The Sanctuary Downtown / Relentless Love

The word “Commandment” with the definite article appears in three places in the Gospel of John. John 10:18, “I have authority to lay my soul down and authority to take it up again. This is the commandment that I received from my father,” says Jesus. John 12:50, “The commandment of the Father is eternal life,” says Jesus. John 15:12, “This is the commandment of me, that you love one another as I have loved you,” says Jesus. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus says, “This is the great and first commandment, “You will love...” He doesn’t say “you should” love, but “you will.” It’s not only a commandment; it’s a Promise, like a Seed. It’s the Word of God. In Genesis 1 on the Sixth Day of Creation, God blesses the Adam and speaks His commandment to them, saying, “Be fruitful... and exercise dominion (Care for the garden.)” There are different ways to “exercise dominion.” Some are death; some are life. Now that I’m older, I actually enjoy mowing the lawn. It’s fun. And, “Be fruitful and multiply”? That commandment can actually feel like the reward — even, “the substance of things hoped for... (Hebrews 11:1).” At the beginning of Day 6 in Genesis 2, the Adam couldn’t fulfill the commandment; he didn’t know how, and he was alone. To fulfill this commandment, you need a “Helper (ezer in Hebrew, as in Eliezer, “God is my help.” Throughout Scripture, God alone is our “ezer.”) The Adam can’t find his Helper who is with him, just as infants can’t find their helper who constantly holds them in arm. They can’t find their helper, for they don’t know what a helper is, let alone, who their helper is. The Adam is not free to obey the Commandment. So, God puts the Adam to sleep and makes a particular adam, named “Adam,” and Eve. He makes male and female. And they were both “naked and unashamed” in the Garden of Delight (Eden). “This mystery is a profound” writes St. Paul “It refers to Christ and the Church.” As we’ll soon see, Eve is not Adam’s “ezer,” and Adam (this particular adam) is not Eve’s “ezer.” But they soon meet their ezer, although they don’t know what or who He is. They meet “The Good” and “The Life.” He’s hanging, like fruit, on a tree in the middle of the garden — a tree that looks like the tree in the garden on Mt. Calvary. In the fruit is seed. God had said, “I will make a helper fit for the Adam.” Eve and Adam take the fruit . . . and invent clothes. They gird their loins with fig leaves and cover the very place where they were commanded to commune in order to fulfill the commandment. They are no longer in the garden of Delight. They suffer the curse: dust and pain. They feel shame: a blessing that feels like a curse for one does not have a will that’s free to obey the command. If Love is not free, it’s not Love but law written in hearts of stone. The Commandment is Covenant Love, Eternal Life — that is, Mutual Self-Sacrifice in perfect freedom. John 13:1-4a, literally translated (Please check me on this!), “Now before the Feast of the Passover when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them into completion [telos: the End). And becoming supper (This is The Last Supper: Communion), when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, is raised from the supper.” If any man ever had “free will,” it would’ve been Jesus. He is the Word of God that is God, that wills creation into existence. He is literally the Judgment of God in flesh. He is the Eternal Life that wills us into existence. He is the Commandment of God. Not even death can stop him. He has made Himself Supper, and He is Risen. He can do what he wants to do . . . so what does he do? John 13:4, “Risen from the supper, He laid aside his garments and taking a towel, he girded himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciple’s feet and to wipe them with the towel with which he had been girded.” Let’s stop for a moment. Are you uncomfortable . . . perhaps, offended? I think the disciples were. They were all dressed up, trying to impress Jesus, and Jesus dresses down. He appears to be “naked and unashamed,” while his Bride (12 guys, Israel of God, Jerusalem, the harlot destined to be the Bride) is not. This is not about sex. But all sex is about this. “All”: good, bad, unashamed and shamed, successes and failures, sin and Grace — for where sin increased, Grace has abounded all the more. “Husbands love your wives,” writes Paul in Ephesians 5, “as Christ loved the church and sacrificed himself for her that he might make her holy (eternal, like Him), having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word... he who loves his wife loves himself. For no man ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes it and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. ‘Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is profound, and I am saying it refers to Christ and the church.” In the upper room just before Passover, God is making Himself fit for each and for all. In the morning, we all strip Him of His garments and take His life on the tree. And yet, on that holy night, the night before, He removes His garments and washes His Bride with water and Himself: the Word. He makes Himself The Covenant. He makes Himself the Feast. He is the Helper made fit for The Adam — His Harlot Bride. He even makes Himself the Promised Seed. “This mystery is profound and I’m saying that it refers to Christ and the Church.” People worry about “sexualizing” the Gospel, but I would suggest that there is a far greater danger that comes from despiritualizing sex. “Why not break covenant if there is no real communion?” Sex must be a little like training wheels on a bike... and in this life, the training wheels often fall off, but you can still ride the bike, perhaps even better than before. And many of the very best bike riders never had training wheels in the first place. However, we all do feel shame. Robertson McQuilken was the president of Columbia Bible College until he resigned to care for his wife, Muriel, suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease. It wasn’t the dirty diapers that had attracted him to her in the beginning, but he faithfully washed Muriel every day because he wanted to. One night, bothered by a question, he did pray this prayer, “Father, it’s OK. I like this assignment, and I have no regrets. But something has occurred to me. If the coach puts a man on the bench, he must not want him in the game. You needn’t tell me, of course, but if you’d like to let me in on the secret, I’d like to know: Why don’t you need me in the game?” In the morning as he and Muriel took their walk, a local drunk stumbled around them, stood in front of them, looked them up and down, and said, “Tha’s good... I’s like it!” then stumbled away muttering over and over, “I like it! It’s good.” Robertson laughed, but when he arrived back in the garden and sat down with Muriel, he realized that the Father had answered his question. He wasn’t “out of the game.” He was in the very center with Jesus in the Upper Room. Jesus is the free will of God, and what does He do? He humbles himself, takes the form of a slave, and washes the feet of all 12 disciples, BECAUSE he wants to. That’s the part we just don’t get. He is genuinely attracted to the very place you try to hide from Him. He’s attracted to your honest little self under the fig leaves, justifications, self-righteousness, pretense, and lies — the dust you have accumulated on your journey through six days of space and time. He enjoys loving you... but something gets in the way. John 13:6-8, “He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, ‘Lord, do you wash my feet?’ Jesus answered him, ‘What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.’ Peter said to him, ‘You shall never wash my feet.” The Commandment of the Father is Eternal Life. And so, the question of the Son, our Bridegroom is “What are you so ashamed of?” He wants to touch you there, but he insists that you “let him.” How does he make us “let him”? Perhaps He writes a story of Grace that creates Faith. He said, “And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will romance all people to myself.” John 13:8, “Peter said to him, ‘You shall never wash my feet.’ Jesus answered him, ‘If I do not wash you, you have no part with me.” He washes you of who it is that you think you have made yourself to be, in order to tell you who it is that you actually are. He once told Peter, “You are the rock, and on this rock, I will build my church.” That night, Peter was trying desperately to make himself the Rock. And in a few hours, he would utterly fail. But the resurrected Christ found him, touched him in his place of deepest shame, and washed him with his word. He did this time and time again, until the day Peter died... and lived. Fleeing Rome, he had a vision of Jesus walking into Rome, carrying a cross. He cried out, “My Lord, where are you going?” and he heard the Lord answer, “To Rome to be crucified.” Peter turned and ran back into Rome where he was crucified with Christ because he freely willed to be; he wanted to be “with Him.” Apart from Him, you can do nothing. In Him, all things are possible. Jesus made Peter, the Rock, from the inside out. And on that rock, He built His church. Peter’s false self (the self he thought he had made himself to be), gave birth to his true self (the Peter that loved in freedom, and gave birth to you and me). I began this sermon with a prayer that made everyone nervous, and I may not have spoken well, but I hope that this was the point: At a time when we all worry about war and ask, “What is fake news and what is real news?” we must all surrender to th

John 12:50 is Jesus’ last statement before his passion begins; it is the end of John’s exposition of 6 “signs” that comprise the first half of the Gospel of John and the beginning of the 7th sign that is the substance: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” John 12:50a, translated literally reads as follows: “I know that the commandment of the Father is eternal life.” The definite article means that there is only one commandment, and every commandment is included in this one. Jesus does NOT say, “The commandment of the Father leads to eternal life.” Nor does he say “The commandment of the Father is eternal life IF you happen to obey the commandment and IF NOT, he’ll issue another commandment.” JUST, “The commandment of the Father is eternal life.” Which raises two obvious questions: #1 Who can fulfill this commandment? #2 What should be the Father’s punishment for those who don’t? One day long ago, I judged that my son had reached an appropriate age, and so I issued a command and made a commandment. I said, “Jon, you will mow the lawn; you will work the garden. You will mow the lawn once a week on Saturday.” Jon had begged me to let him do just that when he was 6 years old, but at 15, it was another matter. So early one Saturday, I just stormed into his bedroom; I woke him from sleep, and I began to yell. I said: “Jonathan, you have broken the commandment! Because you have not mowed the lawn, you will never mow the lawn. Even if you want to mow the lawn and cry out to me begging me to let you mow the lawn, it is too late: My patience has run out, my mercy has come to an end. JONATHAN HIETT, YOU WILL NEVER EVER MOW THE LAWN AGAIN!” Jonathan looked at me, smiled, and said, “Thanks, Dad!” Then rolled over and went back to sleep. And, of course, that didn’t actually happen . . . because it’s absurd. But if it did happen, who would then be punished? I would be punished with endless resentment, and so mow the lawn in anger, and never enjoy the garden. …And yet, this is exactly how the Church has explained the punishment of God. Who would actually want to punish God our Father? It sounds satanic. And who is even capable of disobeying the Commandment of God? What God commands is called “Creation.” On day one, God says, “Let there be light,” and there is light. Etc. etc. On day seven, everything is good, and “It (all) is finished.” And yet, on day six, there is a hiccup... God commanded a thing to do some things and not do other things. But that thing doesn’t do those things, and that thing is us; we are adam. God said, “Let us make adam in our own image and likeness.” And each one of us said, “Nope. I’m not going to let you; it’s not going to happen; I’m not mowing the lawn.” The Father’s Commandment is Eternal Life. And we think that we have the power to change that commandment into endless conscious death? How can that be? Who do we think we are? In John 12:31-32, just before He mentions “The Commandment of the Father,” Jesus says, “Now is the Judgment of this world. Now is the ruler of this world cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” Last time, I shared that surrendering to the Judgment of God — the one judgment of God, NOW — must look less like one of those end times movies and more like that little video of my very first conversation with my grandson, James. When I first met James, I said, “He’s perfect,” and yet, I knew that something was wrong. He wasn’t aware of myself, himself, or any self. He was alone. He was unaware of the arms that held him. He was unaware of the love that was all around him. Many years ago, God literally pinned me to the floor and told me to stop doubting His love for me. It was as if He pulled back a veil, and I saw that He was everywhere and every when loving me. It was as if in a moment, His psyche became my psyche, and I saw that what I had intended for evil, He intended for good. It changed the meaning of my past and transformed how I perceived the future. For about three weeks, I couldn’t worry. I still did everything I used to do; however, it didn’t feel like work but play. I still went everywhere I used to go, but instead of walking, I was dancing. All my labor was rest; everything was worship; it was all Sabbath — that’s the 7th sign that is the substance. And then…it wore off. And yet I knew, even that was by design. So now, every day I try to stop thinking about my past and worrying about my future; and I can only do that by focusing on the glory of God, NOW. I can only do that by focusing the eyes of my heart on the eyes of my heavenly Father, in the same way that James can see himself reflected in my eyes and know: He is the apple of my eye. So, I can know that I am not what I have done; I am what God has done and is doing. He has already made up His mind about me. It’s the Last Judgment (actually the only Judgment), NOW. We exist on a timeline moving in only one direction, terrified of God’s judgment in the future and so haunted by our judgments in the past, for we think final judgment is the judgment of all of our judgments (as if God didn’t know what these would be) which will determine if God commands endless blessings or endless cursing. And so, we hide from God, trying to impress God, until we realize that we can’t make ourselves in the image of God with our own judgments. It’s then that we see another Judgement. It’s not on the timeline, and yet it was revealed on the timeline. It’s eternal; it’s the Light; it’s Jesus Christ crucified and risen from the dead. A commandment is a judgment that’s been verbalized and given to another. Jesus is the Commandment of God; He is the Word of God. Everything that’s anything is the Commandment of God. That Kingdom of Heaven is at hand; Jesus is all around you — and I would expect you to say, “It doesn’t seem like it!” And I would concur. So, maybe the Bible is NOT true . . . or maybe we’re dreaming or maybe trapped in only two dimensions of reality, unaware of the third, or even trapped in just one …like on a timeline. That would NOT mean that what we experience is not real, but that we’re not perceiving all that is real. And so, you tell yourself that Beauty, for instance, is just an idea in your head, and Truth is simply a concept that you can turn into a lie, and Love is only a hormone rather than the Creator of hormones. In other words, you’re utterly unaware of the arms that constantly hold you and the face of your Father constantly whispering, “Say dada, say dada.” With those thoughts in mind, perhaps we can hear John 12:33-49. However, if you’re committed to your own judgments on the timeline, it will burn the “Hell” out of you. John writes, “Though Jesus had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him [pisteuo: have faith, trust].... So that the Word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: ‘Lord, who has believed what he heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord [the arm that holds us] been revealed?’ Therefore, they could not believe. For again Isaiah said, “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them.” That’s Isaiah 53:1 and 6:10. In Isaiah 6, Isaiah sees Jesus high and lifted up on the throne of God and “the whole earth is filled with his glory.” Isaiah cries out “I’m dead” but is then atoned for and told to preach Israel down to a stump that is “The Holy Seed.” It’s Jesus, the Commandment of God and all things in Him. When Jesus was crucified, no one believed the Word of God, and yet Jesus believed the Word and spoke the Word: He prayed Psalm 22. He had faith in the midst of our unfaithfulness. He is the Holy Seed. And like He just told us: Unless a seed dies, it remains alone. He died and delivered up His Spirit — the same Spirit that falls on us at Pentecost and wells up from within us like a fountain. He is the Word, the Promise, the Seed, and we are His Body. Why would God, our Father, make it so that people could not believe? Maybe so that when they did believe, they would know that Faith is always a gift, as is the glorious face of our Father? Why do loving parents play peek-a-boo with their infants? Why do they hide their face and suddenly reveal that face? Isn’t it to hear their infants squeal with delight as they begin to know: “Mom and Dad aren’t me but know me. They’re a gift to me. And I am never alone even when I feel alone; we are three persons, yet one substance — one Life of Love.” So, what is it that makes me take my eyes off of the timeline, off of myself, my own judgments, and the illusion that I am my own cause and effect, long enough to glimpse the judgement of God? If I think it’s my own free will (free of God) — if I think that I’m writing the story of my own salvation, then I’m casting myself in the role of savior, the Savior of me. That’s Me-sus. It’s Me-sus that keeps me from seeing Jesus. It’s my own bad judgment . . . from which I need to be saved by the Good Judgment of God: Jesus John 12:50, “I know that the commandment of the Father is eternal life. What I speak therefore I speak as the Father has spoken (and is speaking) me.” Jesus is the Commandment of God. And so is all creation (the forever new and eternal creation). And so are you. And so, your free will is not of yourself, it is the judgment of God in you, manifesting as the Commandment of God that is you — the real you. You cannot be proud of that as if it were your own, but you will be forever grateful for that. It is the will of our Father, rising from the dead in you... and causing us all to “Mow the lawn and care for the garden as if every step were a dance, all our work was play, and all our labor was rest... a holiday, a Holy Day.” The Commandment of our Father is the Punishment of our Father and the Gift of our Father: We will all care for the garden, for each other, and f

Six little men and a young boy run down a long portal pursued by a glowing face of Light and a booming voice that bellows, “Return what you have stolen from me. Return the map. Stop!” They don’t stop but fall into the outer darkness. That’s how the story begins in the old movie: Time Bandits. The six little men (like the six days of Creation) had been hired by the Supreme Being to fix holes in the fabric of spacetime. However, they had just stolen the map that identified the location of these holes, and so they were running from God. They were planning to use the map to steal things throughout spacetime and then escape through more holes. One of those holes led to Kevin’s bedroom, and another out of his bedroom. That’s how Kevin found himself running from the Judgment of God, along with other little men. And I think that explains the human condition. If you say, “I’ve never stolen a map, and I’m not running from God,” you’re wrong. John 12:23-25: “... The hour has come for the Son of Man, to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth, and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life [psyche: soul] loses it, and whoever hates his life [psyche: soul] in this world will keep it for eternal life [zoe].” Did Jesus hate His own soul in this world? Does a seed hate its lonely self in this world for the sake of another? Does it pray “Save me from this hour!” like each one of us? John 12:27-29: “Now is my soul [psyche] troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose, I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not mine.” They all hear something, but they don’t hear “The voice of God.” Maybe they don’t want to hear, for what they would hear just won’t fit in their psyche? These are the people that have the map. In Exodus 19, the Israelites arrive at the Holy Mountain. They must not touch the mountain, but in verse 13, they are told to “go up into the mountain” at the sound of the long trumpet blast. In verses 16 through 19, they hear a long loud “trumpet voice [qowl],” tremble with fear, and then plead with Moses, saying, “Do not let God speak with us, lest we die” (20:19). So, God writes his Word in stone and has Moses place it in a coffin, also called an “Ark.” Of course I’m talking about the Law, the knowledge of Good and evil — the Map. In Genesis 2, Adam and Eve see it, or Him, hanging like fruit on a tree. They take the fruit of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which is also “The Life.” And then they hear “the Voice [qowl] of the Lord walking in the garden,” and they run and hide deep in their own psyches. They’ve stolen the map. People think Scripture is a map. Someone was once surprised to find W. C. Fields reading the Bible and so asked him what he was doing. He replied, “Looking for loopholes, my dear. …Looking for loopholes.” Some think John’s Revelation is a map — with loopholes through which we can avoid the Judgment of God — but it’s not a map; it’s a testimony to a person. It’s titled “The Revelation of Jesus.” John 12:31-33: “...Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth will draw [romance] all people to myself.” He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die. When we don’t “get” the image of God — who is Jesus — We don’t get the logic of Love — which is the sacrifice of Love: “to lose your life and find it.” And so, we run from the Judgment of God — which is to run into nowhere and nothing. It is to run from the Light and so hide in your own shadow. I can’t begin to explain this without three pictures that I share in sermons all the time. #1) The first image I often share is a picture of a timeline, with the numbers 1 through 6 on the timeline and all surrounded by the number 7. An arrow from the End of the timeline (7) extends to a cross on top of the number 6 on the timeline. This is the way the authors of Scripture and those in the early church viewed time. Chronological time has a beginning and end, and it can be divided into 6 days (aions: ages), all contained within a 7th day that is unlike all the other days; it’s eternal (aionios: “of the age,” the age to come). That day is filled with Light and the manifest presence of “I Am.” It’s not the absence of space and time, but the presence of all of space and time in every moment, and every moment in all of space and time. Death, darkness, and evil can only exist on the timeline, for shadows and lies can only exist on the timeline, for they are dependent upon separation in space and time. On the 6th day, God made adam (humanity), and on the 7th day, “everything is good,” and “It (all) is finished.” We are each experiencing our own creation in the 6th day, with the 7th day (eternity) in our hearts — yet not so that we can find out what God has done from beginning to end (Ecclesiastes 3:11). So, even if we have the map, we can’t read it. #2) The next illustration I like to share is a picture of a bunch of people with red lines extending through each of them, representing blood flow between them, and the Holy of Holies in the midst of them. It looks like worshipers around the old stone temple; but when I draw an outline of a man around all those worshipers, it looks like life in the Body of Christ. It’s the “Last Adam,” in whom all is one and one is all and none are alone. On the 6th day of creation, God breathed his Breath, the Breath of Life, into some “adamah (ground)” and the first adam (human) became a living soul. He must’ve looked like my grandson, James. When I first held James, I exclaimed, “He’s perfect!” And yet something was wrong — he wasn’t aware of myself, his self, or self itself; he didn’t know that he was alone. That first adam contained the Life of God and was in the very presence of God. And God said, “It is not good for the adam to be alone.” In the beginning, Adam had life, but he wasn’t living that life; he wasn’t breathing. In the beginning, I am the breath of God, not knowing where I came from, who I am, or what I do. I am a spirit of God dreaming that I am my own creator, unaware of the one who constantly holds me — my Helper. Last week, I had my first conversation with James. My daughter caught it on video. He grunts at me, and I grunt at him, and we hug. It has 3.2k views on Facebook so far — it’s life! When you pray, you may feel like you are only grunting, but the angels gather round, look in wonder at you and your Father, and exclaim, “Look! He’s perfect! An adam is beginning to live the Life — the Life of God.” There’s only one Life, and yet all of Him flows through all the vessels in His body — no longer vessels of wrath but vessels of Mercy. So, how do we get from our own individual earthen vessels to Life in the Body of Christ, which is the Kingdom of God? How does the Judgment of Love become the judgment of each and of all? Is it the law (Knowledge of Good and evil) or a life, even the Life? #3) The third image that I often share in sermons is the painting, "Mystery of the Fall and Redemption of Man" by Giovanni da Modena (1420). This is a picture of a man hanging like fruit on a tree in the middle of the garden of Eden, and the garden of Calvary, and the garden city of the New Jerusalem. It’s all one tree. In Genesis 3, God arranges for the Adam (Eve and Adam and each of us) to encounter our True Helper. He is the Voice that made them, but now in flesh and hanging on the tree in the middle of the garden. The Adam hears a lie, not knowing the Good, and so takes the Life by breaking the vessel. Adam and Eve begin to know that He’s not a map leading to treasure; He is the treasure. They haven’t made themselves good or alive but trapped themselves in death and evil. They hear the Voice that made them and flee; they each hide their true self in a false self, alone in fig leaves, shame and fear... like each and every one of us. But there is Seed in the fruit. And at the sound of the Word that is heard, the Seed germinates in the temple of the soul, the veil rips, and the Voice draws the Adam back to the tree that we now see as the cross. And we begin to know that although we did our very worst, He has always remained the very best. Although we each take His Life, he has always given His Life on the tree of Life in the Middle of the New Jerusalem coming down — the Bride and Body of Christ. He is the Judgment of Love; there is only one Judgment. He never changes; he is the same yesterday, today, and forever. As He cries, “It is finished,” and delivers up His Spirit, He saves us from ourselves and draws us all back to Himself from the inside out. For the judgment that made us is now the judgment rising from within us. The Voice that we once ran from is now our very own voice. This is the romance of God. And so, we freely choose to be what we actually are — the Image and Likeness of God. “It is finished.” In Time Bandits, just when the Evil One has Kevin and the bandits cornered, and all appears to be lost, the Booming Voice and Face of Light catches them, destroys evil, manifests as a man, and reveals that he “let them borrow the map.” “After all,” he says, “I am the Good One.” The Revelation of the eternal Judgment of God is the death and resurrection of Jesus. And yet eternity touches time at every moment on the timeline displayed in image #1. That moment is always called “Now.” By the Grace of God, at any moment you can turn, face the light and see yourself reflected in the Father’s eyes. That’s not just wishful thinking. Jesus said, “My Father is your Father. Abide in me.” In reality — that is, in the 7th day

“A dumb ass spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.” That’s 2 Peter 2:15 from the Revised Standard Version (also KJV and ASV). For some reason, it speaks to me. Of course, Peter was initially speaking of Balaam and his ass (his donkey). On October 3, 2024, as I sat in my office stressing over a sermon, my wife stuck her head in the door and said, “I was praying for you, and I heard Jesus say, ‘Remind Peter of Balaam’s ass.’ Does that mean anything to you?” And I said, “Oh yeah! I think that’s the most encouraging thing I could hear right now.” John 12:12-13, The next day [after Mary sacrificed a fortune by breaking the alabaster flask of perfumed oil over the feet of Jesus as he dined with Lazarus], the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So, they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!” Historians point out that at this same time, the Roman Governor Pontus Pilate, would have also been entering Jerusalem from the other side — entering on a war horse. John 12:14-16a, “And Jesus found a young donkey [a young ass (RSV)] and sat on it, just as it is written, ‘Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt [an ass’s colt]!’ His disciples did not understand these things at first...” I’m sure they thought, “A young ass — half an ass? Jesus, this is half-assed.” John 12:16, “His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to him.” John quotes Zechariah 9, expecting his listeners to know the context. Zechariah 9:9 (RSV), “...Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on an ass, on a colt the foal of an ass.” Then Zechariah goes on to prophecy the most fascinating things about Greece. It’s weird because Greece wasn’t a big deal in Zechariah’s time, but by Jesus’ day, “the Greeks” had become the evil empire. In 175 B.C., the Greek King Antiochus IV Epiphanies, attempted to eradicate Judaism, sacked Jerusalem, pillaged the temple, and erected an altar to Zeus in the holy place. In Zechariah 9:16, Zechariah writes, “On that day the Lord their God will save them as the flock of his people.” [“Them” is “the sons of Zion (the Jews)” AND “the sons of Greece.”] John 12:19-20, John continues, “So the Pharisees said to one another... ‘The world has gone after him.’ Now among those at the feast were some Greeks...” John then makes a big deal out of these Greeks who want to know Jesus. Then writes, “And Jesus answered them, ‘The hour has come...’” John is saying that all this stuff in Zechariah is happening in that moment. Read Zechariah and you’ll be constantly reminded of the Revelation (all of it). And from chapter nine to the end, you’ll be reminded of the next seven days in the Gospels (passion week). And strangest of all, it all seems to happen on one day: “That day.” I’m convinced that John believes that when Jesus hung on the tree in the garden on the sixth day of the week, lifted His head, and cried “it is finished,” as He delivered up His spirit... it really was finished; creation was finished, we were finished, and eternity invaded time, whether we believe it or not, whether we’re awake or still asleep. And so, all of us are truly One for “One has died for all” that all would die for One and for all, and wake from the illusion that each of us is our own creator. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female,” writes Paul, “for you all are One in Christ Jesus.” And The Word of God did all of this by riding into Jerusalem on a little dumb ass. The Pharisees said to one another, “You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him.” It was a problem for them. Would it be a problem for you? It was a problem for them because the world included the Greeks, and if the world went after Jesus, it would not be going after them. John 12:23-25, And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man, to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth, and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life [psyche] loses [destroys] it, and whoever hates his life [psyche] in this world will keep it for eternal life [zoe].” Notice that we have translated two very different Greek words with one English word: “Life.” The two words are “psyche” and “zoe.” Jesus said, “I am the zoe.” And Hebrews tells us that Jesus has an “indestructible zoe.” So, what do we mean when we say that Jesus (the indestructible life) died? Jesus also had a psyche — also translated soul — and we just read that it can be destroyed... and made new. The zoe cannot, and yet, apparently, it can be trapped and alone — for a time, as if entombed. Perhaps the best explanation of this is on the communion table in front of us every Sunday morning. The earthen vessel, the cup, is like a psyche — a physical body and psychikos (soul) body, constructed of the “adamah” of this world as it travels through space and time. In the beginning, God breathed his Zoe into you (the breath, and the life is in the blood), and you became a living soul (psychen zosan: a zoe psyche); you were inspired, in-spirited; ; you can picture the wine being poured into the cup. So, what does it mean to love God? Picture the wine being poured back into the pitcher (It looks like death, doesn’t it?) And what does it mean to love your neighbor? Picture wine poured into your cup and now being poured from your earthen vessel into another earthen vessel. And what does it mean to sin? Well, just don’t “lose your zoe.” To sin is to turn your psyche into a sealed container, like a sealed alabaster flask containing the most expensive perfume — except that what you contain is utterly priceless; it’s the Life of God. To sin is to entomb the zoe in a prison that is your own self-centered psyche. To sin is death; and according to John, we’ve already died. And what does it mean to live? It means to die to death, which is the death of death, the second death — which is to break your psyche (your earthen vessel) and bleed your zoe (the Life of God) into another vessel, even as that Life is bled into you. And eternal Life is this communion of Love which never ends, for it is the End and the Beginning; it’s eternal Life in the Body of Christ. Picture a river of wine, a river of Life, a river of blood, flowing between all the earthen vessels and back through the pitcher, such that the moment of giving is always the moment of receiving. Now, each and every vessel is a blood vessel — no longer a vessel of wrath, but a vessel of mercy. It’s not a picture of pain and death; it’s the very definition of life, health, and joy in a living body. It’s the seventh sign that is the substance to which John’s entire Gospel has been pointing. In the Revelation, the New Jerusalem coming down looks like the Old Stone Temple, but it’s made of living stones that happen to be us, and every stone is worshiping — that is, offering the sacrifice of praise — just like Mary in Bethany. Got the picture? God is Love. Jesus is the Life of Love incarnate in a body that is us. Jesus is the Logic (Logos) of Love, coordinating, animating, and delighting in his own members. “No man hates his own flesh,” writes Paul. Self-centeredness, the “survival of the fittest,” is the psyche of hell, especially if it’s wrapped in religious jargon. It doesn’t explain life; it explains death. And most people seem to think that it’s the only thing that there is. They think death is life. Life is NOT the survival of the fittest; Life is the sacrifice of the fittest, for all and in all and through all. The sacrifice of the fittest is the psyche of heaven; it’s the logic of love. Just ask a biologist: Life itself is a communion of love — one cell working with another cell, one body part bleeding the Life into another body part. When Jesus rides into Jerusalem, He’s literally descending into the belly of the beast to liberate His people from the body of the whore (“Come out of her, my people”). Those people are us, His Bride. He’s storming the gates of hell in order to destroy the works of the devil, set all of us free, and bring all of us together in Himself. He’s destroying the Psyche of Hell and replacing it with the Logic of Heaven. And for that, He needs something far more powerful than a war horse. The Greek word, “dunamis” is usually translated as “power”; it’s where we get our word “dynamite.” “Exousia,” (literally, “out of beingness”) is also translated as power, but also “authority.” It’s the power of the “Author,” His Word; it’s the power of Love; it’s the power of romance. Dunamis is the power to force a person to act against their own will. Exousia is the power to transform another person’s will such that they freely will what they had not willed before — this new desire wells up from within them like a fountain. That’s the power of the Word of Love. We don’t “get” the Image of Love: Jesus. And so, we don’t get the Logic of Love: Sacrifice. And so, we’re tempted by war horses, dynamite, and politicians that have no real power. And yet, He still chooses to storm the gates of hell on little dumb... donkeys. In Revelation 19, John writes: “The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. Then I saw the heaven opened and behold a white horse! ... The one siting on it is called the Word of God... from his mouth issues a sharp two-edged sword.” He cuts the flesh from “all people.” And he implants himself in all people as a seed, the logic of love, that will bind us all together as his body and bride. You may be dismayed by politicians and think “What can I do? I feel like a little dumb ass.” But when you tell someone about Jesus — why you like Jesus and

One particular day about forty years ago — as a new youth pastor at Bel Air Presbyterian Church — a missionary took me, a friend, and my father on a tour of the Old Tijuana City Dump. I saw the worst poverty that I’ve ever seen, all within a couple of miles from California. For $1,000, my youth group could build a little house in that dump that might house 12 people — and over the next few years, we built several. On the way home to L. A., near Disneyland, someone spotted the recently finished “Crystal Cathedral,” and we decided to pull off and take a tour. At one point, our tour guide showed us the organ. With great admiration, she gave us the specs and the cost (something like $2 or 3 million). Then she caught herself and said, “But of course, it’s not our organ. It belongs to Jesus.” In an instant, I thought of the people in the dump and the fact that whatever we do to “the least of these” we do to Him. I did some quick calculations in my head and then grabbed that woman and screamed in her face: “Jesus doesn’t want a pipe organ! Why wasn’t this organ sold, and the money given to 26,000 of ‘the least of these’ just a few miles away from this very spot?” I grabbed her and I screamed . . . in my mind — not in reality. However, I was filled with what I would call “righteous anger.” I felt wrath; I was a vessel . . . of wrath. In John 12, Jesus stops in Bethany, where He recently raised Lazarus, on His way to Jerusalem to be sacrificed for Passover. John 12: 2-7, “So they gave a dinner for Him there. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him at table. Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples... said, ‘Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?’ He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief ...Jesus said, ‘Leave her alone, she has kept it for the day of my burial.” Ouch! Judas makes a lot of sense to me. A denarii was a day’s wage. If you have a full-time job, how much do you make in a year? That’s what Mary poured out on Jesus’s feet (as well as body and hair, apparently) at a dinner party! And in Matthew and Mark, Jesus calls it a “kalos ergon: (beautiful thing).” This is the first and only “work” that Jesus calls “kalos: beautiful and good” in all of the Gospels. People want “practical application points.” Here it is: Do this. Next Sunday, we’ll invest the annual budget in a communal holy pizza party and foot massage to the glory of God! ...Or not. Although we’d have the facts, we might be missing the plot. So, what was it about Mary that made her deed so “good”? Here are a few ideas. Something about Mary: #1. Mary was impractical. When people ask, “Why be good?” it just reveals that they don’t know The Good and don’t love “The Good.” What Mary did was good for nothing, just Good. . . like God. #2. Mary was unrestrained. She was following no program. There was no “law” that she was trying to fulfill. Mary chose the Good in freedom. That’s what I call “free will.” #3. Mary was free. So, what was she thinking? Maybe she wasn’t thinking.... #4. Mary wasn’t calculating. She wasn’t asking “Is 10% enough?” She broke the bottle. #5. Mary was passionate. I’m guessing that Mary doesn’t even know that Jesus is going to die in six days; she just knows that He is Good and in Him is Life. “It is for my burial,” says the Plot . . . after the fact. Mary wasn’t comprehending; she was being comprehended — seized by the power of a great affection. I once experienced Jesus, weeping in me, for me, and through me. We wept over a trauma that I had refused to feel that had turned into anger, bitterness, and wrath, all dammed up in my soul... We forgave it, we “let it be,” and wept it out of me. He wept the trauma out of me and turned it into Joy. It was the Mary that wept with Jesus at the funeral, who also anointed Him at the great banquet. #6. Mary was living in the Now. Now is the moment in which the Plot writes His Story in us, in time. Now is the moment eternity touches time, and time becomes eternal. You can only dance “Now.” #7. Mary is dancing, and it was an intimate dance. #8. Mary was intimate. Each and all of us have surrendered to the wrong helper, been abused, sealed our souls, and assumed that our True Helper — our ‘ezer’ — does not desire our unrestrained, free, intimate, and passionate surrender. But apparently, He does. #9. Mary was sacrificial. And #10. Mary was Happy. Whenever I talk about “sacrifice,” I sense this dark cloud settling over the room, and I think it’s because we’ve been told that sacrifice means that God hates one thing in order to feel better about another thing — that God kills his own Son to feel better about us. That may be what pagan deities (like Molech) desire, but that’s not what God, our Father, desires. Think about it: Mary is sacrificing everything. And Jesus doesn’t hate the sacrifice; He delights in the sacrifice. And Mary is swept away in this communion of delight. Have you ever given like that? I bet you have. Perhaps you don’t remember it, for you weren’t calculating; and if you do remember it, you probably didn’t call it “sacrifice” but something else. I once bought a diamond for my girlfriend whom I planned to make my wife. When the jeweler would show me a diamond and quote me a price, I found myself wanting to grab him and yell, “Harry, I don’t’ care about the diamond; charge me more! Harry, I’ve got this girl! Harry, I can’t buy her love; she’s already given me her love, and I want to give her mine! I want to serve her! I want to bleed for her! Harry, I’m breaking the bottle and pouring it all out! Harry, I don’t have to do it; I want to do it! Harry, I’m a prisoner of Love.” I called it Love. “Harry, it’s impractical (I was spending all my student loan money). It’s extravagant. It’s Love! Is that wrong, Harry?” You can make an argument that Judas was right. Judas didn’t dislike Jesus; he greatly admired Jesus — he wanted to be Jesus. And so, he could use Jesus to feed the poor, heal the sick, banish the oppressor, and establish the Jewish Nation State of Israel — "his nation” and “his place.” And so, he judged Mary’s sacrifice to be a “waste,” just as I judged the worship of that tour guide at the Crystal Cathedral to be a “waste.” All the work we did in the dump would’ve been a waste, except that we found ourselves worshipping Jesus in temples of clay. And, weirdly, the kids in my high school youth group never seemed happier. It wasn’t a waste. Mary would’ve gotten this smelly oil all over Jesus: feet, clothes, head, and hair. When He hung on the tree, the sky grew black, and the earth shook, I bet He could smell Mary and know that He wasn’t alone. To Him, that was worth more than 300 denarii; it was worth His body and blood. Perhaps He is alone in your trauma and on your tree, waiting for you to weep with Him there in order that you would laugh with Him at the Great Banquet. Jesus broke for Mary at Lazarus’s funeral, and Mary broke for Jesus at the dinner. And Jesus would be broken for all in six days. And we will all be broken for each other until all are bleeding and none are broken, for all are one and each is constantly lost and found in an ecstatically happy communion of Sacrificial Love called Eternal Life. But Judas, like the Sanhedrin, is dammed (for a time). . . like the creek is dammed next to my house. Each one of us in an alabaster flask (an earthen vessel), containing the “breath of life.” God creates this self, and yet at some point, each of us begins to create a self-centered self. And so, the Life of God is dammed in a prison that I think is myself. The Judgement of God is to save me from that old vessel of wrath and turn me into a vessel of Mercy — a blood vessel in the living body of Christ. The Judgement of all is to unite each and all in Christ, constantly losing our lives (The Life is in the blood) and finding our lives and the Life in each other in Him. The Old Stone Temple was to be a banquet hall in which the fragrance of sacrifice would fill the house as a pleasing aroma. And yet, because it seemed that we are the sacrifice that God desires (and we are), and because it was required by law (and it was), and because people thought it was a way to get things from God (they didn’t understand), it was all TERRIFYING. And yet, all of this is now happening at a house in Bethany, six days before Passover, because Mary chooses to sacrifice herself in freedom — not because she has to, but because she wants to; not to get from God but to give to God. And she’s not dead but fully ALIVE, and not terrified but ecstatically HAPPY. Mary is waking up to the eternal Judgment of God. She’s waking from the illusion that she’s writing the story, and she’s surrendering to the story that has always been written. We all take The Life, trying to make ourselves Good, and we all die; we sleep, according to Jesus. But God gives His Life — who is The Good — and when we know it, we wake from the dead and begin to Live His Life. We become what we truly are: The Beautiful Thing, The Body and Bride of Christ, His Living Temple, The New Jerusalem coming down. He is the Seed in the fruit (Eve’s Apple) that rises from the dead in each and all of us, drawing us back to the tree, where together we surrender “The Life.” And lo and behold, He pours it right back in... from the bosom of the Father. And the moment of giving becomes the moment of receiving. That’s no longer death; it’s Eternal Life in the Temple of the Living God. #11. Mary is worshipping. A sacrifice of praise costs a self-centered ego but returns all things new. #12. Mary is alive; Mary is awake. “As in Adam all die, so in Christ will all be made alive.” So, Worship. That’s the impractical practical application p

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. Click here for a list of questions for re

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

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 not p