Some things never change. One of those things is the chief end, the great purpose, of mankind. We glorify God. That’s why we are here.

          So, back to our initial question. What is God’s Word? Amy Grant and other artists sing the song taken from Psalm 119 (v.105): Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. God’s Word illuminates. It shows us the way. Without it, we walk in darkness. So God’s Word will tell us about God. God’s Word is his authoritative self-revelation. God’s Word tells us who God is, and who God is to us.  That’s pretty important, because if we don’t know who God is, we can’t recognize him. And if we can’t recognize him, then how can we receive him?

          What is God’s Word? We intuitively know what it does to us. But what is it? Now, Preacher, you say, don’t try to make this hard. God’s Word is the Bible. Everyone knows that. Of course, you’re right. 2 Peter says this about it:

                   And we have something more sure, the prophetic

             word, to which you will do well to pay attention as

                  a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns      

              and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this

              first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from

    someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was

    ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from

    God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

 

          Peter is telling us that Scripture comes not from the mouths or minds or men, but from the mind of God uttered by men influenced by that guidance and interpreted by the Holy Spirit. John Calvin said that “Scripture, having gathered up the otherwise confused knowledge of God in our minds, having dispersed our dullness, clearly shows us the true God.” Both the great apostle and the great Reformer are saying essentially the same thing, that God reveals himself to us through Scripture, the written Word of God.

          But if we are to properly understand the Word of God, we must understand that Word as not only written, but living. Listen again to the words of the apostle John: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…and the Word came and dwelt among us.” That’s powerful. The Word lives. It lives in physical form. It moves and walks and breathes. The living Word is Jesus, the Son of God.

          Let me ask you a question. And I’ll warn you before I ask, that it is a trick question, so think before you answer. Do you believe in the Bible?

Let me ask it again. Do you believe in the Bible? Let me ask it another way. Do you believe in Isaiah? Do you believe in Jonah? No, you don’t. You may believe the truths they contain, but that’s not the same as believing in the book or those writers, is it? We save that kind of belief for God himself.

          No, you don’t believe in the Bible. You believe in its witness! There’s a big difference when you think about it. And that difference helps us to understand the authority of God’s Word, both written and living. Who rules? Who saves? Who helps? To whom do you pray? Whom do you trust? The answer is God. The Bible testifies to the identity of God, gives us traction in our quest to know him, but the Bible is not God. Theologian Shirley Guthrie puts it this way: “The Bible makes present to us here and now the self-revelation of God that happened back there and then. In this sense—a secondary sense—the Bible is not only a witness to revelation; it is itself revelation” [Guthrie, Christian Doctrine, 63].

            So, we have the written Word of God and we have the living Word of God. Does one take precedence over the other? Yes, of course. One is God and the other is the witness of him. But we don’t need to go there. Perhaps a better way to understand the Word of God is to look at Jesus as God in human form, fully God and fully man, and to understand that presence as the living Word. We then look to the Bible as the divinely inspired witness to that identity. Each of these pieces is a facet of God’s self-revelation to us. What did the apostle Paul say to his protégé Timothy? “All Scripture is breathed out by God…”  What did Jesus say to his disciples? “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.”  Whether it is the written Word or the living Word of God, he is revealing himself to his creation.  

          There is an order to these concepts. First, there is God. God, the great I Am. He predates history. As God creates, mankind begins to find some understanding about it all and starts to write it down. If we look at God’s written Word, we find a description of God revealing himself, first to the people of Israel and later to both Israel and the world through Jesus Christ. But bear in mind that what we are looking at is a written record of actions and events that God had already revealed to us across the pages of history. That history of God’s revelation was then written down. It becomes a witness to that revelation. It is the written Word, the Bible. But note that God, and Jesus with him from the beginning, was creating and revealing through his living Word so that the written Word could become that witness.  

          We don’t need to pick. We have both the living and written Word of God to guide us, to inform us, to support us, to reveal his identity to us. There is unity in the two revelations, for that is what they are. They are the special revelation of God himself. We see God when we read the witness of Scripture. the Book, through the lens of the Holy Spirit. We see God when we look at the life and death and resurrection of the Son. We can trust them as the authority for our own confession, that God in the Trinity is creator of all, Lord of all, and Savior of all those who believe in him.

          Our great purpose? To glorify God and enjoy him forever. The authority for our confession? The living Word of God in the Incarnation of his Son and the written witness to that truth found in the infallible scriptures of both the Old and New Testaments.

          God’s Word. A lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.

Selfies

                                          Mark 8: 34-37

 

 

          Selfie.  It’s a new word for a new century. Selfie is the word we use to denote taking pictures of ourselves, most often to post on social media. We take selfies to show that we can be cute. We take selfies to show that we have been somewhere. We take selfies to be funny or to identify ourselves with someone more important or more famous, like a sports star or a celebrity. This new phenomenon has so permeated our culture that in 2013, the word “selfie” made entry into the Oxford English Dictionary. It didn’t just make the dictionary. In 2012, Time magazine pronounced it one of the top ten words of the year, and in 2013, the Oxford Dictionary awarded it the status of word of the year.

          Selfies have become so popular that other gadgets have been made to promote them. For instance, now you can buy a selfie stick to hold while you snap a selfie. It has the effect of extending your arm to take in a wider panorama. Selfies are used to communicate, to self-promote, to publicize. Samsung commissioned a poll to find out who is taking selfies. Among its findings was that in the 18-24 age group, over thirty percent of camera use is for selfies.

          Of all the many changes that have accompanied the digital age, the use of social media is the most profound and penetrating force. On Facebook (which now has 1.86 billion users per month), members put up “walls.” They “friend" each other. They “un-friend” each other too. On Twitter, they “follow” each other to the tune of 144 typed characters at a time.  In 2013, Instagram reported 53 million photos tagged with the hashtag #selfie. The sociology behind all this picture taking seems to suggest that the selfie gives these self-photographers control over how they present themselves.  And yet, a recent study of Facebook users seems to indicate that users who use it frequently actually risk damaging real-life relationship, rather than deepening them.

          Isn’t it just like us all to keep on trying to present ourselves in the most favorable light? Isn’t is just like the human race to build “walls” to post all our selfies on, as if all we are about is who we are.

We travel. We see beautiful places. We see great works of art. We visit national monuments and parks. And how do we remember our journeys? Most of the time, we look at pictures which amount to nothing more than selfies with a new background.

          We have a self problem. Eugene Peterson, the author of the Bible translation called “The Message,” writes that America is in conspicuous need of unselfing. He goes on to say that social science observers lay the blame for the deterioration of our public life and the disintegration of our personal lives at the door of… the self. Our worldviews for thousands of years began as the created ones. God was outside that creation and we sought to understand and explain our existence from that worldview. Today in America, where only twenty percent of Millenials (those born between 1982-2002) look to a God centered world, we are just as likely…or perhaps much more… to look at someone’s Facebook wall to determine who they are as we are to actually sit with them and talk about who they are. In our rush to “see” the faces of our personal communities on the walls of our computers, we run the grave and life changing risk of valuing all on that one dimensional “face” on the wall.         

          But life is not one dimensional.  Life is at least three dimensional. We are not just selfies in the scrapbooks of the tech age. We have flesh on our bones, blood in our veins, emotions that run the gamut of human existence, brains that even in this hard drive age can out think and out reason computers in hundreds of ways. And we have spirits. That’s right. We have spirits. We are fundamentally eternal spiritual beings encased in bodies with a shelf life.

          Why do we over-engage in all this self-adoration, this self dealing? The fact of the matter is that it’s been going on since the beginning of time. In the Garden of Eden, Cain was mad about his inferior offering being rejected by God, so mad that he killed his own brother to become No. 1. Then, he sought to evade God on the issue of being his brother’s keeper. King Ahab pouted over a vineyard until his wife had the owner murdered and presented the vineyard to Ahab as a gift. That was Ahab’s selfie. He gave no further thought to the means by which he had acquired it. Even King David, when tempted with the beauty of Bathsheba, couldn’t resist the selfish use of power to put that selfie on his wall for all to see. It was only later that he saw the incredible selfishness that had led him to even more incredible sin.  In the New Testament, we even see James and John, two of Jesus’ disciples, vying for position in the kingdom to come. They wanted what they wanted. They want to be posted on Jesus’ Facebook wall as the princes of the kingdom of God. Even in that inner circle of discipleship, people were more concerned with themselves than with others.

          You remember Alexander Solzhenitsyn. He was the Russian writer and historian who spent years in prison and exile for daring to write about the dark side of the Soviet Union and Communism. In 1978, Solzhenitsyn delivered a speech, or sermon if you will, at Harvard University. Listen to this excerpt from that now famous speech: “We have placed too much hope in politics and social reforms, only to find out that we were being deprived of our most precious possessions; our spiritual life.” In other words, we want our own social inventions to take the place of God in our hearts.

          In today’s Scripture passage, the disciples had accompanied Jesus to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. The story is famous for Peter’s recognition of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God. But there is more to that day than Peter’s recognition. Mark’s gospel tells us that Jesus then called the crowd to join him with the disciples. By this time in Jesus’s ministry, he was seldom without a crowd. They went looking for a meal, a miracle, maybe even a man of God. Believers and sceptics alike followed Jesus wherever he went. And so, Jesus turns to them and he says this: If you want to come after me, then deny yourself, and take up the cross and follow me.  He went on to give some very serious advice about self. And what he said next is the most clear example of unselfing I have ever heard. In The Message, Eugene Peterson translates it like this:

             Calling the crowd to join his disciples, he said, “Anyone

             who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re

             not in the driver’s seat; I am. Don’t run from suffering;    

             embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how. Self-help is

             no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to saving      

             yourself, your true self. What good would it do to get   

            everything you want and lose you, the real you? What

            could you ever trade your soul for?

 

          You may not realize it. It comes on so subtly. Work a few hours more each week. You need that new car. You will have time later to visit a friend. You’ll get to church when you can. Two or three Sundays a month is enough. And Sunday school is boring. Or worship service is boring. After all, you have a growing family and they take all your time. You do enough. Subtle, isn’t it, the way our faith dwindles and erodes one little step at a time. One day you wake up and realize that everything you do is all about you.

          God may ask you to be more faithful in your attendance. God may ask an elder to give communion to a shut-in. God may ask a minister to uproot himself from familiar surroundings and answer a call. God may ask a teenager to ignore the lure of social media and to engage in one to one conversation with someone, maybe even someone not his choosing. There is no difference in the way Jesus calls each of us. The difference is in the way each of us will respond. God doesn’t press us like Satan does. We have to let go our wants and reach for our needs. We have to come willingly.

          As a general rule, differences and diversity are good, healthy things. But there is one thing I can think of in this world in which I really wish we all acted and thought alike. I want my wall to be full of unselfies. I want to want to sacrifice myself. Because I really want to save myself, my true self. I want that for you too.

          What good would it do to get everything you want…and lose yourself, your real self?

Opening Doors

                            John 4: 39, Luke 5: 17 John 14; 12-14

         

 

          Thank you sir! How many times have I heard that over the course of my life, and all because I was taught at an early age that a gentleman opens the door for a lady.  It doesn’t matter what kind of door it is. It can be a car door or a door to your house. A gentleman gets there first, opens the door and holds it for the lady. I was taught that that is the southern way, but I think it’s more good manners than southern.

          Opening doors. It’s a simple way that we can provide for someone else to enter. And in that way, opening doors becomes a metaphor for the activity that we Christians call witness, or testimony. We open doors for others. We don’t make the doors. We don’t provide the experience that awaits on the other side of those doors. But sometimes, we get to open them. Such is the case in many places in Scripture. Today, we look at several of those passages.

          In the fourth chapter of John’s gospel we can read about Jesus’ encounter with the Woman of Samaria. Jesus was on the road. He had been in Judea and he was being followed by those who wanted to do him in. He decided to leave for a time and headed north back to Galilee where it was safer. The most direct route was through Samaria, a region of half-breeds who were not acceptable to the Jews. The Jews weren’t very acceptable to the Samaritans either. So Jesus arrives in Sychar, the town where Jacob had frequented so long ago. Jesus seeks a drink of water from Jacob’s well, and there he meets the woman.

          You are familiar with this story. Jesus talks to the woman, an act that in itself is out of line. He is a Jew; she is Samaritan. Unacceptable. He is a man; she is a woman, apparently a married woman. Improper. Nevertheless, Jesus breaks the ice,  asking her to draw him some water from the well, using it as a way to talk about living water. As they talk, and as Jesus shows her that he knows everything about her and her life, her spiritual eyes are opened. She leaves her water jar; that is, she completely abandons what it is that she came to do, and she goes to the center of town. This is what she said to all who would listen: “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?”

          My daughter Emily called from Africa the other day. She knew I was about to take a big test and she wanted me to know she was praying for me. It wasn’t a long conversation. She just wanted me to know her prayers were with me. She was lifting me up to God. She couldn’t take the test for me. She couldn’t do the studying for me. But she could pray for me and she wanted me to know that she was doing that. Emily was trying to open a door for me.

          In the fifth chapter of the gospel of Luke, Jesus is in Galilee in one of the cities there, and he is teaching. Apparently he is teaching in someone’s house. The house is crammed full of Pharisees and teachers of the law and townspeople. There is no way get inside. But that doesn’t stop some very determined fellows who are friends of a paralytic. They have brought him to town and they are going to get him in the presence of Jesus or bust. Houses in those days had outside stairs that led to the roofs, which were usually tiled. So these guys carry their friend up the stairs to the roof, where they remove enough tiles to lower him on his bed down through the roof to where he is right in front of Jesus. You will remember that the man was healed by Jesus. Jesus first says, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.” A moment later he says: “rise, take up your bed and go home.” And that’s’ exactly what this formerly paralyzed man did. He stood up, picked up his bed, and went home. In the narrative given by Luke, he tells us that that Jesus acted “when he saw their faith.”

          Another of my daughters, Ellie, called late the same night that Emily had called earlier. It was after midnight. Her voice was quivering. Her first sentence was “I need you to pray for someone.” She related a story about how her friends and neighbors, a Coast Guard couple named Matthew and Amy, had gotten a babysitter for their two young children so they could go out on a date. They went into San Juan to enjoy the celebration of San Sebastian. The night ended early and in tragedy. Matthew was shot in the stomach by a random celebrator. No fight, no argument. He was just in the line of fire. When Ellie called, Matthew was still in surgery. As I write this, I do not know the outcome. I do know that my daughter was shaken. He own husband was at sea, and she was there alone with her two young children. So Ellie did what she could. She prayed, and she called those whom she trusted and asked for more prayer for her friend. She was trying to open a door for him.

          In the fourteenth chapter of John’s gospel, Jesus is giving final instructions to the disciples who will carry on his ministry. They don’t know it at the time, but the Son of God is giving marching orders to a faithful few who will evangelize the known world for the sake of the gospel. One of the things he tells them is this:

               “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me

               will also do the works that I do; and greater works

               than these I do, because I am going to the Father.

               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.”

 

          A woman who has spent her life in an out of bad relationships has an encounter with Jesus and her life is forever changed. And she testifies. And other lives are changed. That woman from Samaria opened the door for her fellow villagers to experience God, and a village gave Christ a chance because of her testimony. Christ did the rest. A man, a cripple, paralyzed for life, is saved and healed, not because of his own faith, but because of the faith of his friends. Those unnamed friends opened the door for that man to experience God. Christ did the rest.

          In one day, I had the privilege to hear from two daughters. One of them was appealing to God, interceding in prayer for me. The other was also appealing to God for her friend. In that appeal, she reached out to enlarge that circle of prayer, trying to intercede for him.

          Why do we do such things? Why do we call upon each other to pray? James, the brother of Jesus, reminds us in his epistle. “Is anyone among you suffering? Sick? Let him pray…The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”

          It’s just opening a door. Sometimes, the ones for whom we pray won’t come through that door. But sometimes they will. Jesus will handle their response. We just need to help get that door open. Jesus said we can do great things in his name. He said the things we can accomplish in faith can be even greater works than what he did.       

          We need to claim that promise. We all know that just opening the door is not enough. Those of us who come to Christ will do so through personal experience and communion with our Lord. But how will that start? Sometimes it comes through the not so small act of someone opening a door. Sometimes it comes through the testimony of someone who once stood in front of that door and made a choice for God.

          Be a witness. Give your testimony. And keep on opening doors for others.

Grace Upon Grace

                                             John 1: 9-18

 

 

          Clement of Alexandria, one of the great second century church fathers, called John’s gospel the “spiritual” gospel. When you read all four gospels, you get a pretty good idea of what Clement meant. Matthew, Mark and Luke, called the synoptic gospels because they “see” more or less the same thing, make their case with genealogies and facts of Jesus’ mighty deeds and acts, along with parables of Jesus. John doesn’t do that. He doesn’t relate a single parable. He does talk about facts, but not in the same way. John is more concerned with the thread which connects the divinity of Jesus with the chance for eternal life for those who believe his story.

          John was Jesus’ first cousin. He and his brother James were fisherman in Galilee. They were part of the family business run by their father Zebedee. John is thought to have been the beloved disciple that the gospels, especially his, refer to. Tradition has it that he is the only disciple who died of natural causes. His gospel is thought to have been written some forty years after the resurrection. The other gospels predated John, and chances are he was familiar with them. Maybe that had something to do with how John chose to write his witness. It is a book dotted with 7 or 8 “I Am” statements, depending on how you count. It is also a book which brings a more spiritual approach to its witness. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…and the Word came and dwelt among us.” See what I mean. Now there’s a genealogy, all the way back to before creation.

          John knew Jesus as cousin, as disciple, as a member of Jesus’ inner circle, even as the caretaker of Jesus’ mother Mary after the death and resurrection. And he lived long, probably seventy years after Jesus’ death. John lived to see the fall of Jerusalem, the destruction of the temple. His gospel seems to talk about that in the way he describes Jesus as God’s living temple. God revealed himself to the people of Israel, manifesting himself to them in the desert in the tabernacle, a moveable nomadic dwelling place for his presence. When the people reached the Promised Land and made it their home, Jerusalem rose up and Solomon caused God’s temple to be built. So God’s people have known God’s presence in tabernacle and temple. With the coming of Jesus, John makes it clear that God has taken up residence in the incarnate presence of Jesus (and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us). The Greek word skenoo for “dwelt” means literally that God “pitched his tent.” So John, unlike the other evangelists, takes us beyond the facts and events to dialogue and to the metaphysical. Along the way, he uses the “I am” stories as his vehicles for the signage that points to the divinity and promise of salvation that Jesus brings.

          For me, the first eighteen verses of John’s gospel are among the most spell binding, the most revealing, of all scripture. I have always been attracted to the way John explains Jesus. We have those great lines about the Word that takes us from the beginning of creation all the way to the manger in Bethlehem. We also have a continuing comparison of Jesus to light; light as the light of men, light shining in the darkness, the true light. John will continue with this motif throughout his writings. But what caught my eye on this reading was something I had not seen clearly before. What caught my eye this time around was John’s allusion to Jesus as the image of God.

          How do you see God? John says what we all know, that no one has ever seen God. Oh yes, some have seen his presence, like the pillar of clouds that moved across the desert by day and the pillar of fire that hovered over the camp of  the people at night, or like Moses being practically blinded by the burning bush. Abraham was said to have walked with God, though nowhere does it say that he looked at him. God came to Adam and Eve in the garden, but it was his presence, not his person, that ministered to his creation. In his letter to the Romans, Paul told them that God’s attributes are clear enough to see all over his creation. But those are God’s attributes, not his person.

          And yet, as John tells us, God has been made known by Jesus. Jesus, God’s Son. Jesus; who is at the Father’s side. Later in the fourteenth chapter of John’s gospel, the disciple Phillip asks Jesus for a sign from the Father. Jesus answers him: “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” No, we have not seen God the Father, but there were those who saw God the Son. And Jesus himself tells us that he is the image which we have longed to see.

          What is God’s image? If we look at Genesis 1, we see God making man (Heb.: Adam - mankind) in God’s (that is, the Trinitarian God) image and likeness. Here in John 1, John says that we have seen his glory. John could have meant a lot of things by that statement, from the Transfiguration to the Ascension to just plain seeing Jesus’ presence. But with John, he makes clear that he, John, has seen. He is an eyewitness to what he speaks.

          So what is God’s image? It is physical. It is spiritual. It is emotional. It is God in man, man in God. It is, according to John, glory as of the only Son from the Father. John and others saw that firsthand and John writes about it here. While we cannot see physically who John saw, we can see it spiritually. To do that, we would do well to try to capture the words from John. He calls Jesus full of grace and truth. But what does that mean?

          This has been quite a year in the United States. It has been a year in which everyone has struggled to see the truth. It is a year in which yet another new phrase has been coined to describe what is going on. Now we have to deal with “fake news.” It’s a new term, but an old idea. It used to be called propaganda. In John’s time it was called false teaching. So while the term is new, the idea has been with us for ages. John tells us a story as an eyewitness, and in the truth he tries to convey, he describes Jesus as full of grace and truth.

          Have you ever heard anyone other than Jesus described in such a way? I have grace, sometimes, but I’m sure not full of it. I make my life about telling the truth, but Jesus was full of truth. Now we can begin to see the image of God. It is full of grace and truth. If we could look at Jesus as John and his disciples did, we would both see and feel Jesus’ fullness. John says from that fullness we can all receive grace upon grace. Think about that. Grace is that unmerited, completely free, bestowing of forgiveness and assurance, acceptance. It cannot be earned. It is unconditional and given for the asking. And John says that Jesus gives those who believe grace upon grace. It’s sort of like getting a heaping helping of all your favorite things, then getting it again and again and again. The Psalmist knew something about grace upon grace when he wrote “my cup runneth over.”

          John goes on to emphasize what has happened with the coming of Jesus. Moses gave us the law. That is, through Moses, we were shown a basic set of rules. Don’t do this. Do that. We were given a set of definitions by which we could measure ourselves for society with each other and most notably with God. But what the law did most of all was to show us the fence. Anything outside of the fence was bad or dangerous or disobedient. Jesus both changed that and clarified that. This is John’s revelation shared with us, that Jesus was not about fences. He was all about making God’s true nature known. John says that through Jesus Christ, we were made acquainted with grace and truth. We were introduced to the image of God, and it is an image of love.

          Love is who God is, and love is what God looks like. That is the image of God and that is the image in which he made us. John tells us that when Jesus came and lived among us, those who saw him were privileged to see that image face to face. To see that image was to see grace and truth in action, in the flesh.

          That kind of vision came only once. Jesus lived among us and showed us the image of God. John saw that. He spent his life ministering to the truth of what he saw. While we do not have the physical presence of Jesus as John did, we do have the word and witness of John, the beloved disciple. John said Jesus made God known. Jesus lives not only in the words of the evangelist in Scripture, but in the Holy Spirit, whom he sent to us to guide and comfort us.

          Jesus has been called the image of the invisible God. But Jesus is also now invisible to the naked eye. Unless. Unless your vision is making use of the Holy Spirit. If you are there, then you don’t even need these words. You can already see. If you are not quite there, then keep reading. Invite the Holy Spirit to guide you. Grace upon grace can be yours too.