The Sanctuary Downtown / Relentless Love

Depressed, lonely, and anxious, I was advised by my counselor to read a good book. • I read a book titled, Snow White. But then I got to page 78 and read that she bit the apple and lay “lifeless on the floor.” How depressing! I stopped reading and threw the book in the trash. • Feeling lonely, I read a book titled, Dumbo. But then I got to page 31: “The other elephants turned their back on him.” Rejection! Just what I’m trying to avoid. I stopped reading — into the trash! • The Lion King held promise, but then I got to page 53: “’If it weren’t for you, your father would still be alive,’ snarled Scar.” Utterly traumatizing! I don’t want anything to do with that story. Trash! • Beauty and the Beast: I got to page 7: “That makes you no better than a beast—and so you shall become a beast.” I want beauty, not beasts. I don’t even want to think about beasts. Into the trash. So, I decided to read my old journal. It reminded me of the apple, rejection, failure, and the beast. I thought, “No one should ever read my journal. It belongs in outer darkness.” I threw it in the trash. I read my Bible and all hell broke loose: fruit from a tree, people born in sin, children who nail their father to a tree, and a lot of beasts. I went to throw it in the trash and thought, “Hey, maybe I could just read parts of it and read it to take knowledge of Good and evil that I could then use to re-write my story, so I’d never bite the apple or end up in the trash.” Of course, I’m joking. And, of course, I’m not joking at all. In John 1, we learned that all creation is a story that God is telling and has already told. Jesus is the Beginning, End, and Way in between. Jesus is the Word of God, the Plot. The Plot is revealed on the sixth day of creation, sixth day of the week, just after the sixth hour of the day, when hanging on the tree in the garden, Jesus cries, “It is finished.” That’s the edge of the seventh day, when “everything is good.” It’s also the beginning of the seventh sign that is the substance: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” John 11 is the sixth of seven public signs in the Gospel of John: The Resurrection of Lazarus. The name “Lazarus” shows up 17 times in the New Testament in two places — here in John 11 and in Jesus’s “story” of the Rich Man and Lazarus in Luke 16. “Lazarus” is the Greek form or the Hebrew name, “Eliezer.” Eliezer was Abraham’s faithful servant, actually his Syrian slave. You can read about him in Genesis 15 and 24. He literally sacrifices everything (the inheritance of Abraham) for the love of God, Abraham, Isaac, Israel, and the Jews. The Rich Man in Jesus’ story (with five brothers and “the law and the prophets”) looks just like Judah, father of the Jews. And Lazarus (Abraham’s bosom buddy) looks just like Eliezer. Remember the Rich man is in Hades and Lazarus is in the bosom of Abraham. If so, the Rich man will inherit everything promised to Abraham, but Lazarus has already inherited Abraham and all things with him. He’s “in his bosom.” You can see why a Jew — and a Pharisee in particular — might feel a little ambivalent about the name “Lazarus” and the events in John chapter 11. As we preached last time, Jesus seems to arrange for all this drama: Lazarus is sick, Jesus delays, and then he arrives after Lazarus is dead and everyone is weeping. John 11:23, “Jesus said to [Martha], ‘I am the Resurrection and the Life.” The implications are staggering. It means that the plot to all of space and time is “the Resurrection.” And we’ve already learned that Life is an eternal communion of sacrifice in freedom called Love. God is Love and Jesus is the Word of Love — the Plot to everything that’s anything. John 11:33, “When Jesus saw [Mary] weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ Jesus wept. The Jews said, ‘See how he loved him!’” John 11:44, “[Jesus] cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus come out.’ The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.” Can you imagine the scene? All that sorrow turned into Joy. They would be hugging Lazarus and each other — all of them, “bosom buddies” (like Abraham and Eliezer). They had lost Lazarus and found Lazarus and all things with him. Imagine that scene: Those that had lost their lives and found them at the funeral. And imagine this scene: Those that attempted to save their lives and lost them at the Sanhedrin. John 11:46, “But some of [the Jews] went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. So, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council [The Sanhedrin] (The Sanhedrin was composed of the rich and powerful of Israel, who believed that they controlled the story) and said, “What are we to do? For this man performs many signs?” (READ THEM!) If we let him go on this, everyone will believe in him (What’s the problem with that?) and the Romans will come and take away both our place (they met in the temple) and our nation. But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, ‘You know nothing at all. Nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish (He wants to sacrifice Christ to save himself, his place, and his nation).’ He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad.” So, the High Priest of Israel attempted to seize control of the story by taking the life of Christ on the tree called the cross. And Jesus, the High Priest of all creation, writes the story of creation by giving His life on that same tree, the cross. Caiaphas sacrifices Christ to save himself but damns himself, while Christ sacrifices Himself to save Caiaphas and set all of us free. Caiaphas attempts to take Christ’s life as a penal substitute. But Christ gives His life that he would live his life in each one of us. Jesus is the Scapegoat who offers Himself as the Sin Offering, the Burnt Offering, and the Passover Lamb. He freely surrenders Himself to the Father in order that, with Him, we would freely surrender ourselves to the Father and so be bound together as one — the resurrected body of Christ. Like Caiaphas and Adam, we all attempt to write ourselves out of the story that God is telling —that’s called sin. But with His Word, God writes us back into the story — which is the story that God has been telling all along — that’s called Grace. With the Word of Grace, God creates Faith. That’s how humanity is made in the image and likeness of God — and that story is called “the Gospel.” John 11:53, “So from that day on, they (the Sanhedrin) made plans to put Jesus to death.” They have all the facts and don’t know what any of them mean. They have the signs, but reading them doesn’t even occur to them. They have the Law but hate what it describes: The Life of Love. They have perhaps the greatest prophetic word ever uttered; they have “knowledge of the Good”—that one would die for all — and so, they crucify the Good, and the Life. They have all the events in the story, and they don’t know what any of them mean; they don’t know the Plot. If you trust the author, you surrender to the events in His story (history); You let them move you with sorrow and delight through conflict and resolution. You experience the facts, and that’s how you come to know the plot — the plot which reveals the meaning of every event in the story. The Plot doesn’t change, but you can only know the plot by allowing the plot to change you and make all things new. John 12:10, “The chief priests made plans to put Lazarus to death as well.” THAT’S CRAZY! Who would NOT want to see Lazarus raised from the dead? Who would NOT want to see Jesus (The Resurrection) raised from the dead? Who is it that so thoroughly hates resurrection stories? Maybe all of us. . . at least part way through. One day as I was complaining to the Lord in prayer, my wife heard Him say, “There is no resurrection without crucifixion.” We all hate resurrection stories and try to avoid them, but people in power who exercise the most control are usually most successful at NOT becoming one — a resurrection story — at least for a time. Do you see why they might believe in Christ at the funeral and yet be incapable of believing at the Sanhedrin? I have so often wondered why the institutional church, who has all the facts, has such a hard time believing what Scripture so clearly says: “As in Adam all die, so in Christ will all be made alive.” This week in prayer, I think I heard an answer: “It’s not only that Pharisees don’t want everyone to rise from the dead; Pharisees don’t want anyone to rise from the dead, for that’s NOT a story that they can write.” They don’t know that they’re already dead, that they’ve already bitten the apple, been born without faith, gotten their Father killed, and become beasts or the beast. Every fairy tale we tell our children is a resurrection story that ends with “And they all lived happily every after.” Children believe, but adults are addicted to writing their own story. The Pharisees-r-us. When I refuse to truly read His Story, I refuse to read my own story with Him, and I refuse to read others’ stories. I think I’m casting them out, but I’m trapping myself all alone in outer darkness —like trash. So, what happens to the Pharisees? Well... no one’s story is over until they come to the End, or the End comes to them. Jesus is the End, the Plot, and the Resurrection. He descends into Hades, destroys every chasm, and makes all things new. But still, I would suggest going to more funerals to weep with those who weep and spending

This is the testimony of Pete Hiett, founder of the Hiett Hotels and the Hiett Bethlehem. He shut the door on Mary, Joseph, and Jesus, for he figured that it was good business. He was always counting. “Forgiveness is like a swear word to a businessman,” said Pete. But Jesus would not shut the door on him. On Pentecost, in the upper room of the Downtown Hiett Jerusalem, Pete fell to his knees and cried out, “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” He felt God smile and heard Jesus say, “Pete, you are more than welcome. Welcome to the Peter Hiett, where you can truly be, for you know that everything that’s anything is free.” In his own words: “As long as I thought that I could create my dreams, I couldn’t dream of my Creator and, actually, anything or anyone that He had created. I saw that everything that’s anything is free including me — the real me.”

Having served for years as a medical missionary in Central America, Molly lay alone on the floor of her hut having just been raped by a group of armed men. As she lay there weeping, all she could think was “Where were you, Jesus? And . . . Why?” I’ve known and prayed with many who have experienced what Molly experienced, or worse. They are all haunted by the same question: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Last week we heard our Lord’s words in John 10, “Is it not written in your law, ‘I say that you are gods?’” What god every prayed, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Christ’s friends suffer horrible abuse: stoning, beheading, flogging. Both Peter and Paul were flogged but then, miraculously delivered from prison by an angel and an earthquake. But the miracles only make it worse. If I were Peter or Paul, I’d be thinking, “Thanks for the angel and the earthquake, but maybe next time you could show up a wee bit earlier — like before the flogging!” It’s Christmas time — when we remember the miracle of our Lord’s birth and the miraculous flight of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus into Egypt at the prompting of a dream. But if I was a young parent in Bethlehem, having just witnessed the slaughter of my baby boy at the hands of Herod’s henchmen, I’d be asking “Why? Why didn’t everyone get a dream?” All we’re told is that it had something to do with weeping: “Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah... Rachel is weeping for her children.” In John 11, Jesus receives word from Mary and Martha that his friend Lazarus is deathly ill, and Jesus responds, “This illness is not unto death [thanatos].” Weird, considering what we read next. John 11:5-21, “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he [rushed to his side? No.] He stayed two days longer in the place where he was... He said to them, ‘Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep.’ ...Then Jesus told them plainly ‘Lazarus has died [apothnesko]. ...But let us go to him.’ Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had been in the tomb four days. ...Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’” Isn’t this our question: “Why? Why didn’t you come earlier?” John 11:25, “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me [or ‘everyone, living and believing in me’] shall never die.” Confusing? We struggle with the Biblical concept of death for several reasons: 1) We are already dead or, at least, were dead (John 5:24). 2) Physical death is an expression of — or metaphor for — spiritual death. We’re each like a cut flower in a vase. A body part severed and bleeding out. Separation is death. 3) Death is not real... at least not the way Life is real. Jesus is “the Life,” Eternal Life. So, death can only be experienced on the timeline — where we believe the lie that we are each our own cause — and in space —where we believe that we are separated from God. 4) The death of death, the second death, is Eternal Life, infinite communion, and Divine Fire. When you lose your old psyche — the lie that you are man making himself God — and believe the Truth that God is making himself you, you lose your life (psyche) and find it in Christ. You begin to live the life (zoe) of Christ, Eternal Life... even here, even now. And when you die (apothnesko), you have no dealings with Thanatos (the Greek god) and Hades (who ruled the underworld, according to the Greeks). Like the thief on the cross, you say “Hello, Jesus!” and enter paradise (Eden) — no longer just a garden, but a city, a body, a bride... and a mother. Martha now goes and gets Mary.... John 11:32, “Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’” There’s the question again: “Why didn’t you come earlier? Where were you?” And John has already told us: He was lingering beyond the Jordan, because He loved them and knew Lazarus was deathly ill; He was arranging for all this weeping. So, Why? Why all the weeping... all the suffering? In Western theology, there are two classic explanations: The Free Will Explanation (And it is true that we are each predestined to choose the Good in freedom) and the Character-Building Explanation (And Jesus did tell his disciples that this would create faith, John 11:15). But I doubt that the explanations would be much help to Mary lying in the dust at Jesus’ feet weeping, or Rachel weeping for the whole house of Israel, or the mothers in Bethlehem weeping for their infants…or Molly on the floor of her hut in Central America. After a time — as if Jesus were speaking in an audible voice — she heard, “Molly, I’m here with you. Those evil men didn’t do this just to you. They did it to me. There is no humiliation you can know that I have not known.” At communion one Sunday morning, a friend of mine, who had been raped by a gang of boys on a school bus years before, prayed, “Where were you, Jesus?” And he heard, “I was in the blood . . . that you shed.” My friend had been cutting himself in shame. He’s shown my friend and my friends: Their scars are on His body, and His scars are on theirs. John 11:33-35, “When Jesus saw [Mary] weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ Jesus wept.” No explanation. “The Resurrection and the Life, The Word of God” just bursts into tears. Mary looks up from the dust to see the face of God weeping. Perhaps we’re all made of dust and tears. Jesus never raped anyone, and He didn’t kill Lazarus, but how do you avoid the conclusion that He arranged for the tears — His very own tears? Apparently, His purpose isn’t to save His friends from suffering and death, but to save them from NOT weeping — as if NOT weeping is suffering and death; it is to be dead already. Jesus described Hades as this place where people “weep and gnash (grind, or clench) their teeth.” We weep and gnash our teeth when we try to fight back the tears. I read about a four-year-old whose elderly next-door neighbor lost his wife. Upon seeing the man weep, the little boy went into the old man’s yard, climbed up onto his lap, and just sat there. When his mother asked him what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said, “Nothing. I just helped him cry.” John 11:38, “Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb.” The Lord once came to me, miraculously convicted me of my sin, and as I lay on the floor weeping as I had never wept before, I realized it wasn’t really me that was weeping. It was Jesus. It was the fountain. And now that I’ve wept those tears, I can’t tell you if they were sorrow or Joy. We each trap ourselves in sin, which is faithlessness and manifests as rage. And He frees us by descending into us and weeping our tears in us, for us, and as us. So where is God when you suffer? He’s in you. But where are you when God suffers? John 11:38, “Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it.” Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Maybe the greatest wonder is not that God suffers with you, but that He invites you to suffer with Him — And hopefully you know that He suffered first. I only invite the most cherished of friends to come weep with me. Years later, on furlough, Molly spoke to a group of nursing students. Prompted by the Spirit, she told her story for the first time and through tears. Afterwards, a young woman approached, pointed across the room, and said, “That’s my sister over there. Her name is Ann. She’s 14 years old. Ann was raped after school about two months ago. She won’t talk to anyone, not a word…but maybe she’ll talk to you.” Molly and Ann embraced, wept, and spoke to each other for two hours — spoke as neither of them had ever spoken before. John 11:44, “The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go [aphiemi: “forgive”].” But Lazarus was one guy, and he would still die; this is the sixth sign, not the seventh. So why the suffering and all the weeping? I can’t give a complete explanation, but after telling us that Herod killed all the baby boys in Bethlehem, Matthew points us to an ancient prophecy: “Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah: ‘A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children.” That’s Jeremiah 31:15. Next verse, “Stop weeping. They [all of Israel, dead, intermarried, dispersed throughout the nations]... shall come back.” Verse 13: “I will turn their mourning into joy...” Verse 34: “They will all know me... for I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more. Verse 38: “The whole valley of dead bodies and ashes [Gehenna, ‘Hell’] shall be holy to the Lord.” “Hell” will literally become Heaven, the New Jerusalem coming down. Jesus didn’t just weep with Mary and Martha and only for Lazarus. Jesus has descended into death and hades to weep with all of us there. Jesus has descended into you to weep with you and rise in you and as you — even more as us, His body. This is the seventh sign that is the substance: Jesus meets each of us in our place of sorrow and gives us Himself. Then we bear the fruit of His Spirit, love as we have been loved, losing our lives and finding them in Him and one another. We become what we truly are: the living temple of the living God. But it all happens through tears. “Truly, Truly... you will weep and lament... You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has

With spit in the eye, Jesus heals a man born blind. The Pharisees object, and Jesus tells the Jews that they are not of “His sheep.” He might as well have just spit in their ears and their eyes. John 10:30, Jesus says, “I and the Father are one.” Next verse, “The Jews picked up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, ‘I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you going to stone me?’ The Jews answered him, ‘It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.’” Men making themselves God is a real problem in Scripture. Reference the King of Babylon, King Herod, “The Kings of the Earth.” In Revelations 19, a sword from the mouth of the “King of Kings,” appears to cut the flesh from all these kings and “all men.” Don’t all men attempt to make themselves God? That’s a problem. God owns everything, and I want to own everything — but if I own everything, I can never be given anything. I can’t know Grace. God does everything, and I want to do everything — but if I do everything, I can’t do anything with anyone. I have to dance alone. God is absolutely free; He does whatever He wants. But if I do whatever I want, I must destroy the wants of all who disagree with me. God is most glorious, so of course I want to be God, but to win the beauty pageant, I must convince myself that everyone is uglier than me. To make yourself wonderful is to trap yourself in a world without wonder. To make yourself the best is to make everyone else the worst. To make yourself first is to make everyone else last. To own everything, you end up killing everyone. Sigmund Freud argued that “in the beginning was the deed”: that the sons of a primal father killed that father in order to become that father and have the women of the horde all to themselves. “The primal father at once feared and hated, revered and envied, became the prototype of God himself,” he said. Freud argued that each clan represented this “Father-god” with a totem. He argued that Christian communion was the perfect example. That’s horrifying, and yet . . . The Gospels tell us that the crowd took the life of Christ (one with the Father) out of envy. They saw that Jesus was God, wanted to be God, and so took the life of God…and everything went black. And it wasn’t the first time that it had happened: In the beginning, the Adam (including Eve) saw, but didn’t see, that the thing on the tree was the Good and the Life — the image of God. They took the fruit, and everything went black, for they were hiding from God and one another. Isn’t that what we all do around the age of two? Not knowing what life is, we take knowledge of good, try to make ourselves the best, which is to hope that others are the worst. We try to be God and find ourselves unable to love; we compete. Jealous of Jesus, they wanted to be Jesus, and so crucified Jesus on a tree in a garden on the Holy Mountain; they were men making themselves God. John 10:33, They say, “It is... because you being a man make yourself God.” And yet, we the readers of John’s Gospel know that Jesus is actually God, having made Himself man, and He is the very first man to resist the devil’s temptation to make himself God. So, in John 10, men trying to make themselves God, project their own thoughts and feelings on to God, having made Himself man. Maybe we do this all the time? We project our bad will onto Jesus and assume that He died for us because He had to, when He died for us because He wants to. He is the Free Will of God. We project our sense of Justice onto God and think He has to satisfy justice, when He is Justice and satisfies Himself by making us in His own image. We project our pride and shame onto God, think He needs to be worshipped by us, when in fact, we need to worship Him, so we’d forget about us. We project our fears onto God and cannot hear the voice of our Shepherd. We assume that He wants to take everything from us — when He desires to give everything to us, including Himself. John 10:34, “Jesus answered them, ‘Is it not written in your Law, "I said, you are gods"?'” (same group He just described as “of their father the devil” and “not his sheep!”) They’re obviously men trying to make themselves gods, and Jesus seems to be saying that they already are. He’s quoting Psalm 82, which doesn’t make this easier but far more fascinating. Psalm 82:1, “God [elohim] has taken his place in the divine council [“the el council”]; in the midst of the gods [elohim] he holds judgment:” God then judges the gods, or God, for not judging justly and saving the weak and afflicted. Elohim is a plural Hebrew noun usually translated with the singular English noun, “God.” “Hear oh Israel: the Lord (Yahweh) our God (Elohim), the Lord (Yahweh) is one.” Who or what is “the divine council”? No one seems to know. Psalm 82:6-8, “I said, ‘You are gods [elohim], sons of the Most High [elyown—"God most high”], all of you; nevertheless, as men [adam] you shall die, and fall as one prince.’ Arise, O God [elohim], judge the earth; for you shall inherit all the nations [goyem: people]!” Jesus seems to think that this Divine council includes the Jews that He’s talking to in John 10 on the Holy Mountain. And crazier still, He seems to think that they are all one . . . God: Elohim. Paul did write in two places that “As in Adam all die, so in Christ (the eschatos adam) will all be made alive.” Isn’t this the seventh sign that is the substance? All things filled with Christ and united in Christ, such that God is all in all: billions of persons and one substance, one love, “one God and father of all, who is over all through all and in all,” to quote Paul (Ephesians 4:5)? For 1500 years, most of the institutional church has said, “Impossible!” However, for the first 500 years, most of the early church said, “This the Gospel!” Some called it the “recapitulation of Adam” and the doctrine of “theosis.” “He was made man that we might be made god,” wrote Athanasius. John 10:34, “‘Is it not written in your Law, “I said, you are gods’”?’” says Jesus. “He called them gods to whom the word of God became (‘ginomai,’ as in ‘The Word became flesh.’). And Scripture cannot be broken.” You were created with the breath of God that is God and the Word of God that is God. Doesn’t that make us all “God become man”... eventually? So, how did all of us become man making himself God? It seems as if along the way, we believed a lie…. And, of course, we did. So, we each are man making himself God, unaware that God is making us himself. In the same way, every child tries to make himself or herself, mom or dad, unaware that every good mom or dad wants to make that child themself. We all take knowledge of Good and evil, trying to make ourselves in the image of God, while God commands us to make no images of Him; we are the image that He is making. Believing the devil, we do the work of the devil for him — we make an idol out of ourselves; we make a false self in which our true self is imprisoned. Each and all of us try to be God, and so — jealous of God — we crucify God and find ourselves dead and alone. And that’s when we meet God — when we know that we can’t make ourselves God, but God delights in making us Himself. In other words, we’re saved by Grace through Faith, and this is not of ourselves. One last interesting thing to note: Jesus didn’t say, “You will be gods,” he seemed to say, “You are gods.” For Jesus, “Everything is good,” and “It is finished,” and when you abide in Him, you see that what’s true for Him is true for you. And that’s your hidden superpower: Humility. Humility is knowing that you cannot make yourself God, because God has already made you Himself... even before you’ve met that self that He has made. I hope we’ve established that we each have two selves: an old man and a new man, a false self and a true self, the shadow and the light, a self that I think I make and a self that God has made, man making himself God and God having made Himself man. One is far worse than I can imagine, and the other is infinitely better than I can even begin to dream. I can’t sort them out, but I know that I want to lose one and the other cannot be lost; he is imperishable. Whatever the case, I have no self that I can make into the image of God, and I have no self that needs to be defended or can be offended. When I believe this, I’m free of me, and I can be me (the true me); it’s humility. Humility is the power to not be offended, the power to forgive, the power to enjoy your neighbors and love the Lord your God with all your heart. Humility is billions of people losing their lives and finding them in each other — the Body of Christ. Humility is the Divine Council, the counsel of God given to the gods, enabling them to live His Eternal Life — the communion of sacrifice called Love. I think humility was Jesus’ superpower, and he got it from his Dad, and He’s giving it to us. That’s how He beat the temptations of the devil. He heard the word of His Father: “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased,” and He believed the word that He heard. He had nothing to prove, nothing to earn; He could be... I Am. When we come to the communion table, we confess that we are man, being man, who has made himself God — that’s sin. And we confess that God, being God, has made himself man that he might make all of us Himself — that’s Grace. We each confess, “I took your life on the tree.” He looks each of us in the eye and says, “I gave you my life on the tree, even before you took it.” In the words of Solomon Vandy to his son Dia at the end of the movie Blood Diamond: “I know they made you do bad things, but you are not a bad boy. I am your father who loves you. And you will come home with me and be my son again.” His body and blood: It is who “we am.” God is humble, and we are the image of God.

Would you like to hear the voice of the Lord? It can be extremely useful, especially if you’re a politician or a pastor. You can say, “Vote for me” or “Give more money because God says so.” But if God didn’t say so, that’s taking the name of the Lord in vain, or maybe false prophecy punishable by death (Deut. 13:5). But if God did tell you to tell something to someone, you better do it, or you might be swallowed by a whale and barfed up on a beach in Syria. Hearing God’s voice is terribly important and can be profoundly stressful. Many years ago, at a pastor’s luncheon in downtown Denver, I sat next to an old Pentecostal pastor. In the course of conversation, I asked him, “How do you hear the voice of God? I’m not sure that I do.” He looked at me and said, “Well now, that’s a very strange thing for you to say... For in John 10, Jesus says ‘My sheep hear my voice.’” Just then someone called the meeting to order, and so for the entire luncheon — and long after — I worried, “What if I’m not one of His sheep?” In John 10:1-4, having just healed the man born blind, Jesus says to the Pharisees who are questioning Him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold [literally: courtyard of the sheep] but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the door keeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.” He didn’t say, “They ought to know his voice” — just, “They do.” So, am I one of His sheep? Have you seen this “Far Side” cartoon? The captions read: “What we say to dogs: ‘Okay Ginger! I’ve had it! You stay out of the garbage!’ “What dogs hear: ‘blah, blah, Ginger! blah blah!’” So, what would sheep hear? “Blah, blah, Fluffy, blah, blah” or “Blah, blah, Peter, blah blah.” When we led a tour of Israel years ago, we saw shepherd boys all over the Judean hillsides. They were each talking and walking, with a flock of sheep following behind. In front of each shepherd was a group of goats being driven by the shepherd’s goads. To St. Paul on the Road to Damascus, Jesus said, “Saul, Saul, it’s hard to kick against the goads.” It sounds like St. Paul was once a goat. God speaks in a variety of ways. He spoke all creation into existence with His Word. He speaks, and everything moves. He speaks through creation, people, Scripture, and signs. Perhaps you remember a night camping as a child — you stared at the stars, wondering about Truth, Beauty, Goodness and Life, asking “What does it all mean?”… and you felt like God was calling your name. I bet He was. But creation can send mixed messages: chaos and Logos, darkness and Light, death and Life. He speaks through creation and groups of people. He spoke to me through my youth group. But here in John, these Pharisees are fixing to crucify Jesus according to the traditions of their group. He speaks through creation, people, and Scripture, but Jesus already told the Pharisees, “You search the Scriptures for you think that in them you have life and it is they that bear witness to me. But you refuse to come to me that you may have Life.” He speaks through creation, tradition, Scripture, signs, wonders, and prophetic utterances. And yet Scripture commands us to “test everything.” Sheep are stupid. How do sheep test everything? The Jews constantly sought signs. They had just seen the fifth of the seven signs which all point to the seventh sign — “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” As Paul put it: “…The plan for the fullness of time, to bring together under one head, all things in Jesus” (Ephesians 1:10). As I’ve been sharing, I think I once saw this. Not long after that pastor’s luncheon, God undid me with a word that I heard (So, yes, it’s possible.) And later that day, He literally held me to the floor and revealed that He was everywhere and all the time speaking. So, “Blah, blah, Peter, blah blah,” was actually “I love you, I love you, Peter, I love you, I love you.” How could we NOT hear? And yet, I often don’t. In Genesis 3:8, Adam and Eve “hear the Voice of the Lord” walking in the cool of the day, and they hid. They didn’t want to see or hear what they’d just done to the Voice. They were ashamed. It seems that I’m a sheep, and so I’ve followed him, but I have also not followed, which means I’ve been something other than one of his sheep. I’ve even kicked against the goads.... John 10:8-11, Jesus continues, “All who came before me are thieves and robbers (ALL!)... I am the door... I am the Good Shepherd.” The Israelites were told to pray “The Lord (Yahweh) is my shepherd” (Psalm 23:1). That immediately follows Psalm 22, “My God my God, why have you forsaken me? ...before him will bow all who go down to the dust.” Psalm 23 includes this line: “He has prepared a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” Shepherds would sometimes eat their sheep, but the Great Shepherd feeds His sheep with Himself and turns His enemies into friends. John 10:16, “And I have other sheep that are not of this courtyard... So, there will be one flock, one shepherd [He’s quoting Ezekiel and referring to the 10 lost tribes and the nations of the world.] Through this [NOT ‘for this reason’], the Father loves me, that I lay down my life in order that I may take it up again.” Many people seem to think that God loves them because He hated Jesus on the cross in order that He wouldn’t have to hate them forever in “Hell” (Some call this penal substitution.) But the cross doesn’t make God love; the cross is the revelation of Love. Love is a communion of sacrifice in freedom. “In this is love,” writes John. Jesus didn’t sacrifice himself so that you would never sacrifice yourself, but so that you would sacrifice yourself with Him and then find yourself dancing — that you would lose yourself and find yourself in Him. So, “Why did He have to die on the cross?” John 10:18, “No one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord...” Jesus tells us, “I don’t have to; I want to. Yes, you took my life on the tree in the garden, but only because I had always given you my life on the tree in the garden.” John 10:20, “Many of them said, ‘He has a demon, and is insane; why listen to him?’” John 10:22-27, “At the Feast of Dedication... the Jews gathered around him... Jesus answered them ‘I told you, and you do not believe... because (y’all) are not of my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them and they follow me.’” That’s the thought that terrified me at the pastor’s luncheon! Who are the “y’all” that are not of His sheep? He just told us, “the Jews.” Not, “some Jews, grumpy Jews, or Jews that reject Jesus,” just “the Jews” — AND John is a Jew; Jesus is “King of the Jews.” The Jews sang about God in creation. They are the chosen tribe. They have all the Scriptures. They have signs, wonders, and prophecies. In the next chapter, Caiaphas, the high priest, will prophecy the greatest of all prophecies, “One man will die for the nation.” Yet he doesn’t have a clue as to what it means. The Jews are the last best human hope for the kingdom of God on earth. Isaiah saw the whole earth filled with the Glory of the Lord and was then told to preach Israel down to a tenth. That tenth was Judah (the Jews). And then he was told to preach them down to a stump, that is a root, that is a seed, that is Jesus. Zechariah is told to “shepherd the flock doomed to slaughter.” That’s Judah. Like Judas (which means Jew), he was even told to throw the 30 pieces of silver to the Potter in the temple. Ezekiel sees “the whole house of Israel,” including all Jews, dead in the valley of dry bones. They took His life on the tree in the garden of Calvary. But didn’t we all take His life on the same tree in Eden? John 10:27, Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” What sheep? They’re all dead . . . In John 5, Jesus told us, “The dead will hear... and those who hear will live.” In John 12, He’ll say, “When I’m lifted up from the earth, I will draw all to myself.” In John 16, “All that the Father has is mine.” In Ezekiel 34-37, God tells Ezekiel that there will be one flock and one shepherd. In 37:11 God says, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel... prophecy... ‘Behold: I will open your graves... and I will bring you into the land... and you shall know that I am the Lord.’” That’s a pretty Good and Great Shepherd. We all have to lose our lives and find them in Him; we all have to learn to love, for each and all of us are to be the image and likeness of God. God is Love. John 10:30, “I and the Father are one.” God is Love. Jesus is the Voice of Love. That’s the Voice of God hanging on the tree in the middle of the garden. If you think you can use the voice of God to save yourself, create yourself, justify yourself, and exalt yourself, you won’t be able to hear the Voice of God; for you will have crucified the voice of God on your tree in your garden . . . like a thief or robber or worse. The Voice of the Shepherd is not a book, or law, or magic word that you can learn at a seminar. The Voice of the Shepherd is a man rising in your heart and romancing you into willing surrender. And so, how do I discern the Voice of the Shepherd from amongst all the other voices? Well, sheep are stupid... that’s the point. They can’t “figure it out,” they just recognize the voice of the one who has loved them and want to be wherever He is, doing whatever He does. Close your eyes and ask for direction. I doubt you’ll get a map. But I bet you can walk in the direction of Love... and don’t worry, He’s got a rod and a staff; He can break your arms if necessary. Don’t listen to your fears! Listen for the Voice of our Shepherd: Listen for Love and start walking.

“The clearest proof that man is utterly fallen is seen in the fact that they spit in Christ’s face...” –attributed to Charles Spurgeon (“Prince of Preachers”). John 9:1-7, “As [Jesus] passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ Jesus answered, ‘It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him... Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the spit. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud and said to him, ‘Go, wash in the pool of Siloam.’” Why the spit, Jesus? It’s humiliating. In Mark 8, he actually spit directly into a blind man’s eyes.... Leviticus 15 stipulates that when someone with an “issue” (bodily discharge) spits on someone that’s clean, the spit (that issue) communicates the uncleanness, which must feel like shame. And of course, it’s unsanitary. Fluids issued from one body to another body can cause all sorts of “issues.” Why the spit, Jesus? It’s humiliating and intimate... uncomfortably, intimate. He put the spit/mud in his eyes and didn’t heal him right away but had him walk through the city to Siloam. It must’ve felt like a walk of shame. Jesus took a similar walk. They spit on Him, and He let them. They’d strike one cheek, and He’d turn the other. They’d nail Him to a tree in a garden, and He’d pray, “Father, forgive; they don’t know...” If you saw it, you’d think: “What’s wrong with him? Has he no pride? Has he no shame? Is he not offended?” “He endured the cross, despising (disrespecting) the shame,” wrote the author of Hebrews. Shame was not our Lord’s master. Hurt? Yes! Angry? Maybe, (depending on how you define it). Offended? I don’t think He had an “ego” to offend... at least not one like ours. Why the spit, Jesus? It’s humiliating, intimate, and it reminds us of creation. John 9:7-22, “So, he went and washed and came back seeing... The neighbors were... saying, ‘Is this not the man?’... He kept saying, ‘I am’ (interesting word choice)... The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight... the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be Christ [the anointed], he was to be put out of the synagogue.” “Synagogue” means “gathered together.” We form groups to receive glory from men and in this way shape each other in our own image. When Jesus said, “I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it,” He chose another word, “ecclesia.” It means “those called out.” Throughout Scripture, God will call people out of groups — which often feels like rejection — in order to send them back as individuals, in order that we would form a living body. A body is diversity in unity: diverse individuals bound together in a communion of sacrificial love called Life. It’s the seventh sign that is the substance. Remember? John 9:24, “So for the second time [the Pharisees] called the man who had been blind and said to him, ‘Give glory to God.’” Jesus, in the Gospel of John, says some crazy things about Glory. “The Spirit of Truth will glorify me. For he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine.” Then Jesus prays, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your son that your son may glorify you...” Then, he stood up and walked to the garden where he was betrayed with a kiss and then spit upon by Jews and Romans. We attempt to glorify ourselves by spitting on others; Jesus is glorified by being spit upon by us. How do we explain this? Are we utterly blind to the Glory of God? Yes. . . We are blind. Look at the man hanging on the tree in the garden. Isn’t He the Glory of God? Isaiah saw the whole earth filled with His glory. Ezekiel saw Him as a man of fire. John saw Him shining like the sun. And Adam couldn’t see Him although He was his “Helper.” Then, he could only see that “He was good for food, a delight to the eyes, and to be desired to make one wise.” He took the Glory of God to make himself glorious but then was utterly ashamed, for he saw that what he had done was evil, and so he hid himself in himself, which is death — death is to be utterly alone. And Adam is each of us. I am the Breath of God in a vessel that God has made, surrounded by a vessel that I think I have made, surrounded by the Glory of God — an inner man, in an outer man, in Jesus. When the outer man is stripped away, I will see Jesus face-to-face and “know” who it is that I am. But most of the time, I’m blind — blinded by “me” to the Glory of God. I am the breath of God, blinded by Me-sus (Me is Salvation) to the Glory of Jesus (Yahweh is Salvation). How do you glorify a savior? When I was a lifeguard, I was NOT glorified by letting kids drown. And the kids I did save weren’t more saved because I let other kids drown. And if some of them thought they were less saved because I did more saving, it just revealed that they thought they had saved themselves, which means that they didn’t believe that they were saved, for they didn’t even know what salvation is. John 9:34, “[The Pharisees] answered him, ‘You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?’ And they cast him out.” I can’t tell you the number of times people have asked me, “Why do people get so angry when I suggest that Jesus might save all the kids in the pool? Peter, they even say that I don’t believe in the Savior. How can that be?” I answer, “Well, maybe their savior is Me-sus, and so of course they’re offended by Jesus. You can’t believe that you, yourself, are salvation and God is Salvation at the same moment in space and time. Maybe they’re blind, and you’re spitting in their eyes.” John 9:35, “Jesus heard that they cast him out, and having found him...” Thirty years ago, Jesus spit in my eyes. He revealed to me that I had gone into the ministry because I hated the church (“My Bride,” he called her), for what she’d done to my dad. And then, later that evening, He pinned me to the floor, and I think I saw just a bit of what Isaiah, Ezekiel, and John saw: “The whole earth... filled with his glory.” Eighteen years ago, I was defrocked by my former denomination for refusing to confess that Jesus was unable to and unwilling to save all. This was hard for some in leadership to explain to people in my church, for those people had delighted in the Word that they had heard. And so, when asked, they would say to these people, “It’s not the theology or sermons; Peter just has issues...” At my last board meeting at that church, with many observers in attendance, I begged the elders to share what my “issues” were. And so, they went around the room, one by one, sharing what they thought was wrong with me. They shared many contradictory things, and yet, all true — at least to some extent. When it was over, I went down to my office in the basement of the church, turned off the lights, curled up in a ball under my desk, and wanted to die. But after a time, I knew that Jesus was with me, under the desk, in the dark, holding me like my dad used to hold me when I was a little boy... and together we chanted, “I forgive. I forgive. I forgive her — the Bride.” John 9:35-37, “Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, ‘Do you believe in the Son of [the] Man?’ He answered, ‘And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?’ Jesus said to him, ‘You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.’” “We learn humility through accepting humiliations cheerfully,” wrote Mother Teresa. “Do not let the chance pass you by.” Humility comes through humiliation and often feels like spit in the eye. But when you are humble, you can begin to see “the Son of [the] man.” Jesus is the light shining in your darkness, the Truth painfully born from your lies, the Grace revealed through your sin, the Life that rises from your death. He is billions of unique images of I Am, born out of billions of unique “I am nots.” Jesus is the Last Adam, born out of the first Adam, who is all of us — all of us who were once trapped in a prison of self but now are liberated in a symphony of ecstatic praise to God, our Father. “As in Adam all die, so in Christ will all be made alive.” The Last Adam is the Son of Man (ha adam). John 9:37, “Jesus said to him, ‘You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.’ He said, ‘Lord, I believe,’ and he worshiped [prokuneo] him.” Proskuneo (from “toward” and “dog/kiss”) literally means to fall at the feet and kiss, like a dog licks its master. This guy is slobbering all over Jesus; they are “the anointed”. . . with spit. People spit to take glory; Jesus spits to give glory. He’s the exact opposite of a glory hog; He has no ego needs, except perhaps to give you His ego, His “psyche.” Lose it, and you’ll find it in Him. You are His body. He never violates Leviticus 15. His “issues” are your issues, and your issues are His issues. I’m so grateful for spit; I swallow mine all the time. Why spit, Jesus? It’s humiliating, intimate, creative, and it’s life. John 9:39, “Jesus said, ‘For judgment I came into this world...” Jimmy Durante was once asked to be part of a show for World War II veterans. He said that he only had a minute or two to spare, but he ended up performing for half an hour. When he left the stage, they asked him, “Why did you stay so long?” He said, “You can see for yourself if you’ll only look in the front row.” In the front row were two men, each of whom had lost an arm in the war. One had lost his right arm, and the other had lost his left. Together, they were able to clap, and that’s what they were doing, loudly and with great joy. And that’s the Judgment of God, Glory of God, and the Kingdom of God that is at hand. That’s the Seventh Sign that is the Substance. Have you ever felt like God himself had just spit in your face? Stop. And say, “Thank you!”

We played “Pat-a-Cake” in church on Sunday. Then, we tried it with our eyes closed. Then, we “tried harder.” We learned three valuable lessons: 1. Blindness is not OK. 2. But yelling at blind people doesn’t help. And in fact, 3. “Trying harder,” while blind, actually makes things worse. John 9:1-5, “As [Jesus] passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ Jesus answered, ‘It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed [might shine] in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.’” Why would anyone be born blind? Scripture is clear that we all suffer the sins of our ancestors, but it’s also clear that we don’t inherit guilt. “Each one shall be put to death for his own sins (Deut. 24:16).” “Little ones... have no knowledge of Good or evil” (Deut. 1:39); they haven’t yet taken the fruit from the tree. Why would anyone blame the blind? That’s easy. It makes us feel better about ourselves (for a moment). It gives us a sense of control (We think we can choose differently.) And in this way, we don’t have to feel sorrow for them (“It was their choice; ‘Free Will,’” we say.) Why would anyone choose to be blind — for sometimes we do? At the turn of the last century, many who had been born blind but received the newly perfected cataract surgery chose to return to blindness, for seeing was just too confusing. Ray Charles went blind after watching his brother drown. My wife once told me that she gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a man who died; she had forgotten that she’d done so and seems to have forgotten this once again. Would you blame her? If you choose to go blind, you choose to “NOT see the light.” And you choose not to see the light because you don’t see that the light is The Good. All you see is death, guilt, confusion, and injustice. And so, your strategy is to close your eyes. Your strategy is to save yourself with blindness. This is why we don’t like pictures of the bombed-out remains of the Gaza strip, aborted babies, blind men begging, or a naked man beaten and nailed to a tree.... Have you ever seen that picture? John 3:19, “This is the judgment: The light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the Light...” We don’t love the light for we have chosen darkness and perhaps because we haven’t yet seen just how good the Light (The Good) actually is. In Scripture, “the Good” (tob in Hebrew) is that which everyone most naturally and fully desires. It’s like we all see Good Friday and then shut our eyes before Easter. We know about the good... (enough to see that what we have done is bad). We know about the good, but we have NOT known the Good until we see that the Good knows us and does not condemn us... That’s how good he is! We all took His life on the tree, but when we see that He always gives His life on the tree, we see the Good and are drawn to the Good, for we were made for the Good. He is “our Helper.” Maximus the Confessor (~600 A.D.) taught that we each have a “natural will” that is naturally drawn to God, and a “deliberative will” that can stray from God but only because it is blinded to the Truth — blinded by a lie. “There is blindness far worse than mine,” wrote Helen Keller, “those who have no vision.” Those who can see and choose not to see, for they can’t see “the Good.” Sin is blindness, and to commit a sin is to act out of that blindness. The disciples failed to see “the Good” in the blind man; they had the worst form of blindness — they were blind to their own blindness. “As you did it unto the least of these...” said the Light of the World, “you did it to me.” Perhaps He isn’t telling us to try harder but asking each one of us to ask some questions: Am I blind? Was I born blind? And if so, whose fault is that? Jesus heals the blind man with spit and dirt (we’ll discuss this next week.) Then, the rest of the chapter reads like a comedy sketch. The neighbors, the Jews, the parents, the Pharisees — all are terribly confused (even frightened), all except the blind man and Jesus. John 9:35, “Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, ‘Do you believe in the Son of Man?’ He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him [Everyone is blind to Jesus except the blind man— the formerly blind man!], and it is he who is speaking to you.” 38 He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him. Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, “Are we also blind?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind [If you saw that you don’t see], you would have no sin; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains. If Jesus were to help these men see that they don’t see, he would’ve healed them of blindness and saved them from their sin. So . . . are you blind? Were you born blind? And if so, who’s to blame? Do you see the Light of the World? If Jesus says, “I am the Light of the world” not “a light of the world,” He is NOT only implying that He’s God but that He is the only light of the world. We swim in light, don’t we? If He says, “I am the Life,” not “a life,” He’s not only implying that He’s God, but that He’s the Life in anything that lives, including your own. If He says, “God alone is good,” He’s saying that the goodness in everything that’s anything is God, and therefore the only thing that any of us truly desire. I once had a “Damascus Road” experience; it was as if God blinded me to all that I thought I knew in the morning and opened the eyes of my heart in the evening. I “saw” (I had a vision) that He is the Good, the Beauty, the Truth, the Life, the Light in everything that’s anything, and everywhere and everywhen, He is constantly saying, “I love you.” And then it stopped... or He stopped it. But I began to see that I don’t see; I’m blind. John had a similar experience on the Mount of Transfiguration and the Island of Patmos. So did Saul of Tarsus on the Road to Damascus. He was a Pharisee of Pharisees, and God literally blinded him —he saw that he didn’t see and became the Apostle of Grace. Once, he was even transported to Eden. But you don’t have to have the same “experience.” Actually, “blessed are those who haven’t seen and yet believe.” You have seen Goodness, Beauty, Truth, Light, and Love. But you have also not seen Goodness, Beauty, Truth, Light, and Love... whenever you wanted to. You’ve seen the Light... but “shining” in the darkness. That’s when and where it shines, and we begin to fall in love with the Light. Yes, we are blind. And yes, we were born blind. On the 6th day of creation, Adam couldn’t find his Helper, who was right there with him. And so, Adam was alone, which was not good — which is evil... before “the fall.” Adam was blind to his own blindness. So, God (his Helper) put Adam to sleep and began to make a Helper fit for Adam; He began to make Himself fit for us, even Body Broken and Blood Shed. Eve is not Adam’s Helper. God is Adam’s Helper (“ezer” in Hebrew). It turns out that we are all Eve, and God in Flesh is our Helper. It turns out that we are all the Bride of Christ, and Jesus is our Husband. But we don’t wake to this reality until “not knowing what we do,” we take His life on the tree and return to discover that He’s always given His Life on the Tree. Our Husband is absolute and relentless Love; He is the Beauty, Truth, Life, and Love that surrounds us every day. He is the Light shining in your darkness. He is romancing all people unto himself. So, Yes: You are Blind. Yes: You were born blind. And whose fault is that? Jesus doesn’t blame the blind man. He doesn’t even blame the Pharisees who lead everyone to take His life on the tree. He knows what we will do, but He doesn’t blame us as if we knew what we were doing. He cries out, “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.” They’re blind. And who’s fault is that? In Chapter 12, John will explain: “They could not believe,” for as Isaiah says, “He (God or Isaiah) has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts.” In John 12, Jesus has just stated, “When I am lifted up from the earth (speaking of His cross) I will draw all people to myself.” Then John explains that Isaiah (in 738 B.C.) saw Jesus “high and lifted up,” and he heard the angels cry, “the whole earth is filled with His glory.” Isaiah feels utterly lost, blinded, until his lips are touched with a coal from the altar, and he hears the Lord say, “Who will go for me?” Isaiah volunteers, and the Lord tells Isaiah to “blind their eyes.” He is literally to preach Israel down to a stump. Then the Lord says, “The Holy Seed is it’s stump.” We know that Isaiah preaches that a suffering servant will open the eyes of the blind and unite all flesh in himself as a symphony of praise to our Creator. The Suffering Servant is the Promised Seed and the root of the tree . . . It must be the cross, the Tree of Knowledge that becomes the Tree of Life. And it’s all God’s fault, yet God has no fault — and so in the End, we’ll see that no one is to blame. You can blame the man on the tree, but He doesn’t blame you. You can take His life, but then you’ll see that He gives His Life, and He is the Light shining in your own darkness. Helen Keller once placed her fingers on the lips and throat of a man singing “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” As a tear ran down her cheek, she responded, “I was there!” Helen Keller was blind, and yet she knew far better than most: Christ was in her, and so she was in Christ. She has His Glory. She is His Bride. And now she knows and sees all things in the Light. If we only saw that we don’t see…we would see. An

I think I preached the Gospel to a ghost in hell (Hades). She left this world of space and time and went home to Heaven. “Welcome home, Elise,” said Jesus, to which Elise replied, “I was lost.” “Lost.” This is why Scripture forbids necromancy (seeking direction from ghosts): They’re lost. I shared the story last week, and this is a continuation of that sermon. We began this sermon with the local news story about the flying black shadow in the old church building that we used to rent — the one built upon an old Masonic cemetery. I haven’t shared that video before; it’s not the best advertisement for increasing church attendance. But we’re in a different building now, and although these things are frightening, I want us all to know that when we walk into our fears with Jesus (the Truth), He sets us free us from our fears that we might live in His joy. Perhaps the thing that we fear the most is ourselves. If I were to assume the standard theological paradigm of the American Evangelical Church in which I was educated, I would be utterly lost in explaining our experiences in that old church building — and in explaining John chapter 8. I think I would be forced to conclude that all, or at least most of us, will “die in our sins” and be endlessly tortured by God, for even those that “believe in Jesus” are “of their father, the devil” and “not of God.” And so, I would hide my own heart from God, honor Him with my lips, but become an act, an appearance, a phantasm — a “phantasma” (Greek) — or an “ob” (Hebrew), a ghost... even before my body died. Last week, we read John 8:21-47, and it raised at least three questions. #3) Who or what is not of God? (John 8:47, “You are not of God,” said Jesus to the “Jews that had believed in him.”) Who is not of God? Nothing. God creates everything that’s anything with His Word. Evil must be a “nothing” that I perceive as a something, like a shadow. #2) How could a person be “of God” and “not of God,” but of their “father, the devil”? (John 8:44) It helps to remember that “I” (spirit) have two “me’s” (selves) — a false self and a true self. “At one time, you were darkness,” writes Paul, “but now you are light in the Lord.” #1) What does it mean to “die in your sin”? (John 8:21) It must be to take the life of Christ on the tree in a garden in an attempt to make the Good your own. It’s self-righteousness; it’s glorifying yourself. And that self is the nothing that I have made into a something and now perceive to be who it is that I am. And yet, it is who it is that I am not, and a prison for who it is that I am. According to Scripture, this has already happened. Perhaps ghosts won’t die, for they won’t admit that they’re dead? And the ghost that should concern us the most is our own. This week, we also read John 8:48-59, and it raised more questions. John 8:48-59: “The Jews answered him, ‘Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?’” (I don’t think Jesus was offended, for He isn’t proud.) “'I do not seek my own glory,’” answers Jesus. “‘There is One who seeks it.’” (In John 16, we learn that Jesus is glorified by giving His glory to us!) “’There is One who seeks it and he is the Judge’” (In John 5, Jesus told us that ‘The Father judges no one but has given all judgment to the Son.’) “’Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word (Jesus is the Word), he will not see death into the age.’ The Jews said to Him, ‘Now we know that you have a demon!... Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died?’... Jesus answered ‘If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing... Your father Abraham (Jesus thinks that they have at least two fathers!) rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad...’ Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I Am.’ So, they picked up stones to throw at him (I bet they were the same stones that they were going to throw at the woman caught in adultery), but Jesus was hidden and went out of the temple.” “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” That’s the seventh sign that is the substance. Jesus turns hearts of stone into living stones that come together and form a living temple. Perhaps Jesus “was hidden” within them like a Seed? #4) What is death and Life? Jesus talks as if everyone’s dead, and yet some won’t die??? #5) What is judgment? Jesus talks as if no one judges, but everyone is getting judged??? #6) Why is He telling us? Jesus isn’t giving us anything to do??? #7) What can I do? A little over a year after we learned about the Masons and prayed for Elise, a dark shadow reappeared in the old church building on Christmas Eve. Once again, Susan and I prayed. Before, we had bound a demonic spirit named “Secrets,” and this time many more spirits, including “Lucifer.” (I know this sounds crazy! I know we all don’t have the same experiences! You don’t have to believe me, but you can believe Scripture and the Word of God!) Along with two other members of our prayer team, we were directed to a dark room in the basement of that old church building. We took communion, for the eternal covenant supersedes all other covenants, including those which people in secret societies make in order to glorify themselves. We then prayed a long-written prayer renouncing Masonic oaths, including a declaration that “Lucifer is god.” It is supposedly taken at the 33rd degree (I don’t imagine that all orders are the same, but that’s what we did.) And of course, we called on Jesus. He appeared next to Lucifer and a host of other demonic spirits, having been bound and placed in a box. I don’t see these things, but those with me who are so gifted do see these things. At one point, my wife and our friends saw a circle of children surrounding a man holding a knife who had just sacrificed a goat and was threatening the children. Behind them stood their fathers in dark robes with their hands on their children’s shoulders. Over the span of an hour or so, I led us in prayer, and my wife and friends described what they were witnessing. Jesus appeared in the center of the circle, shrunk the box full of demons, put it in His pocket, put the goat back together, and brought it to life. The children went to Jesus, then turned, forgave their fathers, and led their fathers to Jesus. And as they did, the fathers, now stripped of the dark robes, grew young — and together with their children began to smile, laugh, and pet the goat. The dark basement turned into a party! I said, “Jesus, can they go home?” A door opened in the wall on the side of the basement. On the other side of the door were beautiful trees, hills, and sunshine. My wife laughed out loud and said, “I wish you could’ve seen it, Peter! They went through the door, and just before it closed, the goat ran after them bleating. It was so cute!” #4) What is death? Death is attempting to glorify yourself and so trapping yourself alone in yourself — your false self, the product of the lie that you must save yourself: “Me-sus.” And what is life? Life is quite literally seeking someone else’s glory; it’s losing yourself and finding yourself in Je-sus (Yahweh is salvation). Life is the party in the middle of the room and the eternal reality on the other side of the door. The souls in the basement were dead, but they experienced the death of death — the second death which is eternal life. “I know that the father’s commandment is eternal life,” said Jesus the Word (John 12:50). #5) What is the judgment? It’s not a decision that God has yet to make; it is the decision that is, in fact, God. God is Love. Eternal life is a communion of sacrificial Love. Love is the decision to glorify another. God is Love, and Jesus is the Word of Love. “I give my glory to no other,” says God in Isaiah. And yet, Isaiah hears the Seraphim say, “The whole earth is filled with the glory of God.” God is the glory that fills all things with Himself through His Word. #6) Why is Jesus telling us this stuff? Maybe so that when it happens, we’ll be grateful. . . and join the party. I seem to always think that there’s something I must do, but first I need to know that I’m something that God has done. And maybe He’s doing it right now; He does everything with His Word. It is the Word that’s “living and active.” And the Word is a Seed. The Seed is planted in you as a Breath, “The Seed of the Woman,” like an egg. And He comes to you as a Word that is heard (“sperma” in Greek). When He “finds a place in you,” the curtain rips, and the glory of God begins to fill His temple — dark becomes Light, lies become Truth, sin becomes Grace, and you/we begin to live. All because of the Word. After that day in the basement, it happened a few more times. The last time (that I’m aware of), my wife heard weeping behind a locked crawl-space door and a voice that said, “Leave me alone.” We had communion and prayed just outside that door. She saw figures cowering in the dark. Jesus appeared. My wife said, “Peter, they’re cowering in the darkness and won’t look up. He’s so bright, and they’re so ashamed.” So, as with Elise and as with the Masons in the basement, I began to tell them about Jesus. “He doesn’t condemn you. He adores you.” At one point, my wife said, “Peter, it’s so amazing — the moment they look up, they rise, go to Jesus, and then on through a door . . . But Peter, there are some that won’t look up.” After a time, Jesus said, “I’m leaving this door here for those that will still come.” Later that day, we entered that crawl space and found bulletins from 1904, confirming things that were seen in the visions. Susan heard the Lord say, “Children of the desolate, you are desolate no longer,” and we realized that we were directly under the spot where I would stand and preach each Sunday morning. I’ve often looked out, seen very few faces, and thought to myself, “No one is listening.” But then, I’ve remembered the door under the floor and preached with conviction. “The gates of hell (Hades) will

Thirty years ago, I walked out of my office at church to find a young man standing in the hallway with no pants. (He did have underwear.) He looked lost. “What happened?” I inquired. “I had a religious experience, took off my clothes, and wandered in the woods for two days. And now I’m locked out of my car. You know how it is...” I asked him what I could do for him. “A pair of pants would be nice,” was his response. (It’s interesting that this was the first thing Adam and Eve desired after taking fruit from the tree of the knowledge of Good and evil.) I drove him to the outreach. He got some pants. I kept asking him if he needed more assistance, until all at once he turned, looked at me, put his finger to his lips, and said, “Shhhh . . . Shhhh. . . Shhhh . . . You ask too many questions.” I had heard that voice before, and I would hear it again, even from religious folks: “Shhh... You ask too many questions. Just have faith.” “Faith in what?” “Jesus . . . The Truth.” If Jesus is the Truth, He is the objective truth, but I could never know the Truth unless I was Truth full — unless I was honest, unless the Truth was living in me, a Subject in me... even helping me to ask the questions. What if, in a moment, you could see the Truth, but the Truth revealed that all your “rights” were wrong, your goods were not Good but stolen, and your Life had never been your own but literally belonged to someone else? Would you lie to yourself or be honest? When I dropped off the man with no pants who now had pants, it felt like I dropped him off in “hell.” There is no greater bondage than freedom from the Truth. I hadn’t met him. He was like a phantom to me, an empty shell, a ghost. He was alone. “It’s not good for the man to be alone,” said God in a garden by a tree. In John 8 at the Feast of Tabernacles, a group of religious men throw a woman — probably naked, for she had been caught in the act of adultery — at the feet of Jesus in the temple courtyard. They demand judgment. And Jesus doesn’t condemn her. Imagine that! If it happened to you, it would be the absolute worst: the death of your ego. And then, the birth of something other worldly. “Neither do I condemn you. From the NOW, sin no more,” says Jesus. In John 8:15, Jesus says, “You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one. Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true because I Am not alone.” Last time we preached that He doesn’t judge, and yet He (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) is the judgment. At this point, it would be easy to assume that Jesus is some kind of new age theological liberal . . . Buckle Up! And keep reading. John 8:21, 26: “So he said to them again, ‘I go, and you will seek me, and you will die in the sin of you all. . . I have much to say and much to judge.” Look at the man on the tree in the middle of the garden on the Holy Mountain. He is the Judgment and He is your righteousness. If you think He is simply an object for you to use (like objective knowledge of good and evil, the law), you will take knowledge of him in order to make yourself him and only make an imitation of him, an “antichristos” in Greek, a body of death, in which you’ll be trapped. We’ve all done it. It’s original sin. It’s what we all do when we “should on ourselves.” If I say, “I should have faith,” I’m simultaneously admitting that I don’t have faith but will try to have faith as if faith were not a gift; I’ll become an act. If I say, “I should love,” what am I saying? Do I not believe that “God is Love”? Jesus said, “You will love.” If I don’t believe that word is a Promise, I will become an act. The distance between who I should be and who I Am is who I Am NOT — that is, a false self, a walking lie, an “ob” in Hebrew, a “phantasma” in Greek, a ghost. John 8:30: “As he was saying these things, many believed in him.” “The one believing in the Son has eternal life,” said Jesus (John 3:36). Another word for these folks might be “Christians.” John 8:31-34, 40: “So Jesus was saying to the Jews who had believed in him, ‘If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the Truth and the Truth will set you free.’ They answered, ‘We are the seed of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone.’ Jesus answered them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, the one doing the sin is a slave of the sin... you seek to kill me.” That was surprising to them. Is it, to you? When we lie, we crucify the Truth. He is “The Truth.” John 8:43-45, 46, Jesus continues, “Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word [logos]. You are of your father the devil and your will is to do your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies... The one being of God hears the words of God. The reason you do not hear them is that you are not of God.” What does it mean to die in the sin of y’all? How can someone who has believed also be of their “father, the devil?” And what is “not of God?” Answer: nothing. God creates everything that’s anything. The devil cannot father real people. Jesus just said it: “He is the father of lies.” Jesus must be saying to these Jews who had believed in Him, “You are of your father the devil; you are nothing... like a nightmare, an illusion, a lie, a shadow, a ghost. Fifteen years ago, a pastor friend of mine took a cell phone video of a dark shadow flying through the old church building which we were renting at the time. The next Sunday a new person told me that she and her husband had seen a dark shadow flying through the room as worship began. I showed her the video. She said, “That’s it. I’m an investigative reporter. Can I do a piece for the news?” That afternoon, my wife and I started praying through the building. My wife kept hearing a voice saying “shhh... shhhh...shhh.” I took authority in the name of Jesus, demanding to know its name, and my wife heard “Secrets.” We bound “Secrets.” And then my wife heard many voices. Once again, I took authority in Jesus’ name. My wife said, “This is weird. It’s not like that. They’re not, so much, angry, but confused. They want to know if you own the building... it has something to do with the Masons.” When the reporter returned to do her story, she asked me, “Did you know that in 1890, this church was built on an old Masonic Cemetery?” I said “no,” and thought, “Wow! My wife was right!” (We’ll talk more about this next week; Masons bind people up with secrets.) Susan said, “It has something to do with the Masons.” We then went to the basement. Suddenly, she said, “Someone’s here.” Once again, I took authority. And once again, my wife said, “It’s not like that. I don’t think she’s a demon. She’s a little old lady. She doesn’t know why she’s here. Here name is Elise. She’s afraid.”I thought of secrets, the Masons, possible abuse in that old building (members of our prayer team felt that they had discerned this), and so I said something like, “Elise, Jesus is not like the men who did those things to you. He loves you. You need to go to Jesus.” Susan then said, “She’s gone.” I think she was a ghost. How can a person be “spawn of the devil” and “a Jew who had believed in him (a Christian)”? It helps me to remember that “I” am a spirit, a consciousness, that observes “me,” a psyche, a soul, a self. And according to Scripture “I” have two “me’s.” I have a “false self” — an apparition, an act, an old psyche. It’s the man I think I’m supposed to be, but I am Not. In the End, it’s my own condemnation of me. It’s the man that I think I have created. And I have a man who has been created in Christ Jesus but is being revealed in space and time, for “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.” This Man is who I truly Am — the forever new Me, the Eternal Me. I’m actually pregnant with this Man who is also “Christ in me.” I am a temple. My true self exists in my false self, like the Holy of Holies existed in the old stone temple built by man. “I,” my consciousness, can abide in the temporal and false self where I believe that I am what I have done and will do (believing I am my own resume). Or “I,” my consciousness, can abide in the inner man — I can abide in what God has done; I can abide in Christ, in who it is that I truly am NOW: the Beloved. My grandson James is three months old. He’s at this amazing stage in which he’ll stare at me for a few seconds, recognize me, then suddenly smile, stick out his tongue, then I’ll stick out my tongue, and we’ll stick out our tongues together. He knows “me,” or I should say, “I.” I don’t think he could ever please me more than he does in that moment — It’s “I” contact; It’s Life. He knows me, but one day he’ll try to hide himself from me in order to impress me with who he thinks it is that I want him to be. I think that happens to every Adam, and with every Adam. But God, our Father, makes a Judgment and a Promise like the one I desire to make to James. That promise is this: “When you get lost in yourself, I will remember who you are, and I will come find you, for I am you and you are me.” Salvation is losing my false self and finding my true self in Jesus, the Truth. It’s the greatest gift, for once I come to know who it is that I am NOT, I will be eternally grateful for who it is that I Am — the beloved — and who I Am That I Am is: Perfect Love. Until then, I will feel lost, for I have agreed with the devil; I have condemned myself and everyone around me. “The sin of y’all” is choosing nowhere and nothingness. Elise must’ve agreed with those that condemned her and so condemned herself — like the man with no pants who wanted to hide from me and reality, like Adam and Eve and each one of us who hides himself even from himself in an image, an act, a ghost. If you don’t “give up the ghost” before your physical body dies, you can get trapped in your ghost for a time. But

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.” Click here for a list of questions for reflection and/or discussion related to this sermon

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 forgivenes

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. Click here for a list of questions for reflection and/or discussion related to this sermon

“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 it; we gav