God Speaking: Like One Who Must Rise

Preached on Easter, April 8, 2012, at the "Sunrise Service"

Scripture reading: John 20:1-9

John tells us that he followed Peter into the empty tomb. He saw the large stone door rolled away. He saw the shelf along the side of the wall of the tomb, where the body had been set. He saw the body wrappings lying in place without the body inside them. He saw the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head folded and set aside.

There were no signs of theft or vandalism. There were no signs of breaking and entering; at least because there were no signs of haste. Everything was as neat and orderly as if Jesus himself had woken up and tidied the place before he left.

But Jesus was dead. John had been with Jesus when he died on the cross. John had seen the Roman soldier run Jesus’ through with a spear. The spear produced the evidence that Jesus had been dead for some time.

By the time the spear pierced Jesus’ body, it had been long enough, after his death, for the blood to separate between the plasma and the blood cells; between the clear and the red. So what came out of the hole in Jesus’ chest looked somewhat like water and blood, and not like the blood of a living man.

John says “he saw and believed”. (John 20:8) He doesn’t tell us what he believed, just that “he saw and believed”.

John was not bragging about believing. Remember he admitted that he was afraid to go in, at first. He and Peter ran to the tomb of Jesus together.

John was younger and faster than Peter. He got to the tomb first, but he didn’t go in. He looked inside, but he didn’t go inside. He waited for Peter to make the first move. Then he followed Peter into the dim light underground.

John wasn’t the only one who was afraid. Mary Magdalene came to him and Peter full of fear. She and some of the other women had actually visited the tomb while it was still dark.

Imagine that; walking through a cemetery in the dark! Imagine the restlessness, the sleeplessness, behind that!

They ran back into town with the news: “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”

We don’t know who they thought had taken the body. Maybe they thought grave robbers had noticed the signs of a recent burial. Maybe they thought it was a plot by the Temple authorities to humiliate Jesus and the rest of them even more. But the tomb was guarded by Roman soldiers, who were more than a match for any gang of grave-robbers, and who could care less about what the Temple authorities wanted.

John wasn’t bragging when he said that “he saw and believed”. Later on he would see the risen, living Jesus, and Jesus would say, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:29) John was not one of those blessed people of faith.

John’s faith was nothing to be proud of. He pretty much had to believe. He does not even tell us what he believed, on that first day of the resurrection. He only believed.

There is a comment that comes right after John tells us that he believed. It says, “They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.” (John 20:9) So John did not believe because the Bible said so.

John believed because of what Jesus had done. What Jesus had done was confronting him. What Jesus had done was facing him square in the face. It was speaking to him, and telling him that it had to be so. Jesus had to rise from the dead. Jesus had to be alive.

The tomb was surprisingly in order on such a morning, and this seemed right. It was so like Jesus to simply take care of things.

It was so like Jesus to locate the donkey he rode on when he came to Jerusalem and the people welcomed him with palm branches. It was so like Jesus to take care of the wedding party for the first of the signs he gave to show who he was; when he turned the water into wine. At the last supper, when everyone was too anxious to remember to wash before the meal, Jesus stripped off his robe, and wrapped himself with a towel, and washed their feet like a slave. That was so like Jesus, to think of the details and take care of them for others.

Robbers wouldn’t have left the grave wrappings as they were on the shelf in the tomb. Neither would conspirators. They would either tear the wrapping to tatters in search of valuables or evidence, or they would have carried off the body in its wrappings. Really, who would want to carry a naked corpse, when you could have kept it covered up?

When Jesus was a carpenter, he must have always put his tools back in their place when he was done working; and he did that now. The tomb and the wrappings were his tools for the demolition of death. He was done defeating the power of death. Now he was done with his tools and he put them back in their place.

Later on, the scriptures would speak to them, and tell John and his friends that Jesus had to rise from the dead. Psalm 16 would tell them about Jesus’ burial and his resurrection. “Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure, because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay. You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.” (Psalm 16:9-11) But understanding this would come later.

Now John only “saw and believed”. Jesus had to be alive. He had to have risen from the dead. That much was clear from the signs in the empty tomb. They had all the marks of the human Jesus they knew, and they had all the marks of what only God could do; which was very much true of everything that Jesus did, all along.

There was so much to Jesus that was beyond them. It seemed as though they were always believing in Jesus; and their believing always seemed so little, with so much left to understand.

John believed. It had to be Jesus. This was not a robbery or a conspiracy. This was not an accident or some mischief. This was a God-thing. This was a Jesus-thing.

Though John did not understand it, he knew that this could never have just happened. This could only happen with Jesus and, because it could not have happened without him, John believed he was living in a new world created by what Jesus had done.

I long for heaven, myself. But that is not a particularly Christian thing. When I truly believe, as a Christian, no matter how little I understand, I know I am living in a strange, new world created by Jesus. I am living in a resurrection world.

I am living in a world where sin, and death, and evil, and injustice have been judged and stripped of their power. They look strong, still; but their power is only in their ability to make us afraid or confused.

The church of John’s generation scared the world whenever the world took notice of them, because the church was a body and a movement of people who were not afraid. They lived in a strange, new world (the same world we live in today); a world that is ruled by the resurrection of Jesus.

Jesus is the king of the kingdom of God. If he has risen from the dead then he is ruling now and everywhere; and the fact is that anything can happen. Anything is possible with Jesus. Jesus had to rise so that those who follow him will be able to follow without fear.

 Mary’s fears were unfounded. No one can truly rob us. No one can conspire against us. No one can overcome us. If they try, they have to go through Jesus first; and Jesus is stronger than death. When the world does its worst, we meet it with Jesus who is stronger than we are. We belong to the Jesus who was dead, but is alive. With Jesus we can face this world and live believing.

There is a Palm Sunday Psalm that is also an Easter Psalm. It is Psalm 118, and the sixth verse says: “The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?” The Scriptures tell us that Jesus must rise from the dead, and they speak for Jesus who is the living word of God.

There are times when you and I, like John, do not believe until after the event, until after our fears go away, and we need time to see and believe. In such times, Jesus speaks to us, even when we don’t quite understand. The signs of his work are there, in their places.

Signs like that change our world. They change us. They tell us that we live in a world where Jesus is king. Jesus is alive!

Yes, let us seek to understand. But, most of all, let us see and believe. Jesus is alive. Jesus is on the prowl. Jesus is on the loose, and we do our living in this world with him, from now on.

God Speaking: Like One Who Must Die

Preached on Good Friday, April 6, 2012

Scripture readings: Genesis 3:1-24; John 19:1-42

In the Hollywood movie business they used to talk about the classic plot of a love story. Act One: boy meets girl and boy gets girl. Act Two: boy loses girl. Act Three: boy gets girl back.

The Bible also tells a classic love story. Act One: God creates world. Act Two: God loses world. Act Three: God gets world back. It’s classic. It’s perfect. It is what God did by coming to our world in Jesus. We are still in the beginning of Act Three. It is far from over.

In the Gospel of John we are told the last words of Jesus; just before he died on the cross. The last words were, “It is finished”. “It is finished!”

Look what Jesus went through on his last day. He was beaten with fists and clubs. He was brutally whipped according to a Roman method that was sometimes fatal. The actual hours he spent nailed to the cross were death by torture: hanging from nails in hands and feet, dehydration, asphyxiation, loss of blood.

If we had gone through all that (knowing that we had come to our final moment, and our final breath) “It is finished” would have meant that it was finally over. “It is finished” would have been, for us, our words of surrender; our words of defeat. But it was not that way for Jesus.

“It is finished” uses an odd Greek word that means reaching the goal, achieving the purpose. It means consummated, completed. It would be like shouting, “Victory!”!

Imagine thinking that such a death (a death by abuse and torture), drawn out to the bitter end, was somehow a victory.

Something in me wants to say that it is the resurrection that makes the death of Jesus a victory. But there is something in this horrible death that makes the resurrection victory. The resurrection of Jesus would not have been victory without this outrage that paved the way for it.

In the perfect love story, the boy getting his lost girl back is a true ordeal. It is a long and suffering quest. God getting his lost world back was a true ordeal; a long and suffering quest.

The lost world is our world, and our world had its beginnings in the life of the first humans: Adam and Eve. At the dawn of our creation God designed us for a thriving life, an abundant life.

It was a life that thrived because it was rich in relationships. It was grounded in the lives of others. Human life was designed to be abundant because it was planted in our relationship with God.

It was through our relationship with God (as our Creator and Father) that our life would spread through our relationships with others, who were also created by God. Our life was designed to be abundant in relationship with the rest of the creation; with the physical, natural world around us. And our life was designed to be abundant in our inner life; so that we would have happiness and delight: knowing ourselves to be growing into what God created us for.

All this goodness and abundance would come from our love and faithfulness to God: knowing how loving and faithful God was toward us. We would say “yes” to what God said “yes” to. We would say “no” to what God said “no” to.

We would be partners with God; God’s special agents in his creation, as bold as that sounds. We would be his living images walking, and talking, and working in his world with him. We would be the mind and the voice of the creation giving to God the praise which no other creature could put into words. And we would offer the creation’s prayers to God. That was human nature, as God intended it to be.

But Adam and Eve chose to say “yes” to what God said “no” to; and “no” to what God said “yes” to. They did it in order to set up a partnership between themselves; to become a team that was able to bypass God, if necessary.

They wanted to have knowledge and wisdom that God might not give them. They wanted to know what to do and how to live without having to consult God. They acted without faith in God. They acted without love for God. In doing this, they changed human nature.

This choice was theirs, in the beginning of the human race. It was their choice of what we were to be. It is often ours to choose what others around us will be, or it is ours to choose the sort of world others will face because of our choices.

All life exists in connection with God. When Adam and Eve chose to go outside the love and faithfulness of God, they went outside of God himself. But there is no life outside of God, and so they went into death. They lived in death. It is possible to do that, for a while.

So when the Lord God came into the Garden of Eden, in the cool of the day, for fellowship with his human children, he found them hiding from him. Although God was still full of love and faithfulness toward them, they were afraid of God, because they had said “no” to his love and faithfulness, and they were no longer able to feel what they had said “no” to.

God tried to talk to them and get to the root of their problem. They answered with half-truths. The man blamed his wife. He was willing for her to pay the price for what he had done. He was a traitor to her, right to her face.

So, the human race was divided against itself. There was cruelty, deception, pride, fear, anger. In the next generation their son Cain would kill his brother Abel. One third of the male population of the earth would kill another third.

The world as we know it was born. Humans, living in this world, could no longer live at peace with God or in peaceful relationship with each other, or with the world that God had made, or even at peace with themselves; not as God designed.

Even in the midst of life, human beings experience sin in the form of a kind of death, because the relationships on which our life depends have been broken. We cannot mend these relationships completely. We cannot make them what they ought to be, because something essential within us is also broken.

My cousin Don lost his first wife to a long battle with cancer when the oldest of their three children was a teenager. Patty was a gentle, compassionate, cheerful Christian. She was a lovely human being. Later on, one of Don’s friends went through a similar chain of events, and I remember Don writing about it; that he approached his grieving friend, and hugged him, and murmured in his ear, “It sucks.”

When the Lord first put Adam in the garden he told him, “Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” (Genesis 2:17) It is death (taking many forms, working in our life, even when we are at our best) that makes it suck.

In Jesus, God entered this life: this sweet, rich, beautiful, troubling life. Remember that, in the beginning of his gospel, John tells us that Jesus is the Word that was God from the beginning. (John 1:1-3) Jesus is God expressing himself, so that we can see him and know him as he really is. On the cross we see God encountering our world where it sucks the most.

Adam and Eve tried to get out of their mess by denying it; by denying their responsibility for it, and by trying to make others pay. God took the responsibility for our mess by stepping into it at its worst. This is who Jesus is.

In Jesus we see God’s willingness to completely disappear as a baby wrapped in cloths in a manger in Bethlehem. We see God’s willingness to be a child and to learn as a child under his parents’ guidance. We see God learning to work as a carpenter and get blistered, calloused, and bloody hands from cutting and shaping wood and putting it together as tables, rafters, ladders, plows.

In Jesus we see a God who cares for the sick, and for the caregivers of the sick. We see a God who cares for the grieving, and who grieves alongside them at the grave of a friend. We see a God who cares for the hungry and the needy. We see a God who hates hypocrisy, and self-righteousness, and a petty and lazy faith.

In Jesus, we see a God who takes upon himself the suffering that comes from our separation from him. He lets himself be punished by the Jewish authorities as a blasphemer, and by the Romans as a traitor to the emperor, although he was neither.

Adam courted death by his blasphemous ambition as a creature to become the god he could never be. Jesus courted death by his blasphemous ambition, as God, to become as truly human as Adam or any one of us.

Adam courted death as a traitor against the love and faithfulness of God. Jesus courted death as a traitor against our self-love and self-rule. Jesus came to become the man that Adam failed to be; to become the person each one of us fails to be.

The Roman governor brought Jesus out to his accusers and said, “Behold, the man! Here is the man!” (John 19:5) God came in Christ willing to be the man who must die because he stepped up to be, for us, what we have failed to be.

The Temple authorities told Pilate about the law that God gave to Moses to punish blasphemers (the people who spoke falsehoods about God). They said, “We have a law, and according to that law he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God.” (Leviticus 24:16; John 19:7) God came in Christ willing to tell us who he really was, and so make himself to be the one who must die because of it.

Jesus came to die to take our place; almost to suck into himself all the human sin and all the evils of our world. He came to carry the hell of our sin upon his shoulders, and to be the one who must die of it. He did this to break the power that sin, and evil, and hell hold over us, and over our world, so that they could no longer misshape human life.

Broken humans like us cannot mend the world. God came in Jesus, as the innocent one who could die to mend human hearts and make us whole. What happened on the cross has the power of God in it to make the work perfect, good, and lasting. God, expressing himself in Jesus, has the power to see it through until he makes all things new, and the victory will become visible to everyone.

In a broken, human world like ours, broken by our own selfishness, God would be the last one expected to take responsibility for this. God has done the outrageously perfect thing to get the world back; to get us back.

In Jesus we see that the glory, and the majesty, and the honor of God are this, to stoop down to the worst horror that we and our world can offer. He takes it upon himself, and he overcomes it for us.

It is the perfection of God to be the one who stands for us in our greatest need. It is finished! Victory!

God Speaking: Like a Master Planner

Preached on Palm Sunday, April 1, 2012

Scripture readings: Psalm 118:19-29; John 12:1-19

When I was a kid my mom was our vacation master planner. The rest of us had our plans, and our plans played their part in the plan, but the real plan was my mom’s master plan.

For my dad, vacation had to mean camping. We all liked to camp. So camping was almost always in the plan. For me, it had to mean visiting historical places, so visiting those was almost always in the plan.

Unfortunately, I have no idea what my sisters wanted. I hope they got some of what they wanted as well.

But the master plan came from my mom. If she didn’t want to do it, it probably didn’t happen.

When we read the gospels we learn that what people think and what Jesus thinks are two different things. This is true not only of people in general. It is true of the Lord’s own people; his disciples; us.

We see one thing; Jesus sees another. We want one thing; Jesus wants another. We plan one thing; Jesus plans another. And just who’s plan gets done?

We see it in the parade on the first Palm Sunday; the celebration that welcomed Jesus to Jerusalem. The people welcomed Jesus to their ancient capital because their plan was for him to be the King who led them against the Romans. Jesus welcomed the people who greeted him because his plan was to be the King who led his people by dying for their sins. Those are very different plans; or else they represent a different order or level of plan.

There is the same difference of plans in Lazarus’ home. Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, and the family planned a feast in Jesus’ honor. Lazarus’ sister Mary planned to show her thanks by pouring out a rare perfume imported from India. It was so expensive that it cost almost a year’s wages for a common worker. Lazarus’ family was clearly very rich.

Mary planned to show her thankfulness by pouring this treasure on Jesus’ feet, and letting her hair down, and using her hair as a towel to work the rare perfume into Jesus’ feet. Women let down their hair only in the privacy of their family, or in their deepest grief and mourning. Mary and Martha probably let down their hair when their brother Lazarus died, and they may have poured ashes on their heads. Everyone had seen them with their hair down.

Mary’s plan was her way of saying that she refused to have any dignity, or any reserve, in the presence of Jesus. She would have no pretence. She would hold nothing back. She would have no inhibition between her and Jesus. She would not play a part, or act out a role, with Jesus. She would always be, with Jesus, simply what she was. Her gift to Jesus was her expression of an absolute and eternal devotion, and this was inspired by her absolute and eternal thankfulness.

This was Mary’s plan. As good as her plan was, Jesus had a different master plan. Mary planned to celebrate the wonder of Jesus bringing her dead brother to life. Jesus planned to show Mary that she was involved in his own death. Jesus’ coming death involved Mary personally.

This was not a part of Mary’s plan. She would have done anything she could to prevent Jesus’ plan from taking place. All his friends would have done the same. They did not share Jesus’ plans.

Jesus had clearly talked about his own death before this. But the family of Lazarus did not connect Jesus’ talk of his own impending death with the raising of Lazarus.

Jesus told them, “I am the resurrection and the life.” Jesus spoke the words at the grave, “Lazarus, come forth, come out!” (John 11:25, 43) They thought Jesus could make such claims, and make such commands, because he was above it all. Jesus was untouchable.

The truth is that bringing Lazarus back to life was a sign, and the friends and followers of Jesus got the sign wrong. They were confused.

The master plan was a scary one. The sign of bringing Lazarus back to life pointed at Jesus’ own death. Jesus planned to lock arms with death, and get himself actually swallowed up by death. Jesus planned to destroy the power and the rule of death from the inside. The power of Jesus over Lazarus, and over the death of Lazarus, came from the fact that he was going to enter the belly of the beast himself.

Jerusalem was also like a beast. It was a beast that spoke with many voices. Some of those voices were glad to see Jesus. Those voices wanted Jesus to come inside and lead them forth. Other voices wanted to kill Jesus and stop him at all costs.

Each one of us is like the beast of Jerusalem. Each one of us is like a beast that speaks with many voices. We have desires for Jesus, and we have desires against Jesus. We have areas of our lives where we want him to lead and succeed. We have areas of our lives that we would rather hide from Jesus; where we would want Jesus to fail.

Both kinds of voices, speaking our inner motives, really want their own plans. The many voices coming from our heart have different plans than the master plans of Jesus.

At our best we want Jesus to lead us forth, when Jesus really wants to invade us. We want Jesus to conquer our situations when Jesus really wants to conquer us. We want Jesus to take us out of our story when Jesus wants to lead us through our story.

When I was a kid I would have scary dreams about falling. In those dreams I would usually fall from a high cliff; a Grand Canyon sized cliff. Most people who have those dreams wake up before impact. I never did. I always landed, I always hit the bottom; but it was always OK.

It was OK in the sense that the dream went on. There was more for me to do in that dream, and I had to go on and do it. I was never saved from that dream.

Jesus saves us not by taking us out of our dream, but by coming into it and leading us through it. We are the belly of our own beast and Jesus comes in and fights the beast that is ourselves. Following Jesus means following him through our own belly.

Jesus’ master plan required getting his friends involved. They had to stand in the court where Jesus stood trial, and hear the false charges and the false witnesses, and hear him condemned. They had to stand at the foot of the cross, and see Jesus die for them. They had to visit the empty tomb and wonder about it. They had to go back to Galilee, go back to their old life and do some fishing, and let the risen Jesus feed them. They had to be involved in the whole story of Jesus and what Jesus did for them.

We will see this as we go through the Gospel of John. We have the same journey to make with Jesus, in his own story, in his own master plan; in order for it to become part of our story, as the friends and followers of Jesus.

In our own lives we will learn to be on trial and tested. We will learn to carry our cross, and to die to ourselves. We will learn to let Jesus raise us from the dead and give us a new life in him.

In the Gospel of John, there is the special gift of seeing how Jesus brings into the open whatever is in the heart of those with whom he comes in contact. Jesus brought out the devotion and thanks in Mary’s heart. Jesus brought out the greed and selfishness in the heart of Judas. It happens over and over again.

When we follow Jesus, when we are in his presence, he brings into our view the secrets of our hearts. They play themselves out before us and we can accept them and follow Jesus’ plan.

Or we can embrace the secrets of our heart in the opposite direction. We can harden our hearts, and blind ourselves to what Jesus shows us. We can try to hold onto our old plan; a plan that has no life in it.

With Mary, Jesus brought out the thankfulness of her heart, and led her to the next thing. There was so much more to see, and do, and learn. It had to do with Jesus’ sacrifice for her. It would draw her to him in a way that she would only understand later. Jesus led her through the story, not out of it, and it would take her to new places of the heart. And maybe even lead her to a whole new life that she would never have foreseen. She was in for a surprise.

No matter how close we may be to Jesus; not matter how close we may feel; no matter how far away he seems, we have our own ideas of what coming to Jesus and following him means. We have our own plans. The Bible teaches us to expect to find that we have been confused. There will be some surprise in this.

We seem to be designed by God for the element of surprise. It is only when we are surprised by God’s surprises that we feel confused.

Why should we live in God’s world, and why should we live as part of the movement of God’s new creation, and not expect to be surprised? Psalm 118 tells us that God’s master plan is the plan we would never have dreamed of choosing. “The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:22-24)

The surprising plan of the Lord is the good news of Jesus. The gospels always show Jesus to be the master planner.

Even after we become the friends and followers of Jesus, we will find that he has plans of his own. Planning is a good thing, and we should make plenty of plans. But we also need to plan to be surprised, because Jesus is the master planner.

God Speaking: Like a Companion

Preached on Sunday, March 25, 2012

Scripture readings: Psalm 139:1-18; John 11:1-16 

There are a couple of children’s cartoons I like to watch on television. I like “Phineas and Ferb” on the Disney Channel, and “Sponge-Bob Square-Pants” on Nickelodeon. They provide a nice contrast to some of the reading I do.

When I watch these cartoons, I also see commercials for children’s toys; and I am amazed! Because of these cartoons, I know what “pillow pet” is: it’s a pillow; it’s a pet; so it’s a pillow-pet! I know that “slushy magic” is “slush-a-licious”.

I don’t know a lot about kids, but I bet that kids see these commercials and ask their parents for this stuff all the time. I bet that kids get mad when their parents say “no”. At least, I bet they pout. I bet that, sometimes, they act like they think their parents are mean when they don’t buy them all that stuff. I bet that parents who truly love their children refuse to buy them all that stuff.

I remember when I was about ten and begged, and begged, and begged my parents for a chemistry set for my birthday. They bought one for me and I used it two or three times and got bored with it. Well, for one thing, the set had nothing that would make smoke, or crackle, or pop, or make even the smallest explosion. What good was that? What were they thinking?

I think the best gifts my parents gave us kids were our pets. We got a dog when I was four. Within a couple years it was my job to pick up after the dog. I hated doing that but I loved the dog. A couple of those dogs became really good friends of mine. They were a responsibility for me, and they were a relationship.

Come to think of it, the best gifts a parent can give to their children are in the form of relationships. Pets are just one example. Parents give their children great gifts when they give them access to their cousins, and uncles, and aunts, and grandparents. It is a gift for parents to nurture their kids’ friendships; helping them to grow in their enjoyment of having a friend and being a friend.

But the greatest gift is when parents give themselves as a gift to their own children. Then children will gradually learn to see their parents not as the givers of gifts, but as gifts in their own right.

When the Bible tells us that we were created in God’s image (Genesis 1:26-27) the meaning is that we were given this gift of being a gift. And this also means that we were given the gift of receiving other people as gifts.

The truth is that God made us to be God’s gift to himself. We were created to give God delight. He was able to look at us and say, “It is good.” He was able to look at us, in the context of everything he had made, and God said it was all “very good.” (Genesis 1:31) What more perfect gift could there be than being a gift created in the image of God and surrounded by gifts of God which are made in the image of God?

John tells us this about God: that God intends himself to be a gift. “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) Jesus is a gift. John tells us, in the very first chapter of his gospel, that Jesus is the Word of God who “was with God in the beginning.” “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” (John 1:1)

Jesus is God speaking himself to us; expressing himself. We can see who God is by looking at the one and only Son. (John 1:18) Jesus is the Word which tells us that he and his Father are gifts. God is a gift. In our reading from the Gospel of John today we can see that the heart of that gift is a relationship.

God is far more than the giver of gifts (although is he the giver of every good and perfect gift, as James says in his letter). (James 1:17) God himself is a gift, and we experience God as the greatest, most perfect gift through our faithful relationship with him, but even more through his faithful relationship with us. God has designed us for togetherness with him.

In the gospels, most people met Jesus as the giver of gifts. They would come to Jesus, and ask him for a gift, and Jesus would give it to them.

They did not come to Jesus lightly. They did not come for petty gifts or trivial gifts like toys. They came to ask for answers to the important questions of their lives. They came for life and death gifts. They came for healing. They came for the healing of their loved ones. They came for the healing of the dying. Jesus almost always gave them what they asked for, though sometimes he would give them a test question, or a challenge, or a task; not to earn the gift but to get a better look at themselves and to know Jesus better.

There was the time, in the ninth chapter of John, when Jesus made mud by spitting in the dirt. He rubbed that mud on a blind man’s eyes, and ordered that man to go and wash the mud from his eyes. John does not record that Jesus told the blind man that he would be able to see when he washed. He just told him to go and wash.

And the blind man does not seem to have asked Jesus for anything. He only knew that mud had unexpectedly been put on his eyes by, “the man they call Jesus.” (John 9:1-12)

He doesn’t seem to know much about Jesus, at first. It is only gradually that his interrogators get him thinking about who Jesus might be.

Jesus is what God is, and he is not a blessing machine, just handing out gifts. The gift that he is handing out is simply himself.

The blind man (who was probably just a teenager) received the gift of sight, but he also received, completely without asking for it or expecting it, the gift of faith in Jesus without having seen him. Jesus was nothing more to him but a stranger’s voice in the dark.

Later on, Jesus sought him out and found him, although the man was not looking for him. Jesus sought him out and found him in order to show himself to him and invite him to believe. (John 9:1-39)

When the man first felt a stranger rubbing something gooey on his eyes, he had no idea what was going on, or why. A God he did not know very well was up to something. It took a while. It took a lot of suspense and danger, to find out what God was up to.

In Jesus, the blind man met a God who was not waiting for requests, but a God who was looking for opportunities for fellowship. God had come to him in Jesus to give him a personal relationship that would change him forever.

Lazarus was sick, and he and his sisters hoped that Jesus would come and heal him. The story singles Lazarus out as a person whom Jesus called his friend. Lazarus was someone Jesus loved.

Of course Jesus loves everyone, but the humanity of Jesus, the human nature that he took upon himself when he entered our world as the baby of Mary, had special friends. Maybe we will all become special friends to Jesus, and that is the plan.

The sisters of the sick friend sent a message to their friend. “The one you love is sick.”

They didn’t say, “Come and heal your friend.” They didn’t have to. They knew Jesus, and they knew that he would know what to do. He would know that this was their unspoken prayer.

Some people claim that you have to be specific when you pray. If you want God to give you a car, you need to specify the make and model of the car. They often try to thoroughly explain to God why they should have the car. This is either a faith in a God as a blessing machine, or else it is a faith in a God who requires you to do follow the right procedures before he blesses you.

It is true that the sisters did not ask Jesus to come and heal their brother, but they also never asked him to raise their brother from the dead. They trusted Jesus to know what to do because they had a relationship with him. They knew Jesus, or they were getting to know him better. And they knew that Jesus knew them. They knew that they could count on what they knew.

It is also true, that their original, unspoken prayer was not answered. Instead of healing they got grief and loss. When the worst happened, Jesus was not there. Or, if Jesus was somehow there, present with them, they could not see him, or hear him, or feel him.

They were the friends of Jesus. Jesus loved them. Jesus did not answer their prayer. He knew what they wanted and he deliberately avoided giving it to them. 

In the end, Jesus answered a better prayer than they could ever have dreamed of praying. Jesus gave them something that was better than they had hoped for.

And then, again, Lazarus would die again. If Mary and Martha lived long enough, they would grieve at Lazarus’ bedside all over again. They would have to bury him again.

What they had (something that could never be taken away from them) was a relationship with God through Jesus. It was a relationship that had suddenly grown beyond their imagination.

They found that the resurrection and the life of the kingdom of God were not things to be given. The resurrection and the life of the kingdom were a person named Jesus who could be known, and loved, and counted on. Jesus could be counted on, not to give you what you asked when you asked for it, but he could be counted on to hold something for you in the unknown future that was better than your greatest hopes and dreams.

You don’t have to be so wise. You don’t have to know the right words to say, or the right things to do. You don’t need any tricks, or techniques, or methods. You don’t have to picture or visualize the answer to your prayers. There is a relationship that you hold onto when you pray; a relationship with someone who will hold onto you.

Psalm 139 visualizes the God who became flesh in Jesus. David wrote this: “You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.” (139:3) Yes, many miles away Jesus discerned Lazarus lying in his sick bed as it became his death bed and the sisters wept. Jesus discerned Lazarus going out from life in this world.

This would be true of Jesus, and Lazarus would find this out for himself: “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol (the realm of death) you are there.” (139:7-8)

In Jesus we have a relationship with someone who will not let us go. He waits for us in heaven. When we enter the realm of death, we find that Jesus has already been there and we are not alone.

Jesus is with us in his death on the cross. Even now, Jesus carries the wounds of his death on his resurrected body. (John 20:24-29) “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.” (Psalm 23:4)

What do you want, and when do you want to get it? The relationships we value most have nothing to do with those questions. Parents want to give their children the ability to not fixate on these questions. Happiness does not come to those who chant these questions over and over again.

Adam and Eve brought death, and conflict, and frustration, and fear into this world because they grabbed at a fruit that God might have given them, in his own time, without their asking. They failed to trust God and count on him. They failed to count on what they already knew about him when they learned to walk with God in the garden, in the cool of the day.

In Christ we have been given an extreme and powerful love that has gone the distance, and died for us, and has risen from the dead, in order to set us free from the ancient grabbing life of human nature, as we have inherited it. The God who did not grab hold of his own life, but who gave up his life for us, can set us free from a life of grabbing, and even from a life that is full of anxious, grabbing prayers.

In Jesus Christ God has given us the gift of himself; a gift that cannot be taken away. The whole purpose of this gift is a personal relationship, a companionship that will not end.

Thomas said, “Let us also go that we might die with him.” (John 11:16) That is what being a Christian is about. Even now we die to ourselves with Jesus because he has died for our sins. But if we die with Jesus, we will also live through him. That, too, is what being a Christian is about. It is the gift of relationship. In life and in death we belong to him.

God Speaking: Like Justice

Preached on Sunday, March 18, 2012

Scripture readings: Ezekiel 33:10-20; John 8:2-11 

The religious leaders of Jesus’ people brought a woman to Jesus for judgment. They wanted Jesus to be responsible either for her death, or for sparing her.

If Jesus took responsibility for her death, then he would be contradicting the mercy he showed to the wrong kind of people; the people they condemned as sinners. If Jesus took responsibility for giving her mercy, then she would be a nail in his coffin. They would accuse Jesus of betraying God’s laws. They intended to use this to turn as many people as possible against Jesus in order to destroy him and kill him.

The leaders wanted death. They wanted the woman to die, and they definitely wanted Jesus to die. (John 5:18; 7:1) They saw Jesus as dangerous. They saw him as a sinner. They saw him as a threat. They saw him as evil.

And so they wanted for Jesus what Jesus did not want for them. They wanted for Jesus what God did not want for them. God the Father did not want them to die, and neither did the Son of God. The prophet Ezekiel spoke about this as he spoke for God: “As surely as I live, declares the Lord of Hosts, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.” (Ezekiel 33:11

This is what even the Old Testament (where things are often so scary and violent) is really all about. It is about bringing life into a dying world. This is what God has worked for all along. John tells us this about the Father and the Son, in his gospel. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” (John 3:16-17)

The Father and the Son want life. They love life. They created all life. They desire to restore lives.

Those who brought the woman to Jesus for judgment wanted death. Something in their heart was in harmony with the people who stood against Ezekiel and the message he brought from God, when he asked them, “Why will you die?” (Ezekiel 33:11) Why do you want death?

Long before Ezekiel, Moses voiced the same offer from God: “This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life…” (Deuteronomy 30:19) God wants to give us life, and God wants us to choose life.

But there are people who want death. The leaders who brought to Jesus the woman for judgment wanted death.

They thought they wanted death for the woman and for Jesus; but, in another way they were like moths drawn to the flame. They were drawn to be a part of the movement of death in this world. They didn’t understand that, however wrong the woman’s actions were, their actions were worse. Their hearts were set on something deadly.

I want to read an extended quote from C. S. Lewis, from his book “Mere Christianity”. Lewis wrote this: “People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bargain in which God says, ‘If you keep a lot of rules I’ll reward you, and if you don’t I’ll do the other thing.’ I do not think that is the best way of looking at it. I would much rather say that every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long, you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature; either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow-creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven; that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other.” (C. S. Lewis, “Mere Christianity; Chapter 4, p. 92)

When we look at Jesus, side by side with the leaders who brought the woman to be killed, we can see this difference between heaven and hell. They are doing the work of hell just as surely as they think they are serving God; when they are really only following an idol of a god that they have designed in their own image.

We don’t see this so much in the woman who has betrayed her husband, and her lover’s wife, and both their families. Probably she was only thinking about love. Perhaps she was reaching for the only love she could see, but she chose a man to love who would rather abandon her to death than stand by her side.

Maybe the man who left her to her fate was only a coward who was willing to be let off the hook because the leaders only needed the woman. Maybe the man who left her was one of the conspirators; one of the leaders who wanted to create a scandal in order to bring about the death of Jesus, and he used her longing for love to make her a puppet; to make her a pawn in their plan. Maybe he only used her. If either of these were true then her choice was all the worse, no matter how deceived she was.

There are women, as well as men (and there are kids as well), who make such self-destructive choices for themselves. Those who truly care about these men and women and kids lead lives of anxious prayer. They pray that the God who always works for life will open their eyes and lead them from death to life.

The leaders who brought the woman to be judged used God’s ways to lie about themselves. They used God’s ways as a lens to see others and not to see themselves.

They spoke of the woman as an example of the kind of people they called “such”: “such men”, “such women”. (John 8:5) They selectively used God’s laws to compare themselves with others; to earn points for themselves and subtract points from others.

The day before this hanging court (or stoning court) came into session Jesus had pointed out how the leaders used the law to blind themselves. He said: “Has not Moses given you the law? Yet not one of you keeps the law. Why are you trying to kill me?” (7:19)

Jesus had healed a man on the Sabbath; and so they wanted to kill him for breaking the Sabbath by doing the work of healing. Yet they did the work of circumcising babies on the Sabbath in order to keep the law. (John 5:1-18; 7:23)

Circumcision was about the blessing and honoring of life; about setting people apart for God. Jesus blessed and honored life by healing the sick. Those he healed found themselves set apart for God.

The Old Testament law was about the blessing and honoring of life. It was about the shaping of life as God designed it to be lived. In the case of the woman caught in adultery, the law was about the blessing and honoring of marriage as a great source of life for human beings. The leaders were using the rules of God’s law as instruments for judgment and punishment, when the rules of the law were given to be instruments for the blessing and honoring of life.

The woman and her lover had also broken the instruments for the blessing and honoring of life. The leaders were going to use her as an opportunity to destroy life. They thought this was justice.

Jesus was going to intervene for her, and he was going to make her judgment into an opportunity for restoring life. Jesus thought this was justice.

The purpose of the law was to tell the leaders that they were sinners too. It was not given to them just to make them feel that they were better than others. They needed to know the truth about themselves and have their lives restored by God. Jesus had come to do just that. He would die for that very purpose. He would die for them and their sins on the cross.

The leaders who brought the woman to be judged used God’s ways to lie to themselves about justice. They thought justice was about punishment when it was just as much about transformation.

At the heart of the law was the lamb sacrificed for human sins. That was a law meant to speak to the heart and change it. Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He is the lamb who changes hearts and lives.

Human rules and laws have the weakness of not being able to touch the heart and change it. This is why all the work of government, and all the work of human law, needs to be done under the influence of the virtue of humility and restraint.

Even God’s people do not have the power to reach into the inside of others to heal the blindness, or the hardness, or the confusion, or the brokenness of another person’s heart. We want to do it, but we can’t. Well, we can’t, and so we pray to the one who can do it.

The prophet Isaiah says this about God’s special work, which is the work of his servant the Messiah and Savior; the work of Jesus the Son: “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him and he will bring justice to the nations. He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. In faithfulness he will bring forth justice; he will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on earth. In his law the islands will put their hope.” (Isaiah 42:1-4)

God’s justice and God’s law are about tending to the bruised reed and the smoldering wick of the people who are unaware, or isolated, or cut off from God’s fullness of life. They need to be restored. They need a forgiveness that will change their lives. This is the justice that God came in Christ to bring to the world.

That day in the temple, Jesus gave this restoration, this new start, to everyone present. He gave it to the leaders and to the woman they sought to kill. That day, they all saw the danger of their sins.

The leaders saw that they were sinners who were not fit to throw their stones at another sinner. The woman saw her own danger, and she saw the love of Jesus who presented her with a new life blessed by God. She now had a calling from Jesus to a new way of life.

We live our lives as judges of others, and as those who are judged. We are called by Jesus to a new kind of justice in our life in this world.

We need him to take our blinders taken off, so that we may see the danger we are in; the danger of making ourselves into self-righteous judges who are ripe for hell.

We need to hear that we, ourselves, are bruised reeds and smoldering wicks; and perhaps we have sought cover under the disguise of being self-righteous judges. We have sought to hide from ourselves. We need Jesus to restore us.

And we need to hear Jesus calling us to not hate and despise “those people”; those who are really nothing more than broken reeds and smoldering wicks. If we will hear, and see, and follow Jesus, we will leave behind us the life of the justice that deals in death, and we will find the justice that receives new life from God and gives that life to the world.

God Speaking: Like Bread

Preached on Sunday, March 11, 2012

Scripture readings: Isaiah 55:1-13; John 6:25-59

Just the day before, Jesus had fed a crowd of thousands on a remote shore of the Sea of Galilee. The crowd was hungry and Jesus wanted to show them something by feeding them there.

A boy in the crowd had brought his lunch; five small barley loaves and two small salted fish. He offered his lunch to Jesus. Would that help? It turned out to be more than enough. In Jesus’ hands, the boy’s lunch became a meal for thousands.

The crowd was excited by what Jesus did. They thought they knew what it meant. They thought it meant that Jesus was the prophet that Moses had predicted: the prophet who would be like Moses. (Deuteronomy 18:15)

Moses had seen to it that they were miraculously fed in the wilderness, and Moses had led them to freedom from slavery in Egypt. The crowd by the shore of Galilee had been miraculously fed by Jesus, and they thought Jesus might be the one to lead them to freedom from the occupation of the Romans.

They weren’t sure how to make this happen; what to do with Jesus in order to get this done. They thought it would be a good start if they made him their king. The Romans would hear about it and attack. If Jesus cared one bit for his people, he would have to use his power to protect them from the Roman attack. Jesus would have to lead, and fight, and win, and become the ruler of Israel; and perhaps the ruler of the world, when the Romans went down.

One of the titles of the Roman emperor was “the savior of the world”. That was the kind of savior God’s people wanted. Jesus knew this and so he snuck away. And that leads to a whole other story.

But the next day the crowds found Jesus on the other side of Galilee. They asked him a rather silly question: “Rabbi, when did you get here.” It is a silly question, after all the strange things that had happened the day before: Jesus feeding thousands of them; their attempt to make him king; his escape and hiding from them. It was awkward to say the least.

Their question was an awkward question. How could they get back to the feeding question, and the king-making question, and the war against the Romans question? They beat around the bush. They tried “small talk”. But Jesus never goes along with this.

They were interested in following Jesus; even if it was on their own terms. But Jesus would have nothing to do with this, either.

Jesus made no attempt to work with them. Jesus would not bargain or negotiate. Jesus didn’t even try to politely nudge them along into whatever was his way of thinking. Jesus scolded them, instead. “I tell you the truth; you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill.” (6:26)

The rest of the conversation shows that the people who were looking for Jesus only got more and more confused by him. Jesus kept shoving them verbally until they were no longer the people who had been fed by him but the people who were fed up with him.

Was that any way to treat his fans? Why was he going around speaking and doing miracles, if not to attract people to himself? Didn’t he want people to follow him? They wanted to follow him; but Jesus was making it hard.

The issue of the signs confused them. Of course they were following him because of the signs. Jesus’ ability to feed them was a sign of the power of God at work.

The bread was the least thing on their mind; or so they thought. The power of God had worked through Moses to lead them to freedom, and the power of God could work through Jesus for the same purpose. Freedom, and a kingdom of their own, was on their mind. Of course they followed him because they saw the signs!

The people in the crowd were smart enough to realize that there was some miscommunication going on. They could not understand each other about the work of God, or about what Jesus wanted from them when he told them they needed to believe, or about the signs Jesus did.

So they asked about the signs. It sounded strange. “What miraculous sign then will you give us that we may see it and believe you?” (6:30)

Were they crazy? Hadn’t Jesus just fed them by the thousands? So they probably meant, “Give us a signal. Give us a clue. Use sign language. If the sign doesn’t mean that you are ready to lead us to freedom, then what, on earth, do you mean by it?”

And Jesus did not answer their question. He still pushed against them like one kid pushing another kid to start a fight. He just told them that they were asking the wrong question, and that they should know better. Moses never gave them the bread that fed them on their way to freedom. God gave them that bread.

And now God the Father was giving them a better kind of bread. It was the bread of God; and that bread was Jesus.

Remember how the very first few sentences of the Gospel of John set the stage for understanding what follows. Those opening lines go like this. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1)

Jesus is the Word of God. He is God speaking himself and expressing himself. John tells us that no one can see God, but that Jesus has made him known. We see who God is by seeing who Jesus is. We can see what God’s glory truly consists of, because Jesus is the Word who was with God, and who was God.

Jesus tells us that we must eat and drink him because God is like bread. We don’t have to just use the word bread. We could use other things. God spoke to his people in Isaiah and used other examples besides bread. God said, “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; hear me that your soul may live.” (Isaiah 55:1-3)

God is like a street vendor who is hawking a product that cannot be bought. It can only be given away. God’s gift is himself. God’s gift of himself is life. “Hear me that your soul may live.”

Being born into this world is a gift from God. We do nothing to make it happen.

There is a life of the soul that we also cannot buy. It must be given. In Isaiah, God calls that life “joy and peace”. “You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst forth into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.” (Isaiah 55:12)

The life of the soul will thrive when God’s work is complete. “Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree, and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.” (Isaiah 55:13) It will be a whole new way of life in a whole new world that will be given to us.

In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve reached out and took for themselves what was not theirs. The fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was something that was not there for the taking. If it was to be theirs, they needed to trust that it was God’s for the giving.

They grabbed something that belonged to God for the purpose of making themselves their own little gods. They wanted to expand their options and have a relationship with God that did not put them in a position of need. They wanted some elbow room, some independence.

But God is life. To be independent of God is to be independent of life. To go out from God is to go out from life into death, and death gets into you. That is what sin is and what sin does.

Sin is like making a desert of your world and your life. Competition for life in a desert is fierce. We were created for fellowship and peace with God, and with others, and with our own lives as God created us to be. In sin the competition becomes fierce. Peace and fellowship become rare commodities.

We compete with God. Will God get his way, or will we? It sounds silly, but it is a game everyone plays.

We compete with each other. They say that in marriage a husband and wife become one, but the problem comes when they try to work out which one. It is possible to make any relationship into a competition to see who will get what they want. Communities can become like a game for who can win the most points. Who will control the court?

Even within ourselves there is a competition going on. We are made in the image of God, and we are rebels against God. We can’t be happy unless we listen to God. We can’t be happy unless we assert ourselves in spite of God. We want love. We want control. We want peace. We want to be angry, resentful, and bitter. We want others to feel sorry for us, and we hate being the objects of anyone’s pity. Even within our selves the competition is fierce.

The people of the Bible didn’t live in the jungle, so they didn’t talk about sin as the law of the jungle. They lived on the edge of the desert or over the edge of the desert, and so sin was the law of the desert. The new creation, where God will make all things new, will be the end of the desert around us and within us.

Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life. Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” (John 6:47-51)

The term “everlasting life” in the Bible is literally “the life of the age”. “Age” means the age to come, the age that will never end, the age when God will make all things new, and all things will stay new. It is the age when everything in heaven and earth will be heavenly.

It is the end of the desert of relationships. It is the end of the desert of the soul. It is the end of the desert of a fallen, broken world.

Jesus says, “He who believes has everlasting life.” Jesus does not say, “He who believes will have everlasting life at some point of time in the future.” Jesus means that everlasting life starts now. The way we will live in heaven, and in the age to come, begins now, if we come to him, and eat him, and drink him.

This is true because, when we come to Jesus, we come to God and, when we come to God, we come to life; life as it is in God. It was not God’s intention to create a life that comes to an end. The ending of lives came about as part of a world that has been separated from harmony with God. Lives that come to an end are only natural in a fallen world.

Jesus came to bring life to a fallen world. He is like bread because God is like bread. Jesus is like bread because God is life and bread has always been “the staff of life”. Everything depends on it.

Bread is the basic food. God is not the caviar of life. God is not the gourmet chef of life. God is not a luxury. He is what everyone needs. He is a necessity. God is very humble and simple about what he likes. And so he is glad to be our bread.

Jesus said, “This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” Jesus came to give life to the world, and to everyone in it, and to each one of us.

He says that he gives his flesh and blood as food and drink for us but, to do that, he first gave his flesh and blood on the cross, to defeat the sin of the world and the sin of our lives. He gave himself as a sacrifice. He gave himself as a gift. He wants us to know that he is still a gift to us, and that we can still come to him. We can eat him, and drink him, and live.

Coming, hearing, eating, and drinking are all pictures of believing. Belief is not a thing in our head. Belief is not about the world of ideas. It is about a relationship of simple trust.

Faith is like eating and drinking. There is no achievement, there is no virtue, and there is no credit involved in eating and drinking. You have to do it or die. And eating and drinking are not a once in a lifetime experience. You have to do it all the time. Eating and drinking are literally a way of life. To choose not to eat or drink is to choose death, and some people do.

When you eat and drink, you are at the mercy of what you take into your body. Once they get inside you, that food and drink will have their way. They might go to your thighs, or to your waist, or to your arteries, so it is important what you choose to eat and drink. Some food and drink may hurt you, and steal life from you.

Jesus scolded the people of the crowd who came to him because they wanted loaves of bread. That was the truth that they were not willing to face.

They could have told Jesus that he was wrong. They didn’t want bread. They wanted freedom. They wanted power. They wanted control. They wanted to restore their pride.

The truth is that anything you want beside the life of God is only as important as the bread that spoils. Whatever you hunger and thirst for, besides the God of Life, you will have to leave behind when you die. There is a life after death, but that life is either life at home with God who is our life, or else it will be life cut off from life itself.

When Jesus raised his friend Lazarus from the dead there was a lot of joy. But Lazarus, in order to come home to his family and neighbors, had to leave his new home with God.

And Lazarus would have to die all over again. His family and neighbors would have to grieve all over again.

In our world, as it is, grief is as natural as love. But when the law of the desert of this world comes to an end, then love will no longer seem to come to an end, and grief will end forever.

I have to tell you that when the New Testament tells us about believing in Jesus it literally means believing “into” Jesus. Eating and drinking Jesus means that faith is about having Jesus in us and us getting inside Jesus.

The eating and drinking of Jesus is about interpenetration. When we eat and drink our food, it is changed into chemicals that penetrate our cells and energize them. We turn our food into ourselves.

When we eat and drink Jesus, we are at his mercy, because he gives himself to be eaten and drank by us in order to turn us into him. When we turn into the one who gives his flesh for the life of the world, then we will do the same. We will be servants of life. We will give ourselves for the life of the world, just as Jesus made himself a servant for life of the world.

If you don’t want to be a part of this, if you don’t want to take this all the way, then you can believe all you want, but it won’t be the kind of believing that eats and drinks Jesus. No life will ever come from such believing.

Jesus said, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.” (John 6:56)

At this point Jesus starts to use a different word for eat. It is a word that means chewing; like a cow chewing its cud. You chew, and chew, and chew, and chew, and chew.

Mothers like to see their children chew their food. If they like to cook, they like to know their children enjoy what they have given them.

I remember being told, as a child, to chew my food more. How many times were you supposed to chew your food? For me, it was always too many times. But now I am a slow eater who enjoys good food.

Jesus means us to savor him. Enjoying the process of being turned into Jesus is meant to be a way of life as well.

And then he gave us the meal of the Lord’s Supper, the meal of Holy Communion, the Holy Partaking or Participation of Jesus. Receiving the bread and blood of life are not completely spiritual. They are not purely symbols. They have to become real.

All that Jesus is and all that he has done must come into us; must come into our life. So he gave us this meal; a thing that we must eat and drink between lips, and teeth, and gums.

He promises to be there with us in our real eating and drinking of the bread and the cup. Jesus gives us his flesh to give us life. He ate bread, and shared it with his friends, and he loved doing this.

He is not too proud to come to us in such a strange and familiar way. The one who calls himself the bread of life is not too proud to come to us by eating and drinking him. Eat! Drink! Live!