Immanu-El, part 1

Humans have always had a sense of something greater than ourselves.  "Primitive" civilizations

Ekenosen

In a classic passage in Philippians 2, Paul describes Jesus, who "though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to.  Instead, he gave up

Two Ears and One Spirit

My mom used to tell me I had two ears and one mouth for a good reason.  She tried many times to help me understand

Knowing Who Jesus Is

How do you read the Bible?  Some treat it as the "owner's manual for people".  The result of that view is, they look in the Bible for rules or principles in how to treat others and how to worship God.  And in one sense that's correct, because the principles given in the Bible do point out good ways of living.  But is that the Bible's main point?  There's far too much in its pages that doesn't fit that mold.

A better way to look at the Bible is that it shows us who we are and who God is.  Today, we'll look for an example at the story of Jesus in the Gospels.  If Jesus were just a great teacher, it would make sense that the Gospels were written to tell us what he taught, which of course is radical and challenging.  But seen more fully, they are written to tell us who Jesus is, and why that matters to us.  The many times they show him as the Son of God, someone who is more than just a man and more than just a teacher, is overwhelming.  Have you read them from that perspective? 

This letter from Joseph Tkach lists the four Gospels and tells how each was written.  To summarize his letter, the four Gospels were written to four different audiences to show who Jesus is from four different viewpoints. 

Finally, let's look at the way the four books emphasize Jesus' intentions toward his crucifixion.  Notice how much space in each book is taken up with the run-up to that final encounter and his triumph over death in the resurrection.  In Matthew 16:13, he asks "Who do you say I am?" and follows that with an explanation of his coming sacrifice in verse 21.  Luke's account records the same question in 9:19, moving into Jesus predicting his death, and saying the days were coming close to his being taken up.  Mark's Gospel shows him already being opposed by the Pharisees in chapter 7, and in 8:27 is the fateful question.  John's Gospel has the clues about his upcoming death starting in the first chapter.  Jesus' mission to come into our humanity as the Son of God and rescue us from within our broken humanity is the main idea throughout. 

As we approach the date of our annual remembrances of both his sacrifice and his resurrection, let's be sure we understand what he was really about -- and how he pursued his Father's mission with love and faithfulness (John 1:14-17). 

Darkness and Light

The Amazing Joanne and I went camping last week for a short vacation.  One of the shocking parts of camping in a state park is how dark it is at night, with no bright streetlights around.  We saw stars -- formations like the Big Dipper, Little Dipper, O'Ryan's Belt (he was the first Irishman in space, by the way), and thousands of others.  That was the fun part.  The difficult part was walking to the potty in the middle of the night.  That same darkness became a hazard, because there were rocks to trip over and stickleburrs that we wanted to avoid.  So we turned on the lantern and walked in its light.

Which reminded us, of course, of Psalm 119:105, "Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path."  How do we see that "light" of the Word?  Here are some common approaches:

• The Bible is the instruction book for life; so you should look up the verse that tells you what decision to make or that answers your question.  --This approach unconsciously treats the Bible like a buffet, where we can go in and take just the foods we want, and all we need to do is find the right verse to apply to our questions.
• The Bible is a set of laws and principles that will guide us, although it doesn't always contain an exact instruction for each situation, but we should follow God's laws for a successful life and to avoid sin.  --This approach unconsciously sees God as some sort of rule-giver, like a supervisor at work or in a boarding school, laying down the law and punishing us for getting out of line. 
• The Bible is an ancient book of wisdom and we can learn from it, but it's not authoritative.  --This tells us that we are the superior beings, and the Bible is something we can take or leave at our discretion. 

Each of these approaches is fatally flawed because it leaves you and me as the authority in how (or even whether) to interpret and apply the scripture. 

Here's a better way:  The living Word of God, Jesus Christ, is the One to whom this verse points. (I've written about that in previous weeks).  So how do we read "Your word is a light to guide my feet and a light for my path"?  That the whole Bible, as the inspired written revelation of God, tells us who God is and what he is like, most particularly and clearly in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ himself.  That we look to Jesus, in the Gospel accounts and in the other writings, to understand our relationship to God through him, being adopted into the life and love of God (Eph. 1:3-5) and being filled with Christ (Col. 1:27).  That light in us, Christ himself, is the Lamp for our feet.  "I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t have to walk in darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life." (John 8:12). 

Let's follow him, being filled with him, and let his Light guide us. 

The Other Side of the Boat

It had been a long night and the seven men in the small boat were exhausted.  It was time to row back to shore and clean their empty nets.  They were already discouraged from the events of the last week.  They had all followed this new rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth, for three years and then the whole thing had been a bust -- the Romans had crucified Jesus and the brave among them had watched him die.  The last three years were a waste, so it seemed, so they were back to fishing for their livelihood, and now it looked like that wasn't going to work either. Bummer!

A voice came to them from on shore, a hundred yards away.  "So you got skunked, huh?  Try throwing your nets off the other side of the boat."  They looked at each other as if to ask, "What difference would that make? It's only a few feet!" but then they gave it one more try (fishermen do that a lot). Suddenly the net was full and it was all they could do to stay afloat with the load hanging over the side.  Eyes wide, they all realized this was no accident.  "It's the Lord [Jesus]!" said John. 

Once again Jesus showed his power -- now, after his resurrection -- to these guys who were so slow to believe.  He had called them to follow him, and he wasn't giving up on them just because they were discouraged.  He told them to try again, a little differently, and suddenly they succeeded.  Fellow disciples, it's the same today.  We can work until we're exhausted, get discouraged and think nothing is ever going to give results.  Then the Master calls out, telling us to try again, to try something just a little different than our 'proven methods.'  Our first challenge is always hearing him when we're 'busy working'.  Then there's the challenge of being discouraged -- thinking that, surely, trying again isn't worth the effort.  But the Master calls us to follow, not argue.

The question is, for each of us, what is 'the other side of the boat?'  Perhaps it's a different approach to a relationship; taking the painful steps to learn budgeting and money management; forgiving someone (again!); walking the few steps and daring to open up to a co-worker or neighbor about your faith in Jesus; or something else equally difficult, that Jesus is asking us to do. 

The disciples received a boatload of fish.  What is Jesus wanting to bless you and me with, if we will follow?

The Gospel made simple

I have these four points on the back of my card and on my blog.  They give the heart and core of the Gospel; indeed, the message of the whole Bible.  Here's a teeny bit of background by way of scriptures, on each one.

1. God, who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is love; and God loves you.
1 John 4:8  "Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love."
1 John 3:1  "See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!"

Eph. 2:3-5  "But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions..."
1 John 4:9  "God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him."

2. The Father made plans to include you in his love and life forever.
Eph. 1:3-5 "Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes..."
John 3:16-17  "...God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him."

3. The Son, Jesus, accomplished the Father's plan, and you are already forgiven and included.
1 John 4:9  "This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him."
Romans 5:6-10 "While we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners...while we were still sinners...our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were his enemies..."
Col 1:20  "and through him [Jesus] God reconciled everything to himself.  He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross."
John 12:32  "And when I [Jesus] am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.” 

4. The Spirit invites you to believe this good news; and in believing, to enjoy it! 

John 15:26  "The Spirit of truth...will come to you from the Father and will testify all about me." 
John 16:8-11 "And when [the Spirit] comes, he will convict the world of its sin, and of God’s righteousness, and of the coming judgment.  The world’s sin is that it refuses to believe in me..."
Romans 8:1-2  "So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus [note, that's everybody]. And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death."
Romans 8:16  "For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children."

The core message of the whole Bible is wrapped up in who Jesus is, what he did for us, and how he has invited us into this glorious life of love.  How about sharing it with someone you love? 

Why are you here?

Last week at summer camp, seprockies.org, one of my friends got to reflecting on life's purpose. I encouraged him to think what he wanted on his gravestone, because that's the last word we get.

How about you? What is your purpose in life? Do you know what God says about it? I find my purpose summarized in 2 Cor. 5:15 -- "He [Jesus Christ] died for all, so that those who live would not live to please themselves. But they should live to please him who gave his life for them and rose again from death." This is part of the Great Reversal talked about many times in scripture: that in Jesus, God has both offered and accepted a perfect human life to replace my sinful (even with the best of intentions) humanity. In Jesus, I have (in effect) died, so I don't have the death penalty for my sins hanging over me: "We are certain that if one person died for everyone else, then all of us have died" (2 Cor 5:14) In Jesus, God has offered me eternal life, so instead of just a temporary reality ending in death, I get to live with him forever in the ultimate reality of his presence.

So, what do I do in the meantime? God answers me through Paul, in that same chapter 5, verses 18 to 20: "And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. ¹⁹ For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. ²⁰ So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, 'Come back to God!' "

My job is to speak on behalf of Jesus Christ in saying "Come back to the Father of all things and live with him forever." My calling is to show how God has taken care of the debt caused by our sin and fallenness by his Son, Jesus Christ, and that he welcomes all people into his eternal home. My joy is to talk about the unbelieveable-yet-true love God has offered us, and to show that love to everyone I meet, regardless how unloveable they are, because that is the same love God has shown to me.

Well, it's not just me. Every Christian gets this privilege. Every one of us gets to show and to tell somebody else about this outrageous offer God has made us. Who do you know that needs to hear about this news? How might you tell them about it? Would you use a story, or a song, or a picture, or modeling clay, or what? And if you're worried about whether it will work, are you willing to give it a shot anyway, and let God work out the results? He's really good at that -- after all, it worked for you!

What will your gravestone say? For that matter, what does your Facebook say right now? Or your face? No sense waiting until it's all over to say it...

Why?

Children ask a lot of "why" questions. Why does the sun come up in the morning? Why do birds eat worms? And so forth. Isn't it a shame we tend to lose our curiosity as we get older? Maybe we should get it back. It's a very useful trait.

I've spent a lot of time this last year studying the #1 question of all time: who God is. I think there are, roughly, three ways you could understand God and what he wants from us. They range from great strictness to complete looseness. Here are the first two:

If God is primarily concerned with whether people are doing wrong and then punishing them for it, you have a God of judgment and the primary job of his messengers is to tell people not to sin. If God is primarily concerned with accepting people, then he will overlook or excuse their sins and evil ideas, and the primary job of his messengers is telling people that he loves them and has decided not to care about their imperfections. Those are the two extremes.

There's a third option that addresses both of these: If God is primarily concerned with bringing people into a loving relationship with him, then he has found a way to deal with peoples' imperfections, weaknesses, sins and evil. The primary job of his messengers is telling people that God is passionately interested in a deep relationship with them, and that he has already handled the problem of evil in them and in the world.

This last one is the comprehensive message found in the Bible. It includes God's judgment against sin (overall, our rebelling against his love and instructions in an attempt to do it our own way) as well as his limitless love for us and desire to have relationship with us.

Here's the grand unifying theory, in two passages from the New Testament: "When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son. So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God." (Romans 5:6-11)

"For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16)

God's judgment against our sins, and his love for us, come together and are dealt with perfectly and completely in Jesus Christ, who was the perfect union of humanity with God. That means the Gospel is, truly, good news -- the best news you could ever hope for. And that message is what his messengers live for.

Why are you here?

Light of the World

Tonight is the spring equinox: the day and night are of equal length, and as the sun sets, the full moon rises. Lots of cool astronomics all at once.

On a night like this, but at or near the fall equinox, Jesus stood in the temple courtyard and said "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."

Now, the Jews of that time had said that light was a symbol of the presence of God. They had created some large menorahs (candlesticks, or lamps for use with olive oil, with seven branches) that they kept lit during the Feast of Tabernacles to illustrate that symbol. And then here came this upstart teacher from Galilee saying that he was the one to whom that symbol pointed. He said that he was the presence of God in the world -- not the light from the menorahs, not the light from the full moon that combined with the oil lamps to cast a brilliant light over Jerusalem.

They didn't like it. That was just one more excuse for them to call him a false prophet.

The next week, the light from those lamps was extinguished. Jesus still shone. He still does.

Can you see where you're going? Or do you need his light in you?