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Then the Pharisees went off and discussed how they could trap Jesus in argument. Eventually they sent their disciples with some of the Herod-party to say this, “Master, we know that you are an honest man who teaches the way of God faithfully and that you don’t care for human approval. Now tell us—‘is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not’?”
But Jesus knowing their evil intention said, “Why try this trick on me, you frauds? Show me the money you pay the tax with.” They handed him a coin, and he said to them, “Whose face is this and whose name is in the inscription?” “Caesar’s,” they said. “Then give to Caesar,” he replied, “what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God!” This reply staggered them and they went away and let him alone. (Matt. 22:15-22) Isn't Jesus absolutely brilliant? In the space of one action, one question and one comment, He is simultaneously doing three separate things: He is lowering the valuation of any-currency-ever as the denominator of life's importance; He is heightening our understanding of what our lives owe to God: ie. EVERYTHING; and, by so casually saying, "Just pay the tax," and then following that up with "And give God your all," He is showing us what the life of following Him is supposed to look like: stealthy, under-the-radar, seeming-to-fit-in while, in reality, it's working to aid and abet another Kingdom's earthly invasion! He is setting up, here, a sort of Kingdom of Heaven guerrilla warfare. It will seem to be everywhere and yet nowhere. It will look just fine to the Caesars of this world - but they'll have no idea what's coming; Who is with us, behind us...
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"Jesus got [His] divine life by depending absolutely upon the Father all His life long, depending upon Him even down into death. Jesus got that life in the full glory of the Spirit to be poured out, by giving Himself up in obedience and surrender to God alone, and leaving God even in the grave to work out His mighty power; and that very Christ will live out His life in you and me. Oh, the mystery! Oh, the glory! And oh, the Divine certainty! Jesus Christ means to live out that life in you and me." Andrew Murray, The Believer’s Secret of the Master’s Indwelling * * * "The writers of the New Testament Epistles never regarded the Christian religion as an ‘ethic,’ still less a performance. To them it was an invasion of their own lives by the living Spirit of God; their response in repentance and faith provided the means by which the divine could penetrate the merely human. They lived lives of super-human quality because they believed quite simply that Christ Himself was alive within them." J.B. Phillips, Making Men Whole
As we prepare for a national holiday centered around thankfulness, it might be good for us to remember that NO ONE has more grounds for gratitude than ALL followers of Jesus of Nazareth. For, after all, we personally know the One who created and upholds all creation... which is something! And we have had a glimpse of the glories of the Incarnation: His arrival, His life, His words, His sparkling personality. We have been set free - been set free: past tense - by the finished work of the Cross. And we now know that life and death hold nothing daunting for us: we have seen Him walk from the tomb - totally unscathed...
And so, where are we now; who are we now? The actual, living, flesh-and-blood, personal representatives of the Kingdom of Heaven to this generation of humanity... ...who've been imbued with the selfsame Holy Spirit of God that carried that Man through the 33 years of His human existence... ...and who may always - ALWAYS! - stop on a dime, reorient our attentions, and commune with the Living King who sits upon the throne of Heaven. I'd say we have some reason to be thankful this week! I hope it's a wonderful one for you! Some of you know that I did a long fiction-nonfiction writing project, a few years back, to try to bring the Book of Acts into a more first-hand focus. Below is a little bit of it. First, you'll see the passage where some of the disciples from Cyprus and Cyrene decided to go ahead and start preaching to the Gentiles in Antioch, not just the Jews. Then, from there, you'll see my imaginative write-up of, perhaps, what it was like when one of those men suddenly decided that it was time to do so. I tried to bring into focus the potential presence of Simon of Cyrene (who carried the Cross with/for Jesus) among them. Hope it stirs your heart for this Monday! Now those who had been dispersed by the persecution which arose over Stephen travelled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, giving the message as they went to Jews only. However, among their number were natives of Cyprus and Cyrene, and these men, on their arrival at Antioch, proclaimed their message to the Greeks as well, telling them the good news of the Lord Jesus… (Acts 11:19,20) A Man of Cyrene on the Road to Antioch My blood is quickened within and I walk this road and I think on the ways of the Holy Spirit, and, my brothers, I am tempted to throw all constraint on the winds which blow up from the Sea, and past us. Feel them blowing by us, west to east. Smell that scent of adventure that first carried us from the coasts of Africa to there, on Shavuot, and think of all that has happened unto us since! What is man to stand before the whims of our Jesus! Who were we to think this thing could be contained within the Hebrew race! My brothers, as we approach upon Antioch, I’m of a mind to say goodbye to the past; to walk right into the courtyards and marketplaces and, yes, synagogues; to proclaim the name Jesus to any man, woman or child who’s made of flesh and blood like me; to say that it is only in the name of Jesus that anyone finds rest for their souls and a place of heavenly peace for their minds…
Peter has broken the mold – let’s shatter it now, brothers! Let us enter the town with the roving gaze of Jesus and see all mankind as the quarry, the prey, of the whispering will of the Holy Spirit! Let us conquer the hearts of man and woman, Jew or Gentile; have no fear that wrongdoing comes on the voice of the Spirit that gave Jesus life from the dead! I see the fear in your eyes, Simon, my brother of Cyrene. What for? Did not you yourself once fall under the gaze of the darkhearted Gentiles and are you not the very man whose shoulders quaked under the cross with our Savior, our Jesus? Brother! Have we not come too far to ever turn back now? Sometimes I place myself within your flesh and mind, using of my imagination to imagine that day, and here’s what I come to – tell me if any of this reprises anything like any of your memories… I am standing, that day, along the road watching him pass. The smell of the crowd is thick and pungent with sweat and rage. Suddenly, all eyes turn from him to me – to you, I mean! – and I’m thrust from within my hiding into the hot sun of the Jerusalem day. I feel naked under the gaze of the people, the soldier who calls, and, most of all, him – Jesus, the sufferer under the weight of the cross. I slip under the right side of the horizontal crossbeam – Jesus slides over – his fleshless shoulders shearing against the grain – and he turns his eyes to meet my eyes. That moment, Simon, what was it like? What came upon your mind? Did you not know that this was the Christ, our Savior, our God? Together, as yokefellows walking, we trudge up the hill with crowds a-lining both sides of the twisting path and I talk to him of my sin, of their sin, of the whole world’s sin – past, present and for all the futures to come. He listens, walking, and I know he hears. When we finally arrive at the top of Skull Hill, I am shoved aside by that same soldier who first called me, and I disappear from the center of the moment I’d shared with Jesus. I look back down the hill and relive each and every step with him. Coming up and up the path we just trod together, Jesus and I, I see the thick drag-mark of the upright of the cross which has furrowed the dirty of the trail so deeply. His side, the right side of that furrow, is a way marked thick with blood. My side, the left side of that furrow, is clean and spotless… Brother Simon, look ahead! Look at the town of Antioch! This town is filled with men, women and children who know nothing of the Kingdom of Heaven; who are lost as we once ourselves were; and who hunger and thirst for the taste of life – the taste of that blood – the taste of Jesus of Nazareth! Shall we not go and set them free with the Way you once trod with Him? What have we to fear when you’ve seen him dead and then risen again! All you, fellow Wayfarers, listen unto me! Where’er and from whence you hail, I renounce all ties to the age-old past! I will descend to this city and preach to Jew and Greek alike! Who follows? Who walks the way I walk? I know the One who leads it! “Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.’” (Mt. 9:35-38)
The pivot in this section between Jesus’ own doings and His famous words on the plentiful harvest is the “compassion” He feels when He sees the shepherdless crowds. compassion (noun) : sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it I think the Church of our day too often meditates upon Jesus having compassion on us because we’re “harassed and helpless,” wearied and cast-off; but remember, that’s the look of sheep “without a shepherd.” That’s no longer us; that’s over now! We stand now shoulder-to-shoulder with the Good Shepherd: our new life’s work is meant to be the “sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it.” And how is their distress to be alleviated? He just told us: “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” Friends, we must either be reaping today or praying for reapers. The harvest is plentiful; it’s the harvesting that isn’t. In any given week, we spend far more time thinking of our own harassed helplessness when, because we already have a Good Shepherd, we’re supposed to be knee-deep next to Him in the work. Along very similar lines, my favorite of the Stoic philosophers, Epictetus, had this to say in his day: ‘From now on, then, resolve to live as a grown-up who is making progress… And whenever you encounter anything that is difficult or pleasurable or highly or lowly regarded, remember that the contest is now, you are at the Olympic games, you cannot wait any longer, and that your progress is wrecked or preserved by a single day or a single event. This is how Socrates fulfilled himself by attending to nothing except reason in everything he encountered. And you, although you are not yet Socrates, should live as someone who at least wants to be Socrates.’ My friends, although we are not yet totally like Jesus, we should be living as men and women who at least want to be totally like Jesus. “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” Let's do it! "Your pride in your church is lamentably out of place. Don’t you know how a little yeast can permeate the whole lump? Clear out every bit of the old yeast that you may be new unleavened bread! We Christians have had a Passover lamb sacrificed for us—none other than Christ himself! So let us 'keep the feast' with no trace of the yeast of the old life, nor the yeast of vice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of unadulterated truth!" 1 Corinthians 5:6-8
So, literally and figuratively, Jesus brings to the table, to the "feast," Himself: the perfect Passover Lamb. And what does Paul say that we're invited to bring? The unleavened bread. That combination of salt, water and flour. The "salt" that is the Good News, the Gospel, the Reality of who Jesus was and is, and all that's He's done and is doing. The "water" that is His Holy Spirit, the Spring of Life that wells up within us, the inward experience of His very life. And the "flour," our personal personalities, refined and made ready for His purposes: consecrated for new, beautiful things. Friends, there is NO NEED for the "yeast of the old life," here: we are a New Ingredient of a New Life in a New Covenant. All things have been made New on this Monday! "We are writing to you about something which has always existed yet which we ourselves actually saw and heard: something which we had an opportunity to observe closely and even to hold in our hands, and yet, as we know now, was something of the very Word of life himself! For it was life which appeared before us: we saw it, we are eye-witnesses of it, and are now writing to you about it. It was the very life of all ages, the life that has always existed with the Father, which actually became visible in person to us mortal men. We repeat, we really saw and heard what we are now writing to you about. We want you to be with us in this—in this fellowship with the Father, and Jesus Christ his Son. We must write and tell you about it, because the more that fellowship extends the greater the joy it brings to us who are already in it." 1 John 1:1-4
I've probably taught through this section 15 or 20 times, and I don't think it has ever ceased to thrill me as much as it did the very first time I read it in this, the Phillips translation. It's this wonderful combination of "high" and "low" Christologies: knowing Him as He is as the glorious King of Heaven while fully remembering Him as He was, as a Man, as that bearded Teacher-Carpenter out of Nazareth in Galilee: He is "something which has always existed"; He is "the very Word of life himself"; He is "life"; He is "the very life of all ages"... and yet "we ourselves actually saw and heard" Him; we "observed [Him] closely"; we touched Him; He "became visible in person to us mortal men." Friends, there is nothing more glorious in all John's writings than the idea that his Best Friend - a Man whose scent he can still remember, a Man whose extra cloak he's perhaps kept with him all these years - is Himself the Meaning, the Definition and the Purpose of all life under the sun. This is GLORY. This is the glory that's YOURS. This is the glory that's yours TODAY. "Christ wants us to show Him to the world. Our argument is not our logic and theology, but our Lord Himself: ‘you will be my witnesses’ (Acts 1:8). This is all He needs, that we shall tell about Him and make Him real to men. This also is the solution of all the sinner’s difficulties. You cannot save him by preaching theology to him, but show him Christ, his crucified, living, welcoming Savior, and all his doubts will flee. This is the solution to all questions about sanctification. We may seek for blessings and experiences, for states and conditions and find that we have to go over it all again and again; but let us only see Jesus ‘who has become for us wisdom from God – that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption’ (1 Cor. 1:30) and we are satisfied, and go forth with the joyful cry, ‘I no longer live, but Christ lives in me’ (Gal. 2:20). ‘I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength’ (Phil. 4:13). This is the solution to all questions about healing. It is not enough to know the theory and doctrine; we must behold the life and receive it from Him." A.B. Simpson, The Christ of the Forty Days
“When Jesus had finished talking on these matters, he left Galilee and went on to the district of Judea on the far side of the Jordan. Vast crowds followed him, and he cured them” (Mt. 19:1,2).
The word for “cure” there is ἐθεράπευσεν, from the root verb θεραπεύω (/THerə-pyoo ‘o/): “To serve, to pay attention to, to attend to, to take care of, to devote oneself to, to brood over, to treat medically, to heal, to cure.” And now go back and read the phonetic spelling of that Greek word again – say it out loud to yourself: Which of our English words comes from that word? Therapy. “And Jesus therapied them there.” Yes, Jesus served, Jesus paid attention to, attended to, took care of, devoted Himself to, brooded over, treated them medically, healed them, cured them there. What these vast crowds received, what every individual who ever approached Jesus received, is precisely what the whole world may yet receive, what every individual may today enjoy, of Jesus: perfect, individualized, “therapeutic,” heart-mind-body care – person to person – from this Man. Let's take full advantage of what He's offering us this week. “Now I am giving you a new command — love one another. Just as I have loved you, so you must love one another. This is how all men will know that you are my disciples, because you have such love for one another.” (John 13:34,35)
The Disciples of this new command, the Body of Believers of this new Way, will be characterized by the selfsame love as Jesus’ love. No difference at all. Exactly the same in every way. Which begs the question, just as certainly as it begged the question on the night of the Last Supper: How did Jesus love? What makes for that difference between people who talk about Jesus’ love and those ones where we can actually see His love flowing from them? Well, first, let’s talk about what Jesus’ love was not; what it didn’t contain: It was without self-absorption, self-advancement, self-belief, self-conceit, any overdone self-confidence, self-congratulation, self-consciousness, or self-criticism. It was without any self-deception, self-defense, self-delusion, self-determination, any grounds for self-doubt, no self-excitation, certainly no self-flattery, entirely bereft of self-importance. It was without self-indulgence, self-interest, self-justification, self-love, self-pity, self-pleasure, self-preservation, or self-promotion. It was totally disinterested in any form of self-reliance, self-righteousness, self-satisfaction, self-seeking, self-styling, self-sufficiency, or self-support. And most importantly: Jesus loved without self-protection. He gave His all that all might know His love. For us, the Self-life is the final wall that needs to be toppled over in order to enjoy the kind of love that He’s ready now to give us, to pour forth from us. That selfsame love as Jesus’, the love we see play out all across the Church of Acts, actually has no need of the human Self. It only needs Jesus Himself. Then Jesus looked up and saw the rich people dropping their gifts into the treasury, and he noticed a poor widow drop in two coppers, and he commented, “I assure you that this poor widow put in more than all of them, for they have all put in what they can easily spare, but she in her poverty has given away her whole living.” (Luke 21:1-4)
As He said in Matthew 6: "When you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward…" Back in those days, the wealthy would literally herald their generous giving through the use of artificial fanfare and pageantry on the way to Herod's Temple... But now imagine this woman, as she puts on her worn old shawl, heaves a sigh of fearful poverty, and picks up her last two coins to walk there. And, on the other end of her journey to give those coins, stands the Messiah, her God, watching her actions with pure joy. Again, Matthew 6: "But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you." Just one more way that intimacy with Him, living our whole lives before Him, turns every act of our lives into a wondrous glory! "On the third day the friends of Christ coming at daybreak to the place found the grave empty and the stone rolled away. In varying ways they realized the new wonder; but even they hardly realized that the world had died in the night. What they were looking at was the first day of a new creation, with a new heaven and a new earth; and in a semblance of the gardener God walked again in the garden, in the cool not of the evening but the dawn." G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man
Imagine Jesus on the Cross, one moment after His death. His body hangs limp: all his weight sagging down and forward against the pinioning of the nails. His face is unrecognizable, bruised and bloodied. His nakedness is covered head to toe with black and blue, with threads of flesh hanging here and there; and all of this is crowned by thorns.
Now imagine Jesus less than forty-eight hours later. The earth-shaking sound of the stone rolling away; the presence of the angels; the sight of Roman soldiers falling down like dead men. And here He comes: His head stopped as He clears the low ceiling of the tomb until, outside, He stands full height with the rising sun on His face. He looks around at the soldiers, at the angels, and then walks out into the coolness of the garden. This Jesus derives “his priesthood not by virtue of a command imposed from outside, but from the power of indestructible life within” (Heb. 7:16). Human beings can try to make any man anything. But, really, a man can only truly be what he is. In the old days, Aaron and his sons were made into high priests. Jesus is our High Priest forever. His Priesthood existed before creation; it preexisted everything; it is indestructible, unchangeable and solely His. This is who we’re dealing with when we wake up in the morning… After this, Jesus moved about in Galilee but decided not to do so in Judea since the people there were planning to take his life. (John 7:1)
Have you ever stopped to consider the almost unbelievable pressure under which Jesus lived and ministered throughout His life? All of His loving, gracious actions and words were given with the complete certainty hanging over His head that this all would end in excruciating death. And, even worse, He had to live carefully throughout, in order to avoid the wrong death! Let’s let this be an immediate reminder for us, as we open up this new week: There is no circumstance or struggle in your life right now that precludes your faithfully, lovingly ministering in the spirit of Jesus. In fact, take a deep breath right this minute, think of “the thing” (or things) hanging over you, and, in actuality, hand it over to Him. He can certainly handle whatever it is and, of course, you and I need to always be in the habit of handing over our life and its struggles to our Savior. And thank you, Jesus, that you’re willing to receive them! Christ came to open up the way, and bring us back to God. It was God who created us for himself: that he might be our blessedness and we his: that we might have our abode in him, and he in us. It is God we have lost through sin; it is to God Christ would win and take us back. God is more, infinitely more, than salvation, and than heaven: God is the eternal life and eternal love who longs to live in us, and to fill us with his love and with himself. For this Christ came; for this he suffered; that he might bring us to God. Andrew Murray, The Cross of Christ
When the Sabbath was over, just as the first day of the week was dawning Mary from Magdala and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. At that moment there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from Heaven, went forward and rolled back the stone and took his seat upon it. His appearance was dazzling like lightning and his clothes were white as snow. The guards shook with terror at the sight of him and collapsed like dead men. But the angel spoke to the women, “Do not be afraid. I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here—he is risen, just as he said he would. Come and look at the place where he was lying. Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead. And, listen, he goes before you into Galilee! You will see him there! Now I have told you my message.” (Matthew 28:1-7)
'He is risen... just as He said He would." What a wonderfully matter-of-fact way the angels speaks that: 'He is risen... just as He said He would." RISEN: ἠγέρθη: He has "been raised from the dead, awakened, stirred up, been excited by passion, arisen like a song, awoken to battle." So, right now, right as you're reading this, according to this angel, Jesus of Nazareth is alive, awake, stirred to His depths, impassioned by His Passion, singing over His people, as He rides into battle? Sounds about right to me! 'HE IS RISEN... JUST AS HE SAID HE WOULD!" Let's go encounter that Alive Jesus all day today! A little inter-linear walkthrough of Luke 17:3,4 -
“If your brother offends you, take him to task about it." Which is helpful. Because Jesus doesn’t say to embrace an unthinking Christian passive-aggressiveness. He says, “If you’re hurt, you should talk to that person. Don’t be afraid to be open about wrong-doing and hurt…" "And if your brother is sorry, forgive him." "Oh no, Jesus! But this person really did me wrong! I was thinking of holding onto this offense for one, maybe two, decades… Well, at least I only have to forgive this guy once, right?" "Yes, if he wrongs you seven times in one day and turns to you and says, ‘I am sorry’ seven times, you must forgive him." Or, in other words: We must learn to become experts in forgiveness. In fact, following Jesus, our best posture is to forfeit all rights or expectations of ever actually “being right.” As Paul said, “Why not rather be wronged?” (1 Cor. 6); why not learn to enjoy the fellowship with Jesus that comes from not getting your own way, ever? Friends, we will never grow in our faith while refusing to forgive; there’s simply no way to dam the tides of His grace and personally experience His grace at all. Today, let's look for new and unexpected ways to let loose of our offense, our past hurts; anything that He'd bring to mind. "The eleven went to the hill-side in Galilee where Jesus had arranged to meet them, and when they had seen him they worshipped him, though some of them were doubtful. But Jesus came and spoke these words to them, 'All power in Heaven and on earth has been given to me. You, then, are to go and make disciples of all the nations and baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Teach them to observe all that I have commanded you and, remember, I am with you always, even to the end of the world.'" Matthew 28:16-20
Friends, all the power in the universe has been put into the hands of the One who's our Friend, our Teacher, our Savior (who’s with us always, including right now, right this minute, today) and, in that power, we’re called to go. Not to stay. To Go. To Go Out. And we are called to make NOT church-attendees, Christians, or converts; we are called to make disciples: students of Jesus who are coming, ever more, to look like Him. These disciples should be from every nation, every tribe, every tongue: there are no national or ethnic boundaries available to us anymore. And WE ALL must repent, be baptized into the Way of Jesus, by the Father and the Spirit, and FOLLOW ONLY HIS VOICE. No one else’s… WHAT AN ADVENTURE. WHAT A CALL. WHAT A LIFE. THANK YOU, LORD JESUS. "I cannot help pointing out what a perfect illustration this is of the way you have been admitted to the safety of the Christian 'ark' by baptism, which means, of course, far more than the mere washing of a dirty body: it means the ability to face God with a clear conscience." 1 Peter 3:21a
Wouldn't that be a wonderful line to open any baptism with: "This 'means the ability to face God with a clear conscience'"? I love the simplicity of that language. And yet I'm not sure if we really, truly believe it. But let's think of the context: These words are coming from the pen of the very first person in human history to prescribe being "baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, so that you may have your sins forgiven and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." (Acts 2:38) This man, Simon Peter, had seen the baptism of John the Baptist, had helped administer the baptism of discipleship before the Cross, and now knew the glorious power of baptism into the Jesus who was risen and alive. So I'm kinda liking his theology around the freedom we have in Jesus. He feels like a fairly credible voice and authority, right? So, you and I - today - may face God the Father with a clear conscience because of the finished work of His Son. Thank you, Jesus! What a way to start another week of our lives! John the Baptist, speaking: "For the one whom God sent speaks the authentic words of God — and there can be no measuring of the Spirit given to him! The Father loves the Son and has put everything into his hand. The man who believes in the Son has eternal life. The man who refuses to believe in the Son will not see life; he lives under the anger of God." (John 3:34-36)
While John the Baptist lands with a THUD on that position of non-acceptance, let’s go back and consider all the glories he first attributes to Jesus: 1) He “speaks the authentic words of God” – The Incarnate God, the “Word,” cannot fail, every time He opens His mouth, to speak the authentic, fresh, original words of God. In other words, Jesus letting out a sigh is Scripture! 2) “there can be no measuring of the Spirit given to him” – And, actually, because the Greek in this phrase is fairly porous, it can also mean that there’s no measuring of the Holy Spirit Jesus can give. Glory! 3) “The Father loves the Son…” – John the Baptist is the first Christ-follower who understands the Father-Son relationship going on in front of him; he’s the first to speak of the Father-God as Father. 4) “and [the Father] has put everything into his hand” – It’s difficult to put this concept into other words. It’s almost like the exact polar opposite to the power of the U.S. President as he carries around with him the nuclear launch-codes. That power, in the negative, is the power of universal catastrophic death. Instead, Jesus carried with Him the fullness of all the heavenly things; He, a Man, walked along holding universal supernatural LIFE. 5) So, INDEED “the man who believes in the Son has eternal life” – And that’s not just “someday in Heaven” sort of language. The word for “has” here is in the 3rd Person, Present Indicative Active; the one “believing” today “HAS life eternal," ALREADY, TODAY. Are you presently experiencing that verb-tensing as your inheritance-in-Him? And how do all these descriptions hit your heart today? Then Jesus took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee and began to be in terrible distress and misery. “My heart is nearly breaking,” he told them, “stay here and keep watch with me.” Then he walked on a little way and fell on his face and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible let this cup pass from me—yet it must not be what I want, but what you want.” (Matthew 26:37-39)
Words with which we're intimately familiar. We've all heard all the talks and sermons about this passage before. But: did you know that, in Matthew's account, that's not actually what He says? Read it in the original: "Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you." Out of His own experience of being human, Jesus has learned the inner reality of what it means to have a will and to express - to act upon - that will. Like us, He had a mind that perceived, pondered and made decisions; like us, He had a will that operated at His soul/spirit level. But read it again: "Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you." What if Jesus is telling us here that what we think of as "the will of God" is inseparable from the very nature of God: "but as you"? What if the seat of the so-called "will" in God is actually only His soul/spirit, ie. the Holy Spirit? Thus, what if to know the Spirit is to know all the mysteries of God? What if to release our own will is the first step into a complete absorption into His very being: "but as you"? I think we think of our lives as this balancing act between "my will" and "God's will"; what if it's actually a question of your will vs. the I AM? Your little drop in the bucket vs. THE WHOLE OCEAN? “Once upon a time,” Jesus said, “there was a magistrate in a town who had neither fear of God nor respect for his fellow-men. There was a widow in the town who kept coming to him, saying, ‘Please protect me from the man who is trying to ruin me.’ And for a long time he refused. But later he said to himself, ‘Although I don’t fear God and have no respect for men, yet this woman is such a nuisance that I shall give judgment in her favor, or else her continual visits will be the death of me!’”
Then the Lord said, “Notice how this dishonest magistrate behaved. Do you suppose God, patient as he is, will not see justice done for his chosen, who appeal to him day and night? I assure you he will not delay in seeing justice done. Yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find men on earth who believe in him?” (Luke 18:2-8) These two paragraphs show the heart of the constant pray-er and the heart of God, who is so much better than that magistrate, patient and kind, never failing to respond to us... But did you notice the “Yet” that begins that last statement? It would seem that Jesus is far more interested in our complete belief in Him, in His person and His goodness, than in acting as an arbiter in worldly matters of “justice.” (And, truth be told, our belief in One who took a total injustice to settle the demands of Eternal Justice would tend to calm our desire for personal, day-to-day justice!) As Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in his Ethics: "Jesus concerns himself hardly at all with the solution of worldly problems. When He is asked to do so His answer is remarkably evasive (Matt. 22.15ff; Luke 12.13). Indeed He scarcely ever replies to men’s questions directly, but answers rather from a quite different plane. His word is not an answer to human questions and problems; it is the answer of God to the question of God to man. His word is essentially determined not from below but from above. It is not a solution, but a redemption." “Then the king will say to those on his right ‘Come, you who have won my Father’s blessing! Take your inheritance—the kingdom reserved for you since the foundation of the world! For I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me a drink. I was lonely and you made me welcome. I was naked and you clothed me. I was ill and you came and looked after me. I was in prison and you came to see me there.”
“Then the true men will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and give you food? When did we see you thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you lonely and make you welcome, or see you naked and clothe you, or see you ill or in prison and go to see you?’ “And the king will reply, ‘I assure you that whatever you did for the humblest of my brothers you did for me.’ (Matthew 25:34-40) Because - did you know? - this Jesus made all flesh - created it as the "Word" whose voice breathes life - and He made all men sacred by making them "in his own image and likeness, and then He took on flesh Himself, so that He might experience this journey alongside us, and then He returned to the Throneroom of Heaven - as that Man! - so that humanity now has a place there, with Him... Everyday, meeting each other, we are always meeting Him. No matter the place or station we each, as people, inhabit. How might that change the way we encounter this particular day ahead? On the following day John the Baptist was again standing with two of his disciples. He looked straight at Jesus as he walked along, and said, “There is the lamb of God!” The two disciples heard what he said and followed Jesus.
Then Jesus turned round and when he saw them following him, spoke to them. “What do you want?” he said. “Master, where are you staying?” they replied. “Come and see,” returned Jesus. So they went and saw where he was staying and remained with him the rest of that day. It was then about four o’clock in the afternoon. (John 1:35-39) The very first impulse of these first two followers’ hearts carried the seed of what will become the full flowering tree of the Kingdom of Heaven. Consider verse 39 in the most exact wording of the Greek: “He says to them, ‘Come and you will see.’ So they went and saw where He ABIDES; and with Him they ABIDED that day.” How beautiful that when the Savior’s eyes fastened upon them, asking, “What do you want?” that these two men fastened their lives to His, went to where He abided and chose to abide in Him. If they never did much of anything else, they’d already done everything right… Let us do the very same thing today. Then Jesus went out of the Temple, and was walking away when his disciples came up and drew his attention to its buildings. “You see all these?” replied Jesus. “I tell you every stone will be thrown down till there is not a single one left standing upon another.” And as he was sitting on the slope of the Mount of Olives his disciples came to him privately and said, “Tell us, when will this happen? What will be the signal for your coming and the end of this world?” Matthew 24:1-3
Now this I find fascinating - and, in a way, fascinatingly familiar. Here the disciples are: Sitting on a shoulder of the Mount of Olives, under the shade of the trees, looking across the Kidron Valley toward the city and the Temple. Right next to them is the Event-of-all-human-history Himself: the One who has come: the Bringer - for all time - of the Kingdom-Age of humanity: He who makes it "on earth as it is in heaven." And their questions to Him? "When will some events happen? When will you show up? When will Heaven's ways arrive?" And while I know that they are thinking toward the Second Coming, I don't think their questions are too terribly dissimilar to how we like to ask: "When will things change for me? Are you really with me, Jesus? Can't you just do this one little thing for me?" If the disciples had had the self-possession to actually possess the moment they're now in, they might've wanted to use this conversation this way: "Jesus, you've been mentioning being betrayed, being killed, rising from the dead: can you tell us more about that?" Or: "Jesus, what would you like each of us to do for you... even just for the rest of this day?" For us - and did you know this? - the greatest answer to all our theological questions and the very best way to await the Second Coming with great expectancy is to actively, demonstratively, listen to and obey this Jesus of Nazareth - today. The future is His realm: Eternity. Our place, our time, is Today. With Him. What are today's questions you have for Him? |
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