The Sanctuary Downtown / Relentless Love

The shape of the Feast of Tabernacles is the shape of the history of all time. It began with Sabbath, ended with Sabbath, and was encased and ultimately filled with Sabbath. If you were to tell someone to “Stop it!” in Hebrew, you would use the verb “shabath,” from whence is derived the noun “Shabbath” (“Sabbath” in English). How do we stop? On, or close to the Great Day of the Feast, a woman caught in the act of adultery was thrown at Jesus’ feet as He taught in the temple. “Let him who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her,” said Jesus. After the men had dropped their stones and left, “Jesus stood up (He’d been down in the dust with the woman) and said to her, ‘Where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ She said, ‘No one, Lord.’ And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you; go and from [the] now on sin no more’” (John 8:10-11 ESV). “Neither do I condemn you.” No mention of confession or repentance. He didn’t add, “I forgive you this time.” Just, “I do not condemn you.” Isn’t that a bit dangerous? If He said it to us, wouldn’t we be tempted to commit adultery? Maybe we are. As we mentioned last time, all of Jerusalem deserved to be stoned for unfaithfulness to God, her covenant partner. This sounds like a recipe for getting yourself crucified: “Neither do I condemn you.” And yet, according to Jesus in John 3:18, we already seem to be “condemned.” “Whoever does not believe is condemned (literally, ‘judged’) already.” Weird. And weirder still: If the Word of God did condemn something, wouldn’t that something have to be a nothing that we thought was a something — a false something? According to John, Jesus is the Word of God “without [whom] was not anything made that was made.” “Neither do I condemn you. Go and... sin no more.” “Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin,” wrote Paul. Sin must be faithlessness in my flesh. Paul also wrote that through Christ, God “condemned sin in the flesh...” (Romans 8:3). He condemns the faithlessness in me with the faithfulness of Christ in me. So why did He say, “sin no more (Stop it!)”? “I do not condemn you. Sin no more, or I will condemn you and always condemn you” — is that what Jesus is saying? For 1500 years, the institutional church has worked very hard at answering, “Yes, that is exactly what He’s saying, for simply saying ‘I do not condemn you’ is far too dangerous. Have Faith that God is salvation, or God will not be salvation, but eternal condemnation.” Katherine went to see a counselor (played by Bob Newhart on MAD TV) about her issues. “I have this fear of being buried alive in a box,” she shared. He listened carefully and replied, “I have two words for you: Stop it!” Scripture tells us that the devil keeps us in “lifelong bondage” through the fear of death. Fear manifests itself in a multitude of unhealthy ways (neurosis). But how do we “stop it?” Katherine didn’t like his answer but kept going. “I have bulimia.” “Stop it!” he answered. “I have unhealthy relationships with men.” “Stop it, you don’t want to be alone do you? Stop it!” “I wash my hands a lot.” “Well, that’s OK . . . so do I.” “I’m afraid to drive.” “Stop it, you kook!” Katherine got angry. The counselor stopped the session and said, “Let me give you 10 words that will clear everything up for you. Ready? ‘Stop It! Or I’ll bury you alive in a box!” Jesus continues speaking with those remaining in the temple, “You judge according to the flesh...” What is His problem with flesh? Does He hate flesh? In Ephesians, Paul writes, “No man (first or last) ever hated his own flesh but nourishes it and cherishes it as Christ does the church.” Jesus doesn’t hate his own flesh; you are his own flesh. He condemns “sin in the flesh” which is faithlessness in the flesh. Adam and Eve took the fruit from the tree and hid their faithlessness from the presence of God who is Grace. We all do it. I create expectations, try to fulfill those expectations in fear of failing at those expectations — and when I fail at my own expectations, I condemn myself. I create a box, and try to live in that box, but that box becomes a prison. To say it in theological terms: I try to justify myself, for I don’t believe that He justifies me — that He makes me right, which is the essence of all wrong. The younger brother in the parable of the prodigal son thinks, “I’ll make myself right using my inheritance in the far country,” but traps himself in a pigpen. The older brother thinks, “I’ll make myself right by obeying my father’s every command,” but traps himself in the outer darkness. Meanwhile, the Father (who is Right) says, “All that is mine is yours.” The foolish virgin tries to impress her bridegroom on her honeymoon night with frilly dresses, entirely unaware of what it is that her bridegroom wants. The end of the Feast of Tabernacles depicts our honeymoon night wherein we give up our own tent and Jesus becomes our tent. The Pharisees threw this woman at the Lord’s feet, utterly unaware of what it is that our Lord wants. Yes, she had sin in her flesh, but He condemns the sin in her flesh by making Himself Grace in her flesh, which gives birth to Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Gentleness, Faith (fullness), and Self-control. It rises in us like a fountain destroying all of our boxes. He continues, “You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one.” (He already told us in 5:22, “The Father judges no one but has given all judgment to the son”). Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent me.” He doesn’t judge, but He (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) is the Judgment. God is the Judgment of Love — Relentless Love: A communion of self-abdicating, self-sacrificing, self-giving Love called Life. To judge, He simply shows up. The Light is the judgment on darkness; Truth is the judgment upon all lies; Love is the judgment of isolation; Grace is the judgment upon all sin; Reality is the judgment of every illusion. So, if anyone is alone in a box, that one is trapped in a nightmare. “There is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” wrote Paul. And “This is the plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him.” In the End, outside of Him (the Life, Light, Love, and Judgment of God) is nothing. God has eternally condemned condemnation. So, why did Jesus say, “Sin no more”? It seems that something (something in her past or future) is condemned... and it seems that someone is still in danger of doing some condemning. “I don’t think I throw many stones at others,” someone said last week, “but I sure throw plenty at myself.” For some reason, I think that if I hate myself enough, God will like me, for I will have made myself good. I think that’s often called “religion.” Jesus doesn’t condemn the woman caught in adultery, but Jesus does condemn her condemnation of herself. It’s the essence of all sin — attempting to create yourself, save yourself, and justify yourself — yourself, which then can’t actually be yourself: The creation of God. He doesn’t condemn you, but He condemns your condemnation of you. For with it, you’ve built a box. And now you think the box is you, but it’s a lie about you. You’ve buried yourself alone in that box. But Jesus freely chose to be buried with you and in you in that box—like a Seed. So, why did Jesus say, “Sin no more”? Maybe He doesn’t want to be buried alive in a box anymore. He is literally your Life in the box, but He doesn’t want to stay in the box. He wants you to live LIFE. So, “From the now [He literally says, “the now” in Greek] sin no more.” “These words he spoke in the treasury [gazophylakio: ‘treasure chest’],” adds John. I think he’s referring to the “Holy of Holies” in the temple. It was the very presence of Eternity in time. In the Holy of Holies, it is always “Now,” and you can only pretend to justify yourself in chronological time. You are a temple, and in the depths of your soul, behind a curtain, there is a throne, and on the throne is the Judgment of God. And it’s there that you will hear the Word of your Father: “Shabath.” He is “The Lord of the Sabbath.” Jarek was always moving and always getting in trouble, always “acting out.” He was four at the time, and I was performing a marriage ceremony for his mother and her boyfriend, Andy. Andy was white. Jarek’s mom was white. And Jarek was chocolate brown. His flesh told him, “Andy is not your Daddy.” He started out as the ring bearer but was soon confined between relatives in the front row. His mom said her vows. Andy said his vows. And Jarek wouldn’t stop squirming in his seat. I had just started the ring ceremony when suddenly Andy stopped me, and in front of everyone, he turned to look at Jarek. Jarek froze. Everyone froze. It was Judgment. Andy said, “Jarek, I love you with all my heart. And I will always be your Daddy. And you will always be my son.” Jarek didn’t move; he stopped. That was 20 years ago. He went to West Point; he’s doing just fine. “This is my body broken for you. This cup is the covenant in my blood. Take and eat—put it in your gazophylakio.” I think Our Lord is saying, “I don’t condemn you. Period. You will try to create yourself in space and time, and you will condemn yourself in space and time. So, when you observe yourself being trapped in fear, shame, rage, lust, and greed, run back to the now. You will find me here in the Sanctuary of your soul. From the Now, sin no more.”

John 7:53-8:1, “They went each to his own house, but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.” Last time we discussed what an ominous statement this is, for the Feast of Tabernacles is all about becoming a common house, a living temple, the ultimate party. On The Mt. of Olives, Jesus prophesies the destruction of the old stone temple and the end of the age, which is the opening of the fountain and the construction of the living temple that is His own Body and Bride. John 8:3, “The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery….” They placed her in the middle, invoked the law of Moses, and attempted to trap Jesus into presiding over a public stoning. He bent down, wrote with His finger on the ground, then stood up and said, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her(8:7).” Jesus is without sin . . . And I think we’d like Him to throw some stones. Many expect Him to come again in order to do just that. Death by stoning is brutal, but in Scripture, adultery is an incredibly serious sin. Adultery destroys trust, and trust (faith) holds a society together. But who should be blamed? Some would blame the woman; some would blame the man (where is he?); some would blame the society that drives a young woman to such actions. What do we do when we don’t know who to blame? Many sociologists point out that we find “scapegoats” and that designating scapegoats is, in fact, how the social structures (governments, businesses, religions) of this world are formed. So, to unify a group, a leader identifies a scapegoat (a person or group of persons) and blames the scapegoat for all the evils experienced in the group. And so, by accusing the scapegoat of evil, the group is convinced that they have saved their “life” and made themselves “good.” Then, of course, you stone the scapegoat or . . .. crucify him. However, in Scripture (Leviticus 16), the Scapegoat is actually a goat that just wanders around in the wilderness, bearing the sins of the people . . . Weird, huh? God does prescribe stoning in several places. If anyone touched the Holy Mountain, if a son was stubborn and rebellious, if a betrothed virgin committed adultery — they were each to be stoned. Ironically, in John 8, they are all standing on “the Holy Mountain”; the sons of Israel were “stubbornly rebellious”; and Jerusalem was a betrothed virgin unfaithful to Yahweh (Ezekiel 16). The Law stipulated that “a witness” must throw the first stone. Jesus said, “Let it be the one without sin.” He didn’t witness the woman’s adultery, but he was witnessing the adultery of everyone else. Believe the Bible just a wee bit, and it would seem that everybody must get stoned. Would you like to “get stoned”? Ironically, that has a couple of meanings in our society that appear to be almost exactly opposite one another, but, upon reflection, may be quite similar. The ancient Hebrew prophets had a similar expression: “Drink the cup of staggering.” It was a punishment — you would lose your dignity, self-respect, and public composure — and yet it is something of a longing in each one of us, isn’t it? “Don’t be drunk with wine,” writes Paul, “but be filled with the Spirit.” Perhaps, if the Pharisees got stoned — truly died to themselves and their own self-righteousness (drugs and alcohol can’t do this) — they’d be able to join the Great Banquet and celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. John 8:7-11, “’Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.’ ...[And] when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones... And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you; go, and sin no more.’” Recently a friend asked why I had been relatively quiet in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s death and all that was going on in our country. Good question. So, I’ve been asking myself, “Why have we stopped talking to each other but throw stones and find ourselves so all alone?” Here are a few ideas: 1. We’ve chosen knowledge rather than Life; we’ve chosen knowledge about things over knowing and being known by people. In recent years, cell phones, sound bites, click bait, algorithms, and social media have enabled this choice. And yet, it’s an ancient choice. On a tree in a garden, Adam took knowledge of the Good and everything died. On a tree in a garden, the Pharisees took knowledge of the Good and refused to be known by the Good who is the Life, the Living Word. Up until the time of Moses (and the invention of the alphabet), every word was attached to a face on a living person. Moses got what we all asked for: the Word written in stone — we call it “the Law.” 2. We’ve surrendered to fear and renounced faith. Faith is trust in another person. But if we stone “persons,” we have to trust our knowledge of things. And so of course we’re afraid, for that means that we have to save ourselves with our own knowledge of Good and evil. But we’re not saved by what we know; we’re saved by the One who knows us. That means: We can be wrong about things and have conversations with people. And we need to have conversations about “things” in order to best love people. Charlie Kirk appears to have talked with everyone— especially those who opposed him—but you don’t need to prove Jesus. When you live (and die) like Jesus, you will be all the proof that this world needs. 3. We’ve desired self-righteousness over righteousness, for we think self-righteousness is the only righteousness that there is. Recently, the president has been sporting a hat that says: “[The President] was right about everything.” Maybe he’s trolling. Maybe he’s joking. Let’s pray he doesn’t mean it, for “right about everything” means you’d be wrong about nothing, which means you would have never sinned and could start throwing stones but would have no knowledge of Grace, who is God and the Ground of all Being (Reality). If you don’t believe that Jesus is your righteousness, you’ll start throwing stones; you’ll look for scapegoats, be intimidated by diversity, hate equity, and abhor inclusion. If we enforce those things from the outside through legislation, we create uniformity, inequity, and exclusion. But if righteousness wells up from inside of us, we delight in each and all of those things, for they describe Life in a body... as well as an endless party. Self-righteousness crucifies righteousness and wrecks the party — but only for a time. Righteousness is an unstoppable and eternal fountain. 4. We’ve chosen taking without giving, vengeance that’s not Grace, the “judgment” that refuses to forgive. We’ve renounced the fountain. Speaking at her husband’s memorial, Erika Kirk said, “On the cross, our Savior said, ‘Father forgive them, for they [do] not know what they do.’ That young man (her husband’s assassin) — I forgive him. I forgive him because it was what Christ did and is what Charlie would do. The answer to hate is not hate. The answer, we know from the Gospel, is love and always love — love for our enemies and love for those who persecute us.” That’s the Fountain. That’s the judgment of God. Twenty minutes later at the Memorial, the current president publicly disagreed. And previously, the former president famously said, “We will not forgive. We will hunt you down.” That’s what the principalities and powers of this world do. But we belong to another kingdom, and our supreme weapon is the fluid that flows from the Fountain. It flows from our broken body when we forgive; then, we bleed the Fire which is the Judgment of God. But . . . 5. We stone people and refuse to get stoned; we think we’re saved by “scapegoating” when, in fact, we’re saved by the Scapegoat. Whom have you blamed (scapegoated)? The president, “the Right” (whatever that is), “the left” (three lefts make a right), the Mexicans, the Americans? Think of your scapegoat and listen to the judgment from the throne: “As you did it unto one of the least of these, my brothers, you did it unto me . . . and I let you.” That will make you drop your stone, and maybe that is the Stone — the One who’s standing on the throne. Take His life and you’ll see that He’s given His life to you. He bears your sin because He bears you and so brings you in from the wilderness that you would die with Him and rise with Him as a living sacrifice in his eternal body of relentless Love. It’s called “the Atonement.” So, did Jesus break the law... or fulfill it? Prophesying to King Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon, Daniel describes the King’s dream, saying, “You saw a stone cut out by no human hand. It hit the image (Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome). The image of the beasts broke into pieces and blew away like chaff. But the stone became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.” Zechariah and Isaiah also saw the stone. Peter, Paul, and Jesus all quote Isaiah in reference to the Stone. In the Revelation, John sees God in Christ Jesus destroy the harlot with fluid from the Fountain, and suddenly, in her place on the Holy Mountain, we meet the Bride who is the temple of our Lord’s Body made of living stones. The Stone hit the earth, and the Fountain was opened as Jesus cried, “Father forgive them, they know not what they do.” God is Grace. Grace is the Stone. Grace even chooses to get stoned with us that in Him we would become the righteousness of God — that we would enjoy the party. When I think that someone deserves to be stoned, I get a little rush. I feel a little self-righteous. Then, I get nervous and feel so all alone. But when I remember that everyone, but Christ, deserves to be stoned — and Christ chooses to be stoned with me, die with me, and rise in me, even as me — I drop my stone, feel like talking to my neighbors, and don’t feel so all alone. “It’s not good for the Adam to be alone,” said God on the Holy Mountain by a tree in the middle of a garden. “Well, they’ll stone you when you are all alone. They’ll stone you when you are walking home... “But I would not feel so all alone, Everybody

The Feast of Tabernacles (Booths) was to be the greatest party that any person could imagine. Every great party has weird people that would NOT normally hang out together — hanging out together, and, for some reason, enjoying one another. John 7:37-8:1, “On the last day of the feast, the great day [the endless 7th day], Jesus stood up and cried out, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. The one believing in me, as the Scripture has said, “Out of his belly [or womb] will flow rivers of living water.” ‘ Now this he said about the Spirit [the Breath], whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit [the Breath] was not, because Jesus was not yet glorified... there was a division among the people over him... the chief priests and Pharisees said... ‘Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee.’ They went each to his own house. But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.” The Feast was all about people journeying through the wilderness in their own tabernacles but then losing themselves and finding themselves in one tabernacle, one living temple, the New Jerusalem, the bride and body of Christ. The establishment said “Impossible!” And went each to his “own house.” But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. That’s an ominous picture of judgment and an outrageous hope. Zechaeriah 13:2; 14:4, 16, 21, “On that day there shall be a fountain opened...On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives... Then everyone who survives shall keep the Feast of Booths...And there shall no longer be a trader in the house of the Lord of hosts on that day.” On the Mount of Olives, Jesus told His disciples about the destruction of the temple (70 AD) and the end of the age (the day He delivered up His breath on the tree in the garden on the Holy Mountain, Hebrews 9:26). That’s the 7th sign that is the substance. “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” But . . . They went each to his own house. Scripture refers to your body of flesh as a tabernacle or house. The problem that Scripture has with “flesh” is not that it’s physical, but that it’s your “own” — it’s alone, and it’s “not good for the adam to be alone,” said God. It wasn’t always like that. You began your journey through space and time in the body of your mother, not knowing who she was or if she even existed. Even after you were born, you drank from her fountain. But one day, you began to judge yourself in order to make yourself in her image, and of course you took knowledge of the good to make yourself good. And you grew a body of “flesh,” a self-sufficient, self-made, self-righteous, lonely old man (adam). Your flesh literally eats life and excretes death. “I’ve got a river of . . . something… coming out of me” — and it doesn’t smell like life. Recently, my daughter had something coming out of her, and it wasn’t death but my grandson, James. She didn’t eat another life to make her own life; she communed with another life and out came sweet baby James. It’s wild to think that each one of us is just like sweet baby James but trapped in a big old body of aging flesh. This is kind of weird, but although he can do nothing for me, I just can’t stop kissing him. It’s like I lose myself and find myself kissing sweet baby James. He has no trouble drinking from his mother’s fountain and no trouble with all of my kisses. But I know how this goes. At some point, he’ll try to earn my kisses. He’ll draw pictures, give them to me, and I’ll kiss him — but not because of the pictures that he’s drawn, but because I just love James drawing pictures, and drawing pictures for me. But one day, he’ll draw me a picture, I’ll give him a kiss, and he’ll be tempted to think his drawing earned the kiss. And he’ll no longer be able to truly receive my kisses or draw pictures in freedom, for our relationship will have become a “house of trade.” And he’ll hate the fact that other children (like a brother or sister) would draw me a picture, and I would give them a kiss. It happens to all of us; don’t blame sweet baby James. If I think that a sermon earns me a kiss, how could I believe the Gospel, preach that Gospel, enjoy the Gospel being preached, or actually incarnate the Gospel — the Gospel of Grace? My dad used to kiss me all the time — not because he had to; he just couldn’t help himself. He’d drop me off at Grant Junior High, and even though I’d beg him not to do it, he’d find a way to give me a big ol’ wet kiss. I used to wipe them off — they burned my ego, especially in front of my “grown up” 7th grade friends. Now I’d give anything to feel one of those kisses. Now I know what they are: They’re better than anything in this world. My point is that you have a self that receives love like a little child, and you have a self that thinks it must earn love like an adult. You have a true self and a false self (no man creates himself). The one lies within the other, the way the Holy of Holies lay inside the Old Stone Temple — the temple built by man. It seems that my consciousness can reside in either one: within who I AM or in who I AM not. People often ask me: “What does God want me to do?” And I have a very hard time answering. If it’s the old man that’s asking, I know the answer: “Do nothing! Shabbat! Stop, for all you do will be sin.” And if it’s the New Man, I also know the answer: “Do whatever you want, for all you do will be good.” And of course, people ask, “How do you know the difference between the two?” And I have to say, “I usually don’t, not even in myself. It’s like a field of wheat and weeds. I can’t judge; however, I can point us toward the Judgment — that is, the Fountain.” “Adam” means “man,” and each of you is “a man,” a creation of God, a little child of God. But, at some point, you took knowledge of the Good to make yourself like God; you took the Life to make yourself alive. But you didn’t live; everything died. You didn’t make yourself good; you trapped yourself in a body of “sin and death”—a monster. But there was Seed in the fruit, and the Seed is the Promise. He rises in you and brings you back to the tree where you see that all you’ve taken has always been given. Everything is fore-given to you from the foundation of the world; it’s all Free. That revelation destroys the monster and liberates the man, so that once again you can receive your Father’s kisses, draw Him pictures, and dance in His love — you can love Love. Once again you can drink from the fountain and be the fountain, but now you know what — or I should say, “who” — He is. “In this is love,” writes John, “not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son (who is his own heart) to be the sacrifice.” Life is a constant communion of sacrifice; life is bleeding. Jesus is the fountain that turns the old stone temple into the eternal body of the living Christ. Every member of my body constantly bleeds for every other member of my body, and I experience all of that bleeding as delight (“Eden” in Hebrew). The thing I get from the fountain is the desire to give from the fountain — the fountain that fills all things with delight. If Love is only a law, nothing could be more terrifying. But when Love becomes the Life in me, nothing could be a greater delight. Jesus is the Fountain. Jesus is the Judgment of God, hanging on the tree in the garden on the holy mountain in the inner sanctuary of the temple. The tree was there in the beginning in Eden; it is revealed in the middle on Calvary; and it is there in the City in the End. We don’t change the Judgment of God, but the judgment of God changes us. . . into Him. It destroys the monster and makes the man — not just “a man,” but The Man, the Eschatos Adam. On the last day of the feast — when and where eternity touches time — the Fountain cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink...” “If anyone thirsts.” The only requirement for communion is thirst. How ironic that we have manufactured so many requirements. “Let him come!” Who is Jesus talking to? The little child in you is thirsty for the fountain and the river of kisses. But the monster (“who was, is not, and is to come”), the one in which the little child is imprisoned, refuses to acknowledge that thirst. Maybe you identify as both, but you have a hard time sorting them out. You’re like a field of wheat and weeds. Well, bring them both to the Fountain. Come as you are and let the Father kiss you. He's always present, but you and I are rarely present in space or time, present in the moment that eternity touches time — that is, now. The false self will always try to hide from “now.” The false self needs the past, for it thinks I have created myself. And the false self needs the future, for it thinks I need to create myself; I need to worry about myself. The false self is my anxious self-that’s worried about me, that’s stuck on me, that thinks I am not enough... while the true self is who it is that I Am. Abiding in His presence, simple awareness of Love destroys the monster and makes The Man. My ego likes to think it earns my Father’s kisses. And once upon a time, that illusion was easier for me to maintain. I received quite a bit of “glory from men.” But 17 years ago, it all came crashing down. One night, shortly after we had started The Sanctuary Denver, while worshipping, I felt a little puff on my neck. I turned and looked, but no one was there. …I felt it again… and again over the next several weeks. One night, it was just ridiculous — and I realized it must be God. But I was worried that it might stop . . . and that night, it did stop. Then I saw my wife writing frantically on a little slip of paper. It read: “Peter, sometimes my kisses are sweet; sometimes my kisses burn. But you must believe this: I am always kissing you.” It makes me actually want to sing, draw pictures, and write sermons . . . even if no one is listening. His body, broken for you: I think it’s the kiss. His blood, poured out for the

There is a wonderful scene in one particular episode of “The Chosen.” Jesus and his disciples sit in a temporary shelter at the Feast of Booths in, or just outside of, Jerusalem. John’s big brother, James, asks Jesus about an amazing prophecy in Zechariah, saying, “In the prophet Zechariah it is written, ‘...and everyone who has survived of all the nations that have attacked Jerusalem shall go up year after year to worship the king, the Lord of Hosts, and celebrate the feast of tabernacles.’ One day our enemies will celebrate this feast with us? What would have to happen for that to be possible?” Jesus answers, “Something will have to change.” The disciples once asked Jesus, “Who then can be saved?” “With man it is impossible,” answers Jesus. “But with God all things are possible.” John 7:2, “Now the Jew’s Feast of Booths (skenopegia) was at hand.” Through Moses, God commanded Israel to observe three pilgrim feasts in which all Israel would journey to Jerusalem to feast and worship. The first was Passover; the second was Pentecost; and the third was the Feast of “skenopegia,” meaning “booth making, tabernacle constructing, or tent pitching.” It was the great feast which summed up all of the others. And like Passover and Pentecost, it was an agricultural feast, celebrating the ingather of all the fruit of the field, the trampling of grapes that become wine, and the pressing of olives that yield the oil with which we become the body of the Anointed. At the end of the feast, there was a “great day”— an 8th day representing a perpetual 7th day, the Sabbath Rest of God. For seven days, the people of Israel were commanded to dwell in booths, until on the 8th day when they were to joyfully dismantle their own individual booths, or tabernacles, and form a holy assembly — a living tabernacle — in the city of Jerusalem as they sang “Oh give thanks to the Lord for he is good, for his Steadfast Love endures forever.” Zechariah prophecies “a day” to come when a fountain will be opened to cleanse his people of their sin. “They will look on me,” says the Lord, “on him whom they have pierced.” It’s a fountain of tears that turns into a river of life. Time will be different in “that day.” The Lord’s name “will be one.” The flesh will fall off of the bones of those who battle Jerusalem, and those who survive will go up and keep the feast of booths. John thinks that it has already happened, is happening, and will happen. “These things [the crucifixion] took place that the Scripture might be fulfilled: ...they will look on him whom they have pierced.” (John 19:36) The Revelation starts by quoting Zechariah, “…all eyes will see him, even those who pierced him.” In chapter 19, the Word cuts the flesh from all people. In chapter 20, the voice on the throne says, “Behold, I make all things new.” Eventually all people enter the city and keep the Feast of Tabernacles as one living tabernacle, the New Jerusalem, the Bride and Body of our Lord. Passover is becoming Pentecost and will become Tabernacles, as all worship the Lamb on the Throne. In 1 Corinthians 15:20-28, Paul summarizes all of this and ends with this line, “…that God may be all in all.” And this is what it means: One eternal day, you will be best friends with Donald Trump and Joe Biden and your worst enemy. You may think: “Impossible!” And yes, it is for you. But nothing is impossible for God. And yet, like Jesus said, sitting in the booth in the TV show “The Chosen,” “Something will have to change.” I’m saying: You will want what you do not want. I should you not. Years ago, my wife, Susan, and I realized that we both routinely went to the same restaurant with our families as children. Imagine if Moses suddenly materialized at “The Denver Drumstick,” glared at me as I sat in a booth with my family, pointed toward Susan in a booth with her family, and said: “You must leave and cleave to the girl in yonder booth, give her every paycheck you will ever make, basically do whatever she asks, and routinely undress and do things you currently do not, and may never not, understand. You will do this or die. In other words, ‘You should.” If that had happened, I don’t think I’d be happily married today but chained to a bed in a mental health facility. But now imagine if Moses said, “You will... for you will want to. In that day, what you do not want now will be what you do want more than anything in all the world.” Well, that would be different. The command “Be fruitful and multiply,” would no longer be a threat but a promise — a promise that might sit in a seven-year-old soul like a Seed. Jesus did not say (actually, neither did Moses), “You should love the Lord with all you’ve got and your neighbor as yourself.” He said, “You will.” In John 7:17, teaching in the temple and during the feast, Jesus says, “If anyone’s will (wish or desire) is to do my father’s will (wish or desire), he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I’m speaking on my own.” It sounds as if we can’t truly know God’s will by taking more knowledge of his will (knowledge of Good and evil); we can only know his will if we are doing his will, or maybe I should say, his will is doing us. Isn’t God’s Will, in flesh, named “Jesus”? John 17:19, “Has not Moses given you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why are you trying to kill me?” asks Jesus. The Law is Love. If you have to make yourself love, you obviously don’t actually love “Love.” And so, you cannot love in freedom. And love that’s not free isn’t Love but bondage. It’s like Moses threatening me at The Denver Drumstick. John 17:22, “Because of this (that you’re trying to kill me), Moses gave you circumcision.” In Deuteronomy, Moses tells the Israelites that the Word is in their heart, and yet they have not done the Word, for their heart has not yet been circumcised. They will be circumcised when they have returned from exile. They will keep the Feast of Booths. God will cut away the flesh and open the fountain. John 7:37, “On the last day of the feast, the great day [the eternal 7th day — the 8th day], Jesus stood up and cried out, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes [trusts] in me, as the Scripture has said, “Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”’” How do you want what you don’t want but should want? You can’t just decide to want what you don’t want, for with what would you want it? You can’t “should yourself” into being Good, for it only reveals that you’re not good, don’t want the good, but only use the good because your will is bad. Instead, you pretend to be good to feed the bad, which is the worst; it’s monstrous. In 1977, I was a monster — I was a normal, heterosexual, teenage boy. Since the age of seven, my attitude toward girls had changed. It wasn’t that I didn’t like them, but that I liked them for lunch. “I saw that they were good for food, a delight to the eyes, and to be desired to make one feel good about oneself.” I had had a few. Each one was so pretty and alive, until I had them… and then they no longer seemed so pretty and alive to me. I didn’t “have them” sexually but psychologically. They were so attractive to me until they fell for me, and then they were no longer attractive; they no longer fed my ego. I remember wondering if I’d always be alone. In January, I started dating Susan. I thought “She’s the prettiest girl at Heritage High.” By spring, she had fallen for me, and by summer I was thinking, “She’s not pretty enough...” Not only was I monstrous, I was certifiably insane. I broke up with her one evening, went home, stared at the ceiling, and thought “She’s the prettiest girl at Heritage High... and maybe in the whole world.” So, in the morning, I drove back to her house to “make up.” But you understand: I was still a monster. “She isn’t home,” her mom said. “She went to the park.” And so, I went to the park. I saw her, but she didn’t see me; I just watched her. She was standing by a tree in a garden, tossing broken pieces of bread to some ducks . . . and weeping. I suddenly realized that I had broken her heart. She had made herself vulnerable to me; she loved me. Then suddenly, something broke within me; it was like a fountain in me. I no longer wanted to take anything from her; I only wanted to give everything to her. I wanted to bleed for her, as if that would be food for me. It was the monster trap and the maker of man. And not just once. The Grace of God in my wife has been trapping the monster and making the man for 47 years now. I’ve lived in one “booth” with her for 42 years, given her every paycheck, and surrendered every fig leaf that I am aware of... because I want to. I want what I did not want. I mean, sometimes I actually want to bleed for her as if she were my very own flesh, my body. If you’re thinking, “I wish that was my story,” I’m telling you, “This is precisely your story, far more than you can even begin to know.” Look at the tree! That’s the heart of God on the tree. We broke it. Because he gave it. That’s your Helper, your Husband, and if you’re married to Him, you’re married to me and all humanity. No one goes to Heaven who doesn’t want to go to Heaven. And that’s the rub. How do you want what you do not want but should want; how do you want the Kingdom of God? Hang out by the tree and drink from this fountain: “His body broken for you... and this cup.” This cup turns dry wells into fountains and all things into the Kingdom of God.

“Eat me! Eat me!” This is what Agent K of the Men in Black screams into the face of the giant alien bug that has swallowed both a galaxy and his gun in the movie by the same name. When the monster swallows the man, the man blows up the monster from the inside out and saves the world. According to Gregory of Nyssa in the fourth century, this is also how Jesus saves our world. “The Deity was hidden under the veil of our nature, like a fishhook under bait.” Darkness swallowed the Light, Death swallowed the Life, and the King of Heaven defeated Hell from the inside out. “He appeared to destroy the works of the devil,” writes John. “Eat me! Drink me!” said Jesus to a mob of vampires and zombies on the side of the sea in John 6. Or to be more precise, He said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” We really do behave like zombies and vampires. Howard Storm died and then found himself being led into the darkness by “people” who began to bite and devour him. He recounts the story in his book, My Descent Into Death. At one point, he realized that he had been just like those who bit and devoured him — zombies and vampires. He heard a voice in his chest; “Pray to God,” it said. Then his own self as a little boy, buried deep in his soul, began to sing “Jesus Loves Me.” Jesus appeared, destroyed the works of the devil, took Howard to heaven, and said, “We don’t make mistakes.” Eat me! Drink me! “Do you take offense at this?” asks Jesus in John 6:61. At the Last Supper, Jesus says, “You will all be offended because of me this night.” In John 6:64, John comments that “Jesus knew from the beginning who it was who would betray (“hand over”) him.” Keep reading, and we discover it was “the Jews” and everyone who takes his body and blood. It’s Adam (mankind). John 6:66-7:1, “ After this, many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So, Jesus said to the twelve, ‘Do you want to go away as well?’ Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? [“We’re trapped!”] You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and we have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.’ [“We’re trapped, but we chose to believe, and we chose to know.” ] Jesus answered them, ‘Did I not choose you, the twelve? And yet one [out of] you is a devil.’ 71 He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was going to betray him. After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He would not go about in Judea, because the Jews were seeking to kill him.” Am I a monster or a child of God? A sinner or a saint? Judas (the worst of sinners) or Peter (the saint)? This is really all so terrifying that we just read quickly and don’t wrestle the Word. We assume that Jesus is saying, “Try harder to be Peter and not Judas.” And if we’re Protestants, that means “Try harder to choose to believe like Peter and not disbelieve like Judas.” And this is what’s most terrifying: Neither Peter nor Judas chose Jesus; Jesus chose Peter AND Judas. “You didn’t choose me, I chose you... to go and bear fruit,” says Jesus to the eleven in Chapter 15. But He also chose Judas to, apparently, not choose Him, but to betray Him . . . “to fulfill Scripture.” He doesn’t blame Judas as if he could’ve done differently. And he doesn’t congratulate Peter as if his faith were his own decision. We forget that the name “Judas” is “Judah,” and “Jew” means “of the house of Judah,” and every Christian is a Jew — the Bride, Body, and Living Temple of the King of the Jews. God chose the Jews to not choose Him but to instead take His life on the tree, that He might reveal that He has always given His life on the tree, so that they might choose Him in freedom — even as He chose them to be His Bride, Body, and Temple from the foundation of the World. Judas hung himself on a tree before he saw Christ crucified on the tree for him. But Peter died to himself after he saw Christ crucified on the tree and risen from the dead. Yet, nowhere does Scripture tell us that Judas cannot still see Christ crucified and risen from the dead. In fact, John quotes Zechariah, saying just the opposite — that every eye will see Him; they will look upon Him whom they have pierced. That’s how Jesus destroys the works of the devil. He makes himself a monster trap. Judas threw the “blood money” into the temple. The high priest used the money to buy the Potter’s field in the Valley of Gehenna. Judas hung himself there (in “Hell”), and Jesus had already bought the field with His own blood. God is the Potter who takes broken earthen vessels and makes them new. God in Christ Jesus tells great stories. We . . . not so much. The way we’ve told the story is that there is this “Plan of Salvation”: That Jesus died in your place, so you don’t have to die if you choose to agree to the plan. But if you choose to reject the plan, you will be tormented forever without end. You really don’t need to love Jesus, only use your knowledge of Jesus to save yourself. You choose. You save. You pass the test. The way the story tells itself is quite different: Jesus himself IS the plan of salvation. He dies in your place so you would die with Him and rise with Him. He destroys the bad choices in you and becomes every good choice in you. He tests you, such that you would know that you didn’t choose Him; He chose you, and so now with Him, you will choose life in freedom as He has always chosen you. He chooses you. He saves you. He is passing the test for you, with you, within you, and even as you. He has written the story, and He is writing the story in space and time. What is that is hanging on the tree? That’s the Logos. That’s the Plot to every story that is any story including your story. And He has a question for you: “Did I not choose you?” The Monster will answer, “No, you didn’t choose me; I chose you. I write the story; I control the Plot.” The Little Child will answer, “Yes, you chose me. Thank you, Abba.” Perhaps most confusing of all is that we each seem to give both answers, as if each of us were two rather than one. Perhaps each of us is two, and God is One. Perhaps I have two “me”s, two psyches (Me-sus and Jesus), two men (old Adam and new), two selves (false and true), two natures (dark and light), two identities (I Am Not and I Am), two Judgments (my own and Christ in me), two stories (the story I think I’m writing and the story God has written and is writing in space and time). I think John has another name for the monster, and that name is “sinner.” In 1 John 1:8-10, we learn that if we say that we have no sin (lack of faith) and have not sinned (acted faithlessly), then the truth is not in us (That’s a monster.) And yet, 1 John 3:8-10, “The one doing the sin is of the devil. Jesus appeared to destroy the works of the devil... The one born of God cannot sin for the Seed remains in him (That’s the Child of God).” CRAZY! I suspect that I can reside in either identity because I am a temple. In the inner sanctuary, which is the garden that God has made, it is always NOW, for it is the presence of eternity. But in the outer courts, it is never NOW, for it’s that building that I have constructed in space and time. It is that place where I can foster the illusion that I am the effect of my own cause, the illusion that I have created myself. The moment I turn and encounter Christ, I enter through the torn curtain of his flesh and become who it is that I always am. And yet, as soon as I judge myself in space and time, I’m separated from myself — I have left the garden. I’m judging myself, rather than being myself — that is, being the judgment of God. And yet, all is not lost, for even when I leave the garden, Jesus comes with me as a seed — The Seed of Faith, Hope, and Love. It all sounds so weird, but Peter had experienced this the night before Jesus said these things. When Peter looked at Jesus, he walked on the sea; he was more “real” than this world. But when he looked at the sea, he thought “I can’t write this story.” And he sank. But Jesus pulled him out. One night, Jesus asked, “Who do you (not others) say that I am?” Peter looked at Jesus like he did on the sea and said, “You’re the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus said, “The Father revealed this to you. You are Rocky, and on this Rock (this Peter) I will build my church.” Then Jesus shared that He must die and be raised. Peter must’ve thought, “I can’t write this story.” So, he said, “This shall never happen to you.” Jesus looked at Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan.” Peter wasn’t Satan, but he had a monster: the work of the devil. It caused him to deny the Lord three times. He sank, but Jesus, resurrected from the dead, met him by the sea and pulled him out. And Peter became who he always was: “The Rock.” If each of us believed that we had a monster self, but that we were not that monster self, perhaps we’d have grace on other monsters, become a monster trap, and the maker of man. I mean, we’d become the body of Christ in this world. We’d be his body broken and bloodshed. My new grandson James is perfect, except perhaps for the fact that he doesn’t know he’s perfect, for he doesn’t even know what that means — a bit like Adam in the garden. James is perfect, but he “sucks.” He gave my wife a hickey. If he can’t get milk from the source, he’ll suck on anything around. One day some kid will tell him, “You suck.” School will tell him, “You suck at math, or reading, or baseball.” A girl will tell him, “You’re sucking the life out of me.” Worried that he’s a monster, he’ll fight the monster and hide the monster and become more monstrous. He’ll squander his inheritance in the far country or grumble alone in the darkness of his own self-righteousness; he’ll sin. One day he may say to his parents, “I sucked the life out of you.” And they will forgive him. They will say, “All we have has always been yours. You didn’t take i

In John 6, Jesus multiplies the fish and the loaves, escapes the crowd that wants to make Him king, comes to His disciples walking on the raging sea in the fourth watch of the night, and then preaches to the same crowd looking for more bread. He preaches the Beautiful Gospel, and the same crowd says, “That’s hard. Who can listen to it?” And they leave. John 6:35, “I am the bread of life,” says Jesus. John 6:36, “You have seen and yet do not believe.” That means that they’re dead (John 5:24). They are the walking dead: “Dead in their trespasses and the uncircumcision of the flesh,” to use Paul’s words. John 6:40, “This is the will of the Father, that all (Adam), beholding the Son and trusting in Him, should have eternal life (the life of the age), and I will raise Him up in the last day (the 7th day).” John 6:41, “The Jews (remember John and Jesus are Jews) grumbled about Him... They said, ‘Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?’” John 6:52, “The Jews then disputed among themselves saying, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat.?’” Imagine if you were a Jew around 30 A.D. — you wouldn’t be thinking “a little cup of wine and a little cracker”; you’d be thinking, “Cannibalism!?!?” John 6:53, “So Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.’” That sounds like a zombie. Zombies can’t think for themselves, and they travel in groups; that’s called “a crowd.” They’re stiff because they are “stiffs”; they can’t dance. They can be found gnawing on the living. Even worse than a zombie is a vampire. And for a Jew... unthinkable. “You will not eat the flesh with its blood. The life is in the blood.” That was the idea behind all sacrifice in the temple…and actually is the thing going on in every living body. Is Jesus telling them to be Zombies and Vampires (in which case they would have life “in them”), or is He implying that they already are (and who doesn’t have “life” in them)? God breathed the “breath of life” into “the dust of the earth,” and Adam became a living soul. How can someone have life in them and yet not be truly living their life? On the 6th Day of Creation, God breathed the breath of life into each one of us, and then each of us listened to the lie of the snake in the garden of the soul as he said, “Take the fruit and make yourself in the image of God.” But none of us made our true selves; we each made a false self — an ego constructed with fig leaves, lies, and fear. There is no Truth in a False Self. The Truth is the Life, and the Life is the Breath, and God is Breath (Spirit). “In God (like air), we live, move, and have our being,” AND the breath of God is in us, like air trapped in an earthen vessel. That’s Life in a “body of death,” surrounded by Life. What’s wrong with us? We’re not breathing. We’ve each been in-spired (in-spirited); the breath was breathed in. But we’re terrified to expire, to breathe out. It seems that Jesus was the first Adam to freely surrender His Spirit back to God, to expire. He did it on the tree in the garden on the Holy Mountain. So, He was inspired, then expired, and God inspired Him once again. He lost His life and found it. Inspired, expired, and re-spired — that’s respiration; that’s breathing; that’s blood flow. In a body, every member constantly loses its life and finds its life — a river of life flowing through each and every vessel. Adam (humanity) took the fruit from the tree, which gave him knowledge of the good and also knowledge that he had chosen the evil. Afraid for himself, and then afraid of himself, he held his breath. “The devil keeps us in lifelong bondage through the fear of death” — that is, expiration. But if expiration is followed by more inspiration, and expiration and inspiration, that’s respiration, which is Life. Death is literally saving your life (the Life in you); it’s banking “your life” like manna. Perhaps the difference between life and eternal life is like the difference between breath and breathing. If you refuse to breathe, to lose your life and find it, you must be one of the undead dead: A true self trapped in a false self, like a zombie or a vampire. John 6:54, “The one gnawing (literal translation) on my flesh and drinking my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up in the last day.” Confused: “Gnawing and drinking”? What is that: Good or bad, Life or death? Take a look at the tree in the middle of the garden on the Holy Mountain with that beaten naked man hanging upon it like fruit. Is that Good or bad, Life or death? Take a look at the broken bread and wine poured out upon the table in front of you every 7th day. Is that Good or bad, Life or death? A.) Our judgment is to take His Life and make it our own. That’s death and evil. B.) His Judgment is to give His Life and make us His own. That’s the Good and the Resurrection. So, which is it? It’s both. But our judgment is temporal and the product of a lie. His Judgment is eternal; it’s Love; it’s Reality; It’s God. What is that tree and that table? Maybe it’s a monster trap. John 6:55, “My flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.” If you were eating false food, you’d become terribly hungry and never be satisfied. When my children were little and doubted my love, for they had believed a lie, they would start biting and devouring one another until I would sit each one down and say, “Look at me. That is not who you are. You are my son; you are my daughter. And no matter what you do, I will not stop loving you.” John 6:53, “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” Last Thursday, I woke up gnawing on all these words and wondering, “Am I a zombie? Am I a vampire? And if I am, or partly am, how do I kill him?” That’s a problem with zombies and vampires — they’re already dead. If you fight them, they often just get stronger. And if you hide them in the dark, well, that’s where they “live” (so to speak); that’s where they walk around and do the most damage. In the HBO series “True Blood,” the oldest and most powerful of the vampires wants to die because he’s sick of being dead. And so, he goes up to the roof to meet the sunrise. Sookie (which is how one would pronounce “psyche” in biblical Greek — that is, “soul”) goes with him. “How will God punish me?” he asks. “He doesn’t punish; he forgives,” she responds. “Are you afraid?” she asks. “No, I feel joy . . . I want to burn.” “Well, I’m afraid for you,” she says, and she starts to cry. “In your tears,” says Godric the vampire, “I see God.” And then, he walks into the Light, burns in peace, and disappears. Was he punished? It depends on what you mean by “punishment.” Did he die? Yes. That’s the second death, the death of death: eternal life. What about hell? He’d been in hell for 2,000 years. Is that long enough for you? And so, I woke up at 3:40 a.m., the fourth watch of the night, gnawing on the words and wrestling with Him who is the Word at the edge of the promised land. “Am I a Vampire? Am I a Zombie? Did I take your life on the tree?” I didn’t hear words, but I think He said and is always saying, “Peter, look at me. And listen to me: ‘No one takes my life from me; I lay it down of my own accord (John 10:18).’ You think that you took my life; but from the foundation of the world, I arranged to give my life to you, and for you, that I might live in you, and you would live in me, choosing me in freedom as I have always chosen you. And now you know: There’s nothing you could do to make me stop loving you. And I cannot love you more than I do, for I have already loved you with all I am and all I have. You are not what you think you’ve done; you are what I have done, and I am always doing; you are the image and likeness of God.” If you take knowledge of good and evil and judge yourself in space and time, you will turn into a monster. But when you turn and look into the face of Christ, who is “your life,” the monster will evaporate, and you will know, “I am who I am.” That’s not hiding the monster; that’s exposing him to the Light of the Son. Your monster self is your false self, your shadow self. If he’s been bothering you, don’t hide him, don’t fight him; just walk him into the light. And Abide. Jesus took the bread and broke it, saying, “This is my body given to you.” (He gave it before we took it, and He gave it to you 2,000 years before you could even try.) And He took the cup, saying, “This is the Covenant in my blood; drink of it, all of you.” When we come to the communion table, we confess OUR SIN: that we have believed the lie and so attempted to take His life to make ourselves like Him. And we receive HIS GRACE: Living Knowledge that He has always given His life and made us like Himself. And knowing Him (John 17:3) is eternal life (the life of the age); it’s faith in Grace by Grace; it’s breathing the air — the free air — in the Kingdom of God.

What is it... that I should say? …That would feed your soul? …That you need to hear… that would bring you life? What is Life? I had a friend that used to ask, “How long have you lived?” And when you answered him, he’d say, “No — how long have you really lived?” He’d then describe these eternal moments in which he lost himself and found himself, living his life truly present in the moment. And so, you’d have to change your answer from 63 (or however many) years to maybe a few days, hours, or minutes . . . and yet those minutes were eternal. We don’t easily forget them. Skiing moguls in high school, I think I had a few of those moments. It wasn’t safe, usually painful, and I could only do it if I was thoroughly present in the NOW. I think that’s why I would experience such joy! But it doesn’t have to be what we would normally call “happiness.” One night, years ago, my father fell down the stairs. I remember leaning over him as he writhed in absolute agony. I just screamed out “God, help him!” — and instantly, he was OK. I think it was a miracle, and maybe I was a miracle, because for a moment I lost myself and found myself in my dad, my Abba, my Father. I fully lived that moment. I’ve had those moments celebrating communion in the sacrament of the covenant in the sanctuary of my marriage. I’ve lost myself and found myself in my bride. And yet, if I try to hang on to those moments, they die; she dies, and I die. That must be what it is to turn something into an idol . . . I suppose the Life doesn’t die, but I do have to lose it in order to find it, even in the moment. I think I had an eternal moment last week holding my new and only grandson for the first time. I thought, “You’re perfect.” John 6 begins with a question: “What is it... with which we will feed all these people.” Jesus multiplies fish and loaves. The crowd tries to make Him king, but He runs away. That night, He walks on the sea and says, “I Am. Fear not” — which raises another question: “What is Reality?” When the crowd finds Him on the other side of the sea they say, “What sign do you do that we may see and trust you? What work do you perform? (What is it?) Our Fathers ate manna in the wilderness.” “Manna” is a Hebrew word that literally means “What is it?” All they know is: 1. They don’t know what it is, but they are to eat it. 2. They can’t keep it as a commodity; it melts or turns to worms. 3. It’s everywhere but only in the “Now.” 4. It was never too little but always just enough; they can’t work for it, but it did work them. 5. It became the life they lived; it was their life. 6. It was holy. No one could keep it, but all could keep it if the High Priest placed it in the Holy Place in the depths of the Temple. 7. It was personal. When the Jews grumbled about the manna, God seemed to take it very personally. Moses reveals that God did all this that they would know that “man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” That Word is like Manna. John 6:33, Jesus, the Word of God, says to them, “the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world (cosmos).” What we know about Life (“real life”) is basically the same stuff that we know about manna... plus maybe one other thing. Ask a biologist — Life is a judgment, actually a communion of judgment. In a living body, every member freely sacrifices itself for every other member. If a body is dead, it’s just dust, for it is absent this judgment, this choice, this decision, this Spirit. Your eternal spirit moves your temporal dust. And God, who is Spirit, moves all dust, which would imply that the entire cosmos is alive. Can you think of anything that doesn’t move according to the Word of God? Genesis 3: That would be us. We’re each like a bit of “I Am” trapped in some “I Am NOT,” like manna kept in one’s own earthen vessel, like a life refusing to be lived — a life refusing to join the Great Dance that is the Kingdom of God and Living Temple made of living stones. John 6:35, Jesus says “I am the bread of life.” Jesus did die for you, but if He only died, “your faith is futile and you’re still in your sins” (1 Cor. 15:17). You’re NOT saved from sin (which is a lack of faith) by the death of Jesus; you’re saved from sin by the life of Jesus (which is His faith, His decision, His judgment, Himself, given to you). He did this on a tree in a garden from “the foundation of the cosmos” (Rev. 13:8). We can take knowledge of God, who is the Good, like a scientist knows a thing, or a man rapes a woman, or the pharisees tried to know Jesus. But when we do, we crucify the Life — that’s our decision. But when we surrender to the Life, we are known by the Good, who is the Life, and we bear the fruit of Life — that’s God’s decision . . . and even given to us. Few people have seen the picture. In almost every sermon, I share a painting from the 15th century depicting Jesus on a tree with all of humanity at its base. They’re looking up, and I think they’re asking, “What is it?” “What is the Good?” “What is the Life?” The tree was there in the beginning, in Eden on the Holy Mountain. It’s revealed in the middle upon Calvary, and we will all eat from it in the End in the “New Jerusalem coming down.” I’m convinced that Peter, Paul, Stephen, and John all saw the picture. I think some early church fathers (Ephraim the Syrian, Irenaeus) saw the picture. Down through the ages, some Jewish rabbis saw the picture: The Tree of Knowledge and Tree of Life seem to be in the same spot, and even the same tree. But what is the fruit that’s hanging on the tree: Torah, Wisdom, Living Law? What is it? John 6:37-41, Jesus says, “’All that the Father gives me (John 3:35: That’s “all things!”) will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out... For this is the will of the Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up in the last day.’ So, the Jews grumbled about him...” Look at the tree. What is it? If it’s a “what,” it’s dead, for you just killed it. But look again: It’s a “who.” Who is it that’s hanging on the tree, Adam? It is I Am. It is Reality, The Free Will of God, The Judgment of God, The Word of God, The Bread of Heaven, The Fruit containing the Seed, The Good, The Life, The Resurrection and the Life — actually, your life . . . Adam. So, is your life the sum-total of all your decisions? If you think that you created those decisions, if you’re proud of your good decisions, then you just crucified the life and imprisoned a bit of I Am in an I-am-not; you just exalted yourself above God, the Creator of all that IS. And so, you have imprisoned yourself in a Lie. You’re dead. But, if you’re grateful for your decisions, then you believe that every good decision has made you. Which means that Faith, Hope, Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, and the Good are rising from the dead within you and teaching you to dance. You are the free will of God. You are alive. Emma was a Jew and a Holocaust survivor. Every day at 4 p.m., she would stand outside a Manhattan church and scream insults at Jesus. She knew about Him, and so she judged Him, condemned Him, and became something of a walking endless grumble... One day the pastor, Bishop C. Kilmer Myers, went outside and said to Emma, “Why don’t you go inside and tell Him, yourself?” And so, she did. She disappeared into the Sanctuary. An hour went by, and so, a little worried, the bishop decided to look in on her. He found her lying prostrate before the crucifix in the middle of the Sanctuary, absolutely still. He bent down and touched her shoulder. She looked up with tears in her eyes and said quietly, “After all, He was a Jew, too.” He had been, and always would be, living His life with her, and He wanted her to live her life with Him. If you think that life is a “what” — a thing that you can know all about and so control and even use to make yourself in the image of God — you will grumble and grumble until you finally die. But if you believe that life is a “who” — that is a person that has come to know you — you will begin to worship, and you will become who it is that you actually are; you will begin to live your eternal life now, for your eternal life will be living in and through you — His Body. Last year, I was grumbling to Susan about God, saying, “I just don’t have what it takes; I can’t live the life; I can’t collect enough of whatever it is.” She came into my office and said, “I just had a vision: Jesus handed you a box and said, ‘This is it!’” Which made me wonder “What is it?” Then she said, “You opened it, looked inside, and found a piece of paper. It said: ‘I am . . . enough.’” My grandson, James, came early, and we were worried about complications. But when I held him in my arms last week, I had an eternal moment; I just thought, “You’re perfect.” So, recently, I’ve been calling him “Saint James.” And Susan (of all people) said, “Hey, maybe you shouldn’t do that; that’s a lot of pressure to put on a little boy.” But I think I’ll do it anyway, and when he asks me one day, I’ll tell him, “’Saint James’ is not who you should be; it’s who you ‘Am’; I call you ‘St. James’ because I want you to always remember: ‘Saint James is who it is that I actually am... AND I Am enough.’”

In the classic film, “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial,” there is a wonderful scene in which ten-year-old Elliot Taylor explains to his brother’s friends how it is that they plan to get E.T. back to his spaceship. One of them, named “Greg,” interrupts saying, “Couldn’t he just beam up?” With more than a little disdain, Elliot replies, “This is reality, Greg!” Little children don’t know what’s real or unreal. They haven’t yet developed a cogent epistemology (logic of knowing) or ontology (logic of being), as a philosopher might say. They don’t know what’s real, whereas adults do—and adults are wrong according to Jesus, for you must become as a little child to enter the Kingdom. When I was a youth pastor, we’d take 150 high school kids to camp every year, and at the end of camp, we’d have a “sharing time.” Kids would share about new Faith or thoughts of suicide that were now squelched by Hope or memories of abuse enlightened by Grace. There would be tears, hugs, and laughter—love incarnate. And invariably, a middle-aged volunteer counselor—God bless them—would stand up and say, “This is wonderful, but let me challenge you: ‘What difference will your faith make back in the real world?’” I sympathized with the question, but I always wondered, “What’s “the real world”? Mortgages, taxes, responsibilities?” To Moses, and speaking from a burning bush, God says, “I Am who I Am.” And, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I Am has sent me to you.’” And, “Say this to the people of Israel, YHWH (Yahweh).” God’s name means something like “I Am that I Am” or “I Am ‘amness’” or, “I Am I Am.” By Jesus’ day, “I Am,” (“ego eimi” in Greek) had become a personal name for God, the Uncaused Cause, the Ground of All Being. Even physicists say that there’s something more real than real beyond the Universe (the Big Bang) and that there’s something more real than real inside of you (consciousness or “spirit”). And these two things seem to be separated from each other, for we keep asking the questions “What’s real? How would I know what’s real?” and “How do I become real?” It’s as if I have been exiled from my own garden—who it is that I am. Or perhaps, “I Am that I Am” has somehow been fragmented into billions of pieces. John Nash was one of the world’s greatest mathematicians, but he struggled with mental illness. At one point in the movie “A Beautiful Mind,” his wife looks him in the eye and says, “You want to know what’s real? This is real,” as she strokes his face and places his hand upon her heart. “Maybe the part that knows the waking from the dream—maybe it isn’t here,” she says as she puts her hand to his head. “Maybe it’s here,” as she places her hand on his heart. John chapter six is what I call a “sign sandwich.” It’s the fourth of John’s seven signs, and it raises the question, “What’s real?” John 6:1-14 is all about multiplying bread (one side of the sandwich). “Where will we buy bread to feed all these people?” Philip says, “Get real, Jesus!” (OK I’m paraphrasing), and Andrew basically says the same thing, but points Jesus to a little boy with five barley loaves and two fish. Jesus makes a banquet. Liberal theologians like to suggest that perhaps there was no “miracle,” but that people were just motivated by the little boy’s example to share what they had. If you were there that day, I’m sure you’d wonder: “Did that just happen? What’s real?” John 6:15-21: Jesus walks on the raging sea. Conservative theologians love this. When the disciples call out to Him, He answers, “ego eimi, I Am.” That answers one question: Jesus is entirely capable of multiplying fish and loaves. And yet that raises other questions like: “Why did Jesus take that little boy’s lunch? Why didn’t He walk on the water for the crowd to see? Why don’t we walk on water (Aren’t we to do ‘greater works than these’?) And why did Jesus and John act like this was no big deal?” It’s as if we just needed to know that he walks on the raging sea (demons, death, and hell) at 3 a.m. Get real. As I shared last time, I’ve heard the voice of the Evil One at 3 a.m. But I’ve also witnessed Jesus destroying the works of the Evil One at 3 a.m . . . And I’ve wondered, “Jesus, why don’t you do this when and where the crowd would see?” It might help them believe that God exists; but it might not help them want to share their lunch because they believe... in Love. John 6:22-58 is all about bread (the other side of the sandwich). After Jesus feeds the 5000, the crowd tries to take Him by force and make Him king. Jesus runs away, but then He comes to His disciples, walking on the sea. In the morning, the crowd finds Him again. And He teaches about the bread, saying, “I am (ego eimi) the bread of life.” At the end of the chapter, almost all of the crowd leaves. Soon they’ll chant “crucify,” then take His life on a tree in a garden, as they break Him into billions of pieces—fragments of “I Am” trapped in vessels of “I Am Not.” In both John 6:11 (the first half of the sandwich) and in John 6:23 (the second half of the sandwich), John makes a really big deal out of the fact that when Jesus took the bread and multiplied it, He gave “thanks.” That’s eucharisteo in Greek; it’s where we get our word “Eucharist.” For what did He give such thanks? I don’t think it was bread. In 6:27, Jesus calls it, “the food that is being lost.” Which means that the fragments that the disciples were to gather into 12 baskets weren’t just fragments of bread but fragments of bread that were also something else... like maybe His body. It wasn’t bread, crowds, or spectacle for which He was so exceedingly grateful. Those things were actually the temptations of the devil, which He formerly had resisted in the wilderness. I suspect that many of you, like me, allow yourself to be tempted by the devil at 3 a.m., for you haven’t multiplied much bread, drawn a crowd preaching the Gospel, or walked on water. And so, you wonder, “What must I do to be working the works of God?” I suspect that Jesus gave thanks to God the Father that day, NOT so much for the bread, the crowd, or the spectacle, BUT for the fact that the little boy shared his lunch— not because he had to but because he wanted to. Jesus thanked God for the Will of God in that little boy. Jesus is the Free Will of God in flesh. Years ago, my infant daughter stood on my lap in her diapers as I fed her with goldfish crackers. Suddenly she stopped, looked at me, reached into her mouth, pulled out a glob of chewed-up goldfish crackers, put them in my mouth, and then smiled. Suddenly, I was overwhelmed with wonder, gratitude, and joy, for I realized that my love was returning to me through this little bag of dust that had become conscious of me not as a thing but a person. She loved me. She can never do better than that. The little boy must’ve overheard the conversation between Jesus and His disciples. So, as Philip says, “It’s impossible. I’ve done the math. Get real!” —this boy must’ve been pulling on Andrew’s sleeve, saying, “You can have my lunch! Here’s my lunch!” He’s a little kid; he didn’t do the math; his right hand didn’t know what his left hand was doing; he doesn’t have to do this; he wants to do this. Andrew says, “Well Jesus, there’s this kid.” Jesus looks and thinks, “There it is: that for which I will sacrifice my life. There it is: My love returning to me through this little vessel of clay.” It was ultimate reality that walked on the raging sea at 3 a.m., and it was ultimate reality that said, “You can have my lunch!” through a little bag of dust pulling on Andrew’s sleeve. God is Love, which means that all real Love is God. You can’t do better than that. Some of you listen to the voice of the accuser at 3 a.m. as he tells you, “You’ve failed at providing bread; you’ll never draw a crowd; you’ve done no spectacular miracles.” And so, you cry out, “What must I do to be working the works of God?” And . . . I bet you’re already doing it. You care for your grandkids because you want to do so; you stick it out in a painful marriage because you’ve already given it to Jesus; you are kind to a grumpy neighbor. You’re doing it; you’re getting real. On the other hand, if you have all prophetic powers, understand all mysteries, and deliver your body to be burned, but have not love, you are nothing; you are not real; you are your own worst nightmare. John 6:28, “They said to him, ‘What must we do to be working the works of God?” What a strange question. Have you ever asked that question? I have. Have I forgotten that I am the work of God? It is who it is that I am. And anything else is a nightmare. John 6:29, “Jesus answered them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe (trust) in him whom he has sent.” It’s not my work; it’s the work of God. And Jesus is, literally, the will and the work of God. Faith in me is Jesus willing and working in me. How did he get into me and you and that little boy? Love, breathed into that boy, must’ve recognized Love in the Word that he heard. And so, he loved as he had been loved; he shared his lunch. He shared his bread with Jesus, for he knew that Jesus had already shared Himself with him. And how did Jesus get into you and me? The same way. He took bread and broke it, saying, “This is my body given to you.” Ultimate Reality (ontology) hangs on the tree in the middle of the garden. I could know Him (epistemology) as a thing (take His life), and all reality would die. Or I could allow Him to know me (give his life) for he is a person, and everything would live. At His table, we confess that we have all done the first and profess that He is always doing the second. And so, “We love because He (has always) first loved us,” writes John. “God is Love.” “This is reality, Greg.” This is reality, Children of God. The adults want to dissect E.T. (and Jesus). But Eliot (like all little children) knows because he is known. You must become like Eliot to enter the Kingdom. The adults at camp used to ask

Nothing stresses me out quite like preaching, but I feel called to do it. It’s like Jesus said to Peter (the other one), “Feed my sheep.” I wake up in the middle of the night to this terrifying question: “How are you going to feed the sheep?” At 3a.m., I don’t think it’s Jesus that’s asking the question. I often think of role models, like my old friend Tim. He was an amazing communicator, husband, and father, but many years ago he asphyxiated himself, leaving a letter behind for his church. In it, he stated, “It is my own wretched weakness of which I am most ashamed.” I think he was haunted by that voice: “Tim, how are you — depressed and lonely — going to feed His sheep?” My old friend Bruce pastored a beautiful ministry to the homeless of Denver. Then, tragically, one evening, hung himself from the banister in his home. Jim was also a friend and part of our church. He had been a “successful” pastor until his life fell apart. Jim was then surprised by Grace, wrote about Grace, and preached Grace. But like Tim and Bruce and me, he also struggled with that voice: “How are you going to feed the sheep?” And he took his own life.... I did the funeral service for both Bruce and Jim. At the end of Jim’s service, I asked this question, “How do I know that I won’t do the very same thing?” I would imagine you’ve heard the question at 3 a.m.: “How will you feed the sheep? How will you care for those that God has given to you?” In John 6, great crowds have come to Jesus in a field by the sea. He turns to Philip and asks, “Where are we to buy bread so that these people may eat?” Philip answers, “Two hundred denarii would not be enough...” Andrew, Peter’s brother, says, “There is a little boy here who has five barley loaves and two little fish, but what are they among so many?” Jesus gives “thanks” [eucharisto in Greek. It’s where we get our word “Eucharist”]. And everyone has more than enough to eat. Jesus has The Twelve pick up the leftover fragments that “nothing would be lost.” It's the fourth sign pointing to the seventh sign: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The seventh sign is a body that is also the substance. It is the New Jerusalem coming down, the Kingdom at hand: Heaven. So how do we get there? “How are we going to feed the Sheep?” Satan asks, “How are you going to feed the sheep?” Jesus asks, “How are WE going to feed the sheep?” And I think He has a twinkle in His eye as He asks it. If we read the sign, it seems to point to at least four things. 1) Give all that you’ve got. The little boy didn’t just give 10% of his five loaves and two fish; he gave all of it. But what do you give if you’ve got nothing. For at least a moment, I think my friends Tim, Bruce, and Jim felt like they had nothing to give. 2) When you’ve got nothing to give, give your “nothing.” I suspect that this is what Philip was unprepared to give. It’s often easier to share your something than your “nothing,” your strength than your weakness, your poverty than your wealth. John is pointing out that this was shared poverty. Barley bread was the bread of the poor, and the little fish [opsarion] would’ve basically been sardines. It was a child who gave his lunch, which Jesus turned into the great banquet. Have you been to a party where everyone shares their strength? My guess is that it wasn’t much of a party. Have you been to a party where everyone boasts of their weaknesses? Years ago, five of us had one toilet in one little bathroom. Just before moving into our new house with three toilets and five sinks, I remember sitting on the throne with one child on one knee and one on the other knee and the third playing at my feet, while Susan put on her makeup at the sink. Suddenly it hit me: “I’m really going to miss this place.” It was an abundance of shared poverty. An A.A. meeting is an abundance of shared poverty. A real church is an abundance of shared poverty. Years ago, I was leading a 10th grade boys discipleship group. It was going nowhere. It was dead, until Brian, the quiet kid who I thought was never listening, said, “Sometimes I think about killing myself.” He just gave it; he didn’t manipulate us with it; he just confessed it. And soon, everyone was sharing their poverty. We all came to life, as if the blood were flowing from Brian into those boys and threw them to me and all back to Brian, and we became a body... a living, happy body. It's a bit of a shock, but even though Jesus hates sin, He finds confessed sin profoundly attractive. All sin is a lack of Faith, but with Grace He creates Faith in our place of shame. He’s the Bridegroom, and we are His Bride, that is, His Body. Life itself is the abundance of shared poverty. “I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses that the power of Christ would rest on me,” wrote Paul. And he listed his weaknesses, including, “my daily anxiety for all the churches.” That’s sin; it’s a weakness. But confessed to us, it’s the strength of Christ. Every member in a body is joined at a point of weakness that becomes that body’s strength: the abundance of shared poverty. 3) Give your nothing (your poverty) to Jesus. If the little boy had just given his lunch to the crowd because he felt obligated to do so, I doubt there would have been a banquet. A mere person cannot help you, and, if you think they can, you’ll bleed them dry. But Christ in your neighbor can. In those who boast in their strength, He’s buried deep in fig leaves and fear; but for those who’ve learned to trust grace, He’s close to the surface and may have become a fountain. I remember Bruce laughing with bag ladies and winos in the park; it was a banquet of Grace. I think he spoke from decades of pain and his own poverty of spirit. But I also remember Bruce speaking to me about time management seminars that he hoped to market to successful business leaders. My impression: Bruce’s own strength could feed no one. With Bruce’s poverty, Jesus fed thousands, and He still is. His Ministry is still running: It’s called “Christ’s Body Ministries.” 4) Jesus is the abundance of shared poverty. Jesus is the 7th sign that is the substance. He is the temple built in three days. At the tree in the garden, the eschatos Adam is torn into billions of pieces, and on the third day He rises in all of us, as the Tree of Knowledge becomes the Tree of Life and we become one as He is one: The abundance of shared poverty. We will discover that unlike the other Gospels, John does not record the words of institution at the Last Supper. It’s not because he doesn’t believe that the Eucharist happened, but that he believes it’s literally happening all the time. “I am the bread,” Jesus tells us in John 6. In John 13:26 at the Last Supper, Jesus actually dips a piece of broken bread in the cup and gives it to Judas . . . who takes it. Then, satan enters Judas. And it is night. I suspect that John is saying that even if “the last and least of these, his brothers” is going to “hell,” Jesus is going there with them and in them, even as a piece of broken bread. In John 6, Jesus has all twelve pick up the broken bread that none would be “lost” (also translated “destroyed,” and “perished”). Jesus came to seek and to save the “lost.” He accomplishes that for which He was sent. When people ask about suicide, I try to say, “It won’t work. You can’t kill your ‘self’ with yourself. And, actually, it sounds like you’re already dead. Only by faith (trust) do we pass from death to life; faith is the death of death. Suicide won’t work. But how much better it would be to find someone else who feels alone and feel alone together, to find another who’s lost and so be found together, or to find another who’s sad and so be sad together? The man of sorrows might just turn it all into a banquet of joy, even here and even now. Suicide won’t work, but that doesn’t mean that Jesus won’t work. In fact, He descends into ‘hell’ and gathers every fragment that none would be lost.” At Jim’s funeral, I asked, “How do I know that one day I won’t do the same?” I answered, “I don’t. But my hope is not in what I know (knowledge); my hope is the One who knows me and will not leave me nor forsake me. He’s the Resurrection and the Life; He’s the broken fragment in the field that is me; He’s the Promised Seed in me.” Jesus did say to Peter, “Feed my sheep.” But do you remember when He said it? He said it on the shore of the Sea, after He’d been raised from the dead and Peter had been sifted like wheat by Satan. He said it when Peter knew that he had just denied his Lord three times. He said it right after Peter had been fishing naked all night long and caught nothing: “Now, Peter, feed my sheep.” He said it when Peter knew that he had nothing to give, and so Jesus gave everything through Peter. On this Rock, this Peter, he builds His church. He says it to us when we see that we took His life on the tree, which is when and where He gives his life to the world... and gives it even through us. That’s when He says, “Now (when you have “nothing” to give), give everything, give me; let’s feed my sheep.” Amazing Grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. . . and you. That’s the infinite abundance of shared poverty.

Lawrence Talbott wakes up in a nightmare at the base of a tree and to the sound of a voice — the voice of his father, saying, “You’ve done terrible things, Lawrence, terrible things.” He looks down at his torn clothing, the bloody evidence of his crimes, and then runs from his father and the tree, only to be captured and imprisoned like a beast. His father is a werewolf and now he is as well... at least in the 2010 horror film, “The Wolfman.” I suspect that Adam came to consciousness (self-consciousness that is) under a tree and to the sound of a voice saying, “You’ve done terrible things, Adam, terrible things.” I think my very first memory is of Guilt. My mother said, “Don’t pull at the tear on the wallpaper.” I pulled at the tear on the wallpaper . . . and I thought about “me” as someone different than she and the “I” that was thinking about me. I wondered if what I had done is who it is that I am. I wondered if I was a monster. In other words, I felt shame. And I began to hide in me. Last week, we noted that if you think your father is a monster, both man and beast, you’ll most likely be a monster too. In John five, Jesus stands in the old stone temple surrounded by spiritual invalids and next to a man who had been a physical invalid at the Pool of Bethesda, the “House of Mercy.” They were all competing for Unconditional Love, because they didn’t actually believe in Unconditional Love; they thought that God was not One, but two: Mercy to some, and nothing but torment to others—a monster. And so, Jesus preaches the Gospel: That “our Father in Heaven” is “ONE” and “gives life to the dead” who will “hear his voice and live”; to believe is to pass from death “into life”; “all in the tombs” will hear and rise to the resurrection of life (for they’ve already been judged) or to the resurrection of judgment (to die with Christ and rise with Christ, the death of death: Life). John 5:29 is such incredibly good news! But we often just change the word “judgment” to “damnation”; we seize control of judgment, as if it were fruit on a tree; we make damning judgments on God’s behalf! Why? Perhaps we are the monsters. How did each one of us become two? And who’s voice was it that we heard as we came into consciousness under the tree, whispering, “You’ve done terrible things”? Paul tells us that there is “One God and Father of all.” But John tells “the Jews who had believed in him,” that they are of their “father, the devil... the father of lies(John 8:31,44).” He’s not the father of people but false people (in-valid people). The father of lies whispers, “You’ve done terrible things. And you are what you’ve done.” But our Father in Heaven declares, “You may have done terrible things, but they are not what you have done; you are what I have done, and I am doing. You are the image and likeness of me. You’re having a nightmare... wake, oh sleeper! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” If there is no God, then at very best we are the most beastly of beasts, and you can see why people would suggest that life is the “Survival of the Fittest,” for that is what we have done. But life itself is not the survival of the fittest but the sacrifice of the fittest—one for all and all for one. And if there is a God—the God of Scripture—then we are not just beasts, but actually “The Man, ha Adam, the adam (Genesis 1:26).” That’s One Man. About 25 years ago, this all became painfully and wonderfully clear to me. And it may be painfully, wonderfully clear to you. I’ve wondered, and you may have wondered, “Why is this so hard for people?” Well, I don’t believe that the issue is logic; it’s fashion. In John 5:30-43, Jesus talks about witnesses who testify, then asks, “How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from (or ‘the glory of’) the only God?” So, why are the folks in the temple acting like beasts and their father the devil? Why do they want to kill Jesus? Why do they hate grace? Why can’t they believe? Answer: They receive glory from one another. They like recognition, diplomas, and titles like Reverend, Pastor, and President; they like compliments. Compliments are like a drug, aren’t they? Think about the last time you received a compliment for something you had done. It felt great, didn’t it? And then, perhaps, uncomfortable — like it didn’t fit. And so, you sought more of them. And perhaps you began to compete for them. And then you felt anxious and alone and worried about yourself, unable to Sabbath, unable to experience leisure—it no longer “suited” you. That’s what it is to receive glory from one another. Now think about the feeling you get when you stand on a beautiful beach and watch the sunrise. You didn’t do that, did you? And yet you feel glorious. And the glory fits; you can rest in that glory. It’s not your glory; you reflect that glory and you wear it with a smile. That’s called worship. You can’t possess glory; Glory is something or someone that possesses you. So, what does it mean to receive glory from men? It means that you’re a slave to fashion; it’s the “fall line” and it’s “death.” And what does it mean to seek the Glory of God? It means losing yourself and finding yourself in worship dressed in faith, hope, love, joy, etc., etc. It’s not what you have done, but what God has done and is doing; He dresses you from the inside out with His own Glory. It was the Glory of God that was hanging on the tree in the middle of the garden on the Holy Mountain when the father of lies whispered, “Take it, like a beast, and make yourself in the image of God.” And it was the Glory of God that walked out of the tomb on Easter morning. He appeared to His bride—Revelation 21:11—and now she has the “glory of God.” She surrenders to Glory, radiates that Glory, and even gives birth to Glory, the Son of Man. John sees her (that’s us) in Revelation 12:1, and then he sees the dragon who goes to war with her children (that’s also us), using a beast from the sea and a beast from the land. The Beast from the sea is political power. Politicians come in “their own name.” And they make empires of people that exalt themselves together and humiliate others together. They dress the same, talk the same, and think the same, but it’s not logic; it’s fashion. The Beast from the land is religious power. When the Beast from the Land teaches us to worship the Beast from the Sea, the Bride becomes the Harlot who rides the Beast, thinking that we’re doing God a favor by going to war and hating our neighbors. We don’t believe, for we seek the glory that comes from the crowd; in other words, we’re slaves to fashion, which is the uniform of the beast. But Jesus mentions at least three that “testify” (which means “to glorify another”), so if we listen to them, perhaps we do believe. 1. His “works” testify, but we cannot worship the signs; we must read the signs. He heals one body, but he will heal everybody, which is His Body, the New Jerusalem, the Bride, the seventh sign. 2. The Prophets testify, but they are hardly ever, if ever, in fashion. They write Scripture, which testifies to Jesus, but Jesus is “the Life.” We often take prooftexts out of context and crucify the Plot, who is the Logos (the logic) and the Life, Yeshua, “God is Salvation,” Jesus. 3. The Father testifies and “is testifying.” He testifies through creation all around us, and He testifies as a “breath” planted within us. And so, we recognize the Good in the midst of evil, the Truth in the lies, the Life rising from the dead, the Logos in the chaos, the Rhythm of the Song. John 5:29, “If you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me,” says Jesus. In Deuteronomy, Moses tells the people that they will fail to obey the law and be exiled, but then he gives them this song: “The Song of Moses.” It ends with this line: “Yahweh atones for his people, his adamah (his bags of dust).” Revelation 13:3, in Heaven, “They sing the song of Moses and the lamb.” In Heaven, everyone sings and everyone dances, but none of this is uniform, everyone is different, and yet, all are united in the song. It’s NOT a chant but a symphony. It’s NOT fashion; it is the Glory of God. It’s NOT a crowd; it’s a living body. It’s diversity in unity, and all of it is freedom. And so, nothing is work—it’s all rest; it’s the Sabbath Rest of God. It’s Life, and it’s Leisure. I actually preached this entire sermon in a leisure suit. I got my first one around about 1973. I remember thinking, “It’s an obvious, self-evident truth: Leisure suits are glorious. With the invention of the Leisure Suit, clothing design has reached the state of perfection.” And yet, by 1978, you could pick one up for just a couple of bucks. There is no logical reason that I thought they were glorious in 1973 and hideous in 1978, other than the illogical reason that everyone said they were glorious in 1973 and hideous in 1978. Because I sought glory from people, I was a slave to fashion, and I didn’t even know it. What if your faith is fashion? Well then, it’s not faith; it’s bondage to the Beast. When we seek the glory that comes from one another, we create uniform prisons of fig leaves, shame, and fear; it’s the “fall line.” But it doesn’t fit, we cannot rest, and so fashion is always changing, and yet always the same, simply ridiculous; it’s the chant of the crowd. In this world, faith is never in fashion, and yet in reality (and in a little different way), faith will never go out of fashion; it’s eternal. He is eternal. Moses tells us that God found Adam and Eve and dressed them in garments of skin, not what they had done, but what He had done and is doing. I bet it was a lamb, that was a man, that was God himself. Sacrifice the beast and put on “The Man.” “Put on the Lord Jesus.” He is who it is that we actually...am.

In John 5, at the Pool of Bethesda (meaning “House of Mercy”), Jesus heals one “invalid” among “a multitude of invalids,” all competing for Mercy — that is Unconditional Love. Imagine if you were one of the other invalids: You might ask, “Is God some sort of Monster?” “The Jews” — as John, the Jew, calls them — get angry, for this happened on the Sabbath. And we wonder: “Are they emotional invalids or maybe monsters?” Jesus then finds the invalid, now healed and walking in the old stone temple, and tells him to stop sinning. And He tells the Jews, “My Father has been working until now and I am working.” And they sought “all the more to kill him” because he referred to God as his own Father. It seems that they were all invalids competing for Unconditional Love, Daddy Love. Well, if God only heals some, He does seem to be rather mean, doesn’t He? And if God only saves some, blessing them with endless bliss, while damning others to endless conscious torment, doesn’t that make Him something of a monster? This is the sixth line of “The Statement of Faith” for The National Association of Evangelicals: “We believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost; they that are saved unto the resurrection of life and they that are lost unto the resurrection of damnation.” It’s a bit strange on the face of it, for it seems to be a confession of faith in the inability of, or lack of desire to, seek and save “the Lost” on the part of Jesus, who came “to seek and to save the lost.” And yet, they get this language from what Jesus says to these folks in the temple in John 5:29, according to the translators of the King James version of the Bible in 1611. “All that are in the graves shall hear his voice and come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation.” About half of the institutional church would argue that this is God’s free choice. And most of the other half would argue that this is our free choice. But either way, it would seem that God is something of a monster — endless bliss for some and endless torture for others. We watched a video of a man turning into a beast, and I said, “Imagine if that man was your father.” I’m not a healthcare professional, but I think it’s safe to say that if you only suspected that your father was a werewolf, that he had two natures, it would have a profound effect upon your daily life. You might appear to be very obedient, respectful, well-adjusted, and compliant. And yet, your heart would be emotionally isolated, trapped within a prison of fear, and unable to love. In the 2nd century, Marcion the heretic taught that the God of the Old Testament was different than that God of the New. In the 4th century, Augustine taught that God was Mercy and not Mercy, which he defined as “Justice.” In 20th century America, it became common to portray God the Father as having to kill God the Son in order to feel better about you... because God the Son is merciful, and God the Father is Just (not merciful). If you find yourself competing for Mercy, worried that God might be two instead of One, wondering if He might just be a monster or if you, a little child, had the power to turn him into a monster... you need more than conventional therapy, self-help books, practical application points, rules, or more law; you need the Gospel. In John 5:19, in the old stone temple, surrounded by spiritual invalids all competing for unconditional love, Jesus preaches the Gospel. “The Son can do nothing of himself, but only what he sees the Father doing.” Could the Son deliver himself up for crucifixion if the Father did not deliver himself up for Crucifixion? Could God the Son “will” what God the Father does not will? I don’t think so. But once in a garden, He did pray, “Not as I will, but as you will.” Perhaps He is Good will having descended into my bad will and willing what I cannot. Perhaps He actually is my righteousness. He continues, John 5:21, “For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life (That must be his judgment... Dead things don’t make judgments), so also the son gives life to whom he will. For the Father judges no one but gives all [the] judgment to the son.” “All judgment” — That’s all decisions, all choices; that’s running the universe. We like to think we have “free will” because we can move our own bag of dust, our body. But imagine if you had “free will” like God has “free will”! All creation is his bag of dust, like his body. If God the Father freely wills to give his free will to his Son, He’s hardly a stingy, self-centered father. And now listen to God the Son: “The Spirit of Truth will glorify me, for he will take what is mine (all judgment, Free Will) and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine” (John 16:14-15). Like Father, like Son, Like You, You are predestined for an entirely free will, God’s will, Love. . . and “all things with Him.” John 5:24, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life [The life of the age]. He does not come into judgment...” But what is Judgment if God and Jesus don’t judge? In John 8, Jesus says “I judge no one. Yet if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone who judge but I and the Father who sent me (That sounds like a communion of non-judgment that is “the Judgment”)...when you have lifted up the Son of Man, you will see that I Am” How could I Am that I Am “make” judgments? We make judgments in space and time. Anytime He seems to make a judgment, it’s the manifestation of the Judgment that has always been made. “This is the Judgment,” said Jesus in John 3, “The LIGHT.” “NOW is the Judgment,” said Jesus in John 12. LIGHT is eternal (A photon doesn’t experience the passage of time.) And NOW is the point in which eternity touches time, and we make judgments, or, I should say, the Eternal Judgment of God makes us. “God is Light” and “Jesus is the Light of the World,” writes John in 1 John. Jesus is the Judgment of God. John 5:24, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment but has passed from death [in] to [the] life.” If you believe, you confess that you were dead (dead things have very bad judgment.) And if you don’t believe, you are dead and trapped in Hades, for dead things can’t do anything until something is done to them. John 5:25-27, “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear (That is, the dead) will live. (That’s God’s Judgment: The dead will live. It’s the second time He’s said it). For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. And he has given him authority [poiein: to do] judgment, because he is the Son of Man.” God is his Father. Man (that’s us) is his mother. He is faith in our faithlessness, Hope in our hopelessness, Love in our lovelessness, Righteousness in our unrighteousness, Grace in our sin, Good Judgment born out of our bad judgment, and so, saving us from our invalid selves. John 5:28-29, “Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good [in] to the resurrection of life, and those who have [practiced] evil [in] to the resurrection of judgment.” “Those who have done good”: They resurrect into Life. Why? Because they have already believed, which means they’ve already been judged. To believe is to lose your life and find it in Jesus. “Those who have practiced evil”: They resurrect into Judgment. And what is the Judgment? Well, He just preached it. The dead will live. It’s the death of death which is The Life. Jesus is The Life. “I know that my Father’s commandment is eternal life,” said Jesus, the Life (John 12:50). John 5:29 is perhaps the most hopeful verse in all the Bible. Nobody gets away with anything: We must all die with Christ. And nobody misses out on anything: We must all live in Christ with God. And nobody is exactly like anybody else, for God is writing the story of His Mercy into the unique disobedience of each one of us, his vessels, his children. John 5:29 is perhaps the most hopeful verse in all the Bible, and yet when the translators of the King James Version translated the last word of John 5:29, they just changed the word “Judgment” (krisis in Greek) into “Damnation” (katakrisis in Greek). And institutions, like the National Association of Evangelicals, major seminaries, and denominations, entirely capable of understanding the Greek, have not corrected this obvious mistranslation, but instead have required conscription to this statement of faith in God’s inability, or lack of desire, to save. And so we must ask, “Why would we do such a thing?” Perhaps we are the monsters? Maybe God is not two, but one? “Hear, O Israel the Lord our God, the Lord is One.” That’s the command. “And you will Love...” That’s the Promise. Perhaps God is not two, but one. And each of us is not one, but two — a false self (an in-valid self), that listens to the father of lies and so thinks it is its own creator … and a true self, that knows he or she is the creation of God, “our Father.” Don’t listen to the dragon, for he would turn you into a monster (a man trapped in a beast). Believe the Gospel. He is the Judgment of God.

In Monte Python’s “The Life of Brian,” an ex-leper — having been healed by Jesus — plans to ask Jesus to make him a bit lame in one leg so that he can go back to begging at the city gate. Who would want to be lame? Who would ever choose a self-imposed prison of disease? As I asked these questions, I pulled a doughnut, a flask of whiskey, and a cigarette, out of my coat pocket. And I lit the cigarette. In John 5, Jesus goes up to Jerusalem for one of the pilgrim feasts. Pilgrims would take ritual baths before entering the temple to worship. By “The Sheep Gate” there was an enormous pool with five roofed porches called “Bethesda,” that is “House of Mercy.” In it lay a multitude of “invalids” (the weak), for there was a legend that the first into the pool after the water had been touched by an angel would be healed. Imagine: Hundreds of the “last and least of these” lying around this pool, just waiting to compete for mercy. The first were first and the last were last at getting into the pool of Mercy. But Mercy IS the first freely choosing to be the last, in order that another might be first. So, if you got into the pool first, it revealed that you were last at Mercy; if you won, you lost at Love, which is everything that the Law requires. And yet, if you had been first and chose to be last that another would be first, it would reveal that Mercy had miraculously bubbled up from inside of you like a fountain in a living temple. I doubt that little, if any of that, had been going on at the Pool of Bethesda. Instead, they all believed that Life was “The Survival of the Fittest” . . . not “The Sacrifice of the Fittest.” One man had been there 38 years. That’s the amount of time the Israelites wandered in the wilderness after refusing to believe the Word of God recorded in the Law (That’s the five books of Moses — five, like the five roofed porches containing the pool of mercy.) Jesus asked the man, “Do you want to be well?” How rude! Is Jesus blaming the lame? What could be more . . . lame? Jesus is not like Job’s three counselors. But maybe the man wants to be a victim? If you’re a victim, it means that you’ve done nothing wrong and someone else is wrong; you avoid blame, but you also avoid mercy. Jesus doesn’t blame the man as if he could’ve done any better. And yet, he doesn’t excuse the man as if he did not do anything wrong. In fact, in just a few verses He will say, “Sin no longer that nothing worse may befall you.” All suffering is the result of “the sin,” but suffering doesn’t pay for the sin; suffering reveals the sin and points us toward our Helper. In the garden (on the temple mount according to the Jews), Adam (mankind) couldn’t find his Helper (God alone is our “Helper [ezer]”) who was with him. So, God made two out of Adam and planted a tree in the middle of the garden. On the tree in the middle of the garden is The Good in flesh and The Life who is our Helper. The snake whispers: “Help yourself; take the fruit.” God blames us but not as if we could’ve chosen the Good (We didn’t have the “knowledge of Good and evil.”) And yet, God doesn’t excuse us as if we each didn’t actually do the evil. “He consigned all to disobedience (that’s doing the evil; that’s our choice) that He may have mercy on all” (That’s what it is to be chosen by the Good.) Jesus is our Helper. The invalid doesn’t answer Jesus’ question. Instead, he seems to make an excuse: “I have no one to help me into the pool.” Maybe he’s 40 years old? Maybe he was born without “the knowledge of Good and evil.” Maybe, around the age of two, he started taking knowledge of the Good, attempting to make himself Good, and it made him rather bad. Maybe at about five, he went to school where we all learn the first are first and the last are last. Have you ever noticed that winning a spelling bee or the hundred yard dash in school (or business, politics, and war) is what we call “cancer” in a body? Maybe this man has no idea what “well” is; maybe he’s been institutionalized. In the movie “The Shawshank Redemption,” all the prisoners are “institutionalized” except one. That one breaks into the warden’s office and plays a symphony over the prison loudspeakers. “For the briefest of moments, every last prisoner at Shawshank felt free,” says one of the old prisoners. But that’s the rub: Those who have been institutionalized by the principalities and powers don’t want to be free. They don’t want to be well, for they’ve forgotten or perhaps never known what it means to be well, or good, or alive. They do not hope. The man couldn’t choose the Good, so the Good chose him. He couldn’t choose Life and so the Life chose him, and that’s the Good. He couldn’t get to Mercy, and so Mercy got to him — and that’s the Gospel. Jesus didn’t wait for an answer; He just said, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And “at once” the man did. “So, the Jews said to the man who had been healed, ‘It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful to you to take up your bed.’” How lame is that? Do they not want to be well? It wasn’t against God’s law (The Law of Moses), but it was against their commentary on the Law, the Mishnah. That’s why I was smoking a cigarette. I wanted to break some Evangelical American Mishnah. I’m not saying that it’s good to smoke, drink whiskey, or eat doughnuts. I’m saying that there’s something far worse. And that is making laws about cigarettes, whiskey, and doughnuts and then judging yourself and your neighbor with those laws (or even God’s law). For that will trap you in a prison of self-righteousness and then debilitating shame. When we don’t want to love, we lust for law, call lawyers, and start making excuses (“It was the woman that you gave me,” says the man.) An addiction to law is utter ignorance of, and hatred for, Love. Love fulfills the Law. The Law describes Love, but God is Love. Do we want to be like God — the First who makes himself last and least and crucified on a tree? If you think that you’re a winner because you made someone else lose, you obviously don’t want to be well. And you didn’t make Jesus lose; He gave His life before you took it. Jesus found the man in the old stone temple and told him to “sin no more” (stop sinning). “And the man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who healed him. And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, ‘My Father is working until now, and I am working.’” Maybe they didn’t know, and we don’t know, what “well” is, just as they didn’t know and we don’t know what “the Sabbath” is. If God was working “until now,” then no man was “finished” (well, whole, complete) when and where Jesus spoke those words. No man is finished until he or she truly hears the Word of God on a tree in a garden, praying: “Father forgive them; they know not what they do”; then proclaiming, “It is finished”; and then delivering up His Spirit — the Spirit that falls on His living temple and fills each of us with faith, hope, and love, the Judgment, Choice, and Mercy of God. That’s the 7th sign that is also the Substance. “Destroy this temple, and I will rebuild it in three days.” And “He was speaking of the temple of his body,” where first are last and last are first; where all are humbled and exalted, for everyone is dancing; where all the work is rest. This is the House of Infinite Mercy, Bethesda. Not only does most of the institutional church (the church governed by Mishnah) not know what the Sabbath Rest of God is, they will kick you out for claiming that it exists — this Holy Place where “everything... is very good (Gen. 1:31),” and “It is finished (Gen. 2:1, John 19:30).” When Jesus finds the man in the old stone temple, He says, “Behold, you have become well. Sin no longer that nothing worse may befall you.” What sin could he have committed for 38 years as an invalid and still be committing other than trying to be Good by taking the Good, such that he could no longer receive the Good, know the Good, or want the Good who is Mercy? When we look at Him, I think He must be saying, “You are well . . . right now, when and where eternity touches time. You are right; stop trying to make yourself righteous. You are just; stop trying to justify yourself. You are good; stop trying to make yourself good and be the Good that I have made you. You are well; stop trying to make yourself well, lest you make yourself unwell and something worse may befall you.” Understand? You can only hear His voice “now” and in the inner sanctuary of the temple that is your soul. And so, you cannot live the Christian Life by “trying harder” to do so. You can only live your eternal life from the inner sanctuary as you listen to the music — the voice of the one who speaks all things into existence. He knows that part of you hasn’t wanted to be well; confess it. And He is the part of you that just confessed it and does want to be well. Thank Him for it. He wants to be Well. And “now” you’re free.

John wants us to count the signs. In John 4, Jesus leaves Samaria and the Samaritans who joyfully proclaim, “This is indeed the Savior of the world.” And He goes to his homeland, specifically Cana, where He performed the first sign. He goes to his homeland, for He had said, “A prophet has no honor in his homeland.” And so, “They welcomed him,” for they had seen all the signs that He had done in Jerusalem. An “official” asks Jesus to heal his son. Jesus responds, “Unless you (y’all) see signs and wonders, you will not believe.” Then, at the 7th hour, He heals the man’s son. And John writes: “This was now the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee.” John wants us to count the signs. John is clear that Jesus did numerous signs, but he has built his Gospel around seven public signs which Jesus and John exposit. In The Revelation (of Jesus to John) there are seven seals, trumpets, thunders and bowls — they aren’t called “signs,” but they do reveal things. The 7th in each series is different from the other 6, for it is the edge of eternity, the Sabbath rest of God, the endless End full 7th Day. John wants us to ask, “What is the 7th sign?” So, I googled it and found an old horror movie titled “The 7th Sign.” In the movie, Abby (played by Demi Moore) concludes that she’s rented a room to Jesus, having returned to earth as the Judgment of God and so breaking the seals and bringing about “The Apocalypse” — which includes the death of her unborn baby. So, of course, Abby stabs Jesus with a knife. Light comes out of the wound, and Jesus explains that He had once come as the Lamb, but now He had been sent as the Lion — the wrath of God. What a great movie clip for Mother’s Day! The clip contained some truth but a lot of lies. Jesus is the Lion and the Lamb. In The Revelation, John hears “The Lion has conquered,” but when he looks, he sees a Lamb standing on the throne as if it had just been slain, and every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth... starts worshiping in an unceasing symphony of praise. He’s always both. He’s always Relentless Love. How did Hollywood succeed in turning the Gospel into a horror story? I don’t think they did; they learned that from us: the institutional church. What could be a more horrifying horror story than the idea that God (whom we say is Love) will one day endlessly torture the vast majority of His own children? And yet, it is a horror story that works . . . for selling maps of the End Times — that is, knowledge of good and evil, which we can use to save ourselves from God (who alone is Savior, according to Scripture). We seek signs. And that is what John is talking about in John 4. I’ve seen some wonderful and miraculous signs, but I feel rather ambivalent about signs, for I can’t seem to control them. Jesus also seems to be rather ambivalent about signs. “An evil and adulterous generation seeks a sign...” said Jesus. Why is Jesus so ambivalent about signs? Jesus goes to his homeland where He is welcomed and dishonored. Does that make any sense to you? Have you ever been to a used car lot? Have you ever been to the grocery store with a six-year-old? “Daddy, I love you SO much... Can I have gum?” A spoiled child is a miserable child, for that child seeks signs of his father’s love but can no longer see the Love that the signs point to — the Love that makes the signs worth reading. God is a very wealthy Father. Jesus is an extremely attractive Bridegroom. I bet that Samaritan woman was pretty good looking. She had been welcomed by six men and honored by none, for none saw her heart — none, until the 7th man, Jesus. He honored her and she honored him. And yet He had done no “great works” or miraculous public signs. And “Jews aren’t welcome in Samaria.” I bet strippers and prostitutes often feel welcomed and yet dishonored. Remember when Jesus rode into Jerusalem (His Bride) and went to His Father’s house (the Temple) on Palm Sunday? He was extremely welcomed (“Hosanna! Save us!”) and dishonored. They stripped him and took his life on the tree under a sign that read: “King of the Jews.’ So, Jesus says to the official, “You will not believe unless you see a sign.” Jesus then performs the sign, and the man goes on “his way.” The 1st sign was water to wine (If I had that power, we would have no budget problems.) The 2nd sign was healing this father’s sick child (We are all children of “Our Father.”) The 3rd sign is restoring a lame man (Until each member of a body wants all members to be well, a body is lame.) The 4th sign was bread (If we simply seek the sign, we break the body; yet, Jesus still performs the sign.) The 5th sign is sight to the blind (But none are as blind as the religious leaders.) The 6th sign is Lazarus rising from the dead (But Lazarus still dies.) The 6 signs reveal that God has all power, and Jesus is that power; He is the Lion. The 7th Sign reveals that He freely chooses to lay it all down — He is the Lamb. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He is the Word of God who creates and sustains all things. And so, the 7th sign is also the Substance. It reads: “In this is Love.” In chapter 2, John revealed the 7th sign in his commentary on the 1st sign. When Jesus cleansed the temple, the Jews cried out, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” and Jesus replies, “Destroy this temple and in three days, I will raise it up.” The 7th sign is the edge of the Substance. It’s not only one man’s earthen vessel — not only one man’s body — but Christ’s body: the New Jerusalem Coming Down, the Temple of Living Stones (What we called “Thing #5” on Easter Sunday.) And how do we get there? We must lose our self-centered, frightened “psyches” and find them in the psyche of God (Jesus and the Kingdom), where everyone bleeds and none are wounded; where everyone’s judgment is the Judgement of God; where everyone loves as they have been loved, and so, none are alone. It’s already at hand, and the gates are always open, although in the darkness, we may be too terrified to look, for this is the Judgment: “The Light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the Light.” The doors are wounds on the Body of Christ. In Him is Life. Thomas asked for a sign. Jesus appeared and said, “Place your hands in my wound.” And then, “Blessed are those who haven’t seen and yet believed.” Perhaps He meant, “Thomas, it hurts me to prove my love to you, and even more, it hurts you. Happy are we when you believe, for then we have already arrived at home.” Don’t seek signs. And don’t ignore signs or try to change signs. But read the signs. It turns out that everything is a sign, and they all mean “I love you.” “Blessed are those who haven’t seen . . .” Seen what? Signs that cannot be ignored. Apparently, Jesus does not want you to believe because you have to believe, and so must confess that He exists; He wants you to believe because you hope that He exists. I watched “The 7th Sign,” amazed at how we could turn the Gospel into a horror story, but then amazed at how some folks in Hollywood, just trying to tell a story, couldn’t help but preach the Gospel. Abby gives birth during “The Apocalypse,” choosing to die for her baby, who in some weird way turns out to be Jesus, who then says to Abby: “It was you (the 7th sign is you) — one person with enough hope for an entire world.” OK . . . a little messed up in the details, but not as much as you might think. Check out Revelations 12. And Jesus is the “Son of Man” (humanity), “Christ in you” is “the Hope of Glory,” and He’s hope enough for an entire world. A mother knows her child in a way that no one else can. And this is how you will know Jesus and all things with Jesus, for all things are in Jesus. And you won’t be dead, for nothing in the Kingdom can stay dead, for it is a communion of sacrificial love in unceasing ecstatic joy, which is Eternal Life: The Life of the 7th Day. In fear, we seek signs to save ourselves from the Judgment of God; and the Judgment of God is to save us from ourselves with Himself: The Sign and the Substance. So, take that piece of broken bread, dip it in the wine, and place it in your belly. It’s a seed. Happy Mother’s Day, Bride of Christ. The 7th Sign means that God is Good, God is Life, God is creating you in His own image and will not fail. Once you’ve read the 7th Sign, you will know the meaning of all the signs, and you will embrace the Journey, for everything means “I love you.” And you will become the 7th Sign. “We love because He first loved us.” That’s not a horror story; that’s the Gospel.