John 1:1-14   

 

I: — Seeing film clips of sneering guards who are herding children into railway cars destined for the death camps does it for me. Looking at the convicted child-molester or the serial rapist does it for others. Seeing the brutal murderer does it for others still. What does it for you? What fills you with revulsion, with repugnance, with pure loathing? For the Jew of yesteryear it was the spectacle of idolatry. Nothing repulsed the Jew so much as having to behold idolatry. When Paul visited Athens and saw the idols thronging the city, his stomach turned over.

The essence of idolatry is mistaking something creaturely for the Creator himself, and thereafter worshipping the creature instead of the Creator. Since the earliest Christians were Jews, we know that they had a heightened sensitivity to idolatry, never confusing creaturely with Creator, never mistaking the work of God’s hand for God himself. And yet the earliest Christians fell on their knees before Jesus Christ, a fellow-creature like them, and worshipped him. John exclaims, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.” The Word is God’s outermost expression of his innermost heart. John recognized that God had identified the outermost expression of his innermost heart with one human creature (and one only), Jesus of Nazareth. Paul exclaims, “He is the image of the invisible God….In him the fullness of deity dwells bodily.” Peter, possessed of a conviction that neither turbulence without nor treachery within would ever take from him, said to the Master himself, “You are the Christ [God’s uniquely anointed], the Son of the living God.” Peter, possessed of a Jewish mind, knew that “son of” meant “of the same nature as.” Thomas cries before the risen one, “My Lord and my God!” The four apostles I have just quoted were all Jews. They dreaded idolatry as they dreaded nothing else. Yet when they beheld their fellow-human, Jesus, they worshipped.

There are only two possibilities here. Either Jesus Christ is Emmanuel, “God-with-us” and the apostles were devout in worshipping him, or Jesus isn’t Emmanuel and the apostles were idolaters, even if unwitting idolaters. Either generations of Christians have been devout in adoring Jesus as Saviour and Lord, or they have been supremely superstitious, even if sincere. Christians of every era have hailed Jesus of Nazareth as the world’s sole, sufficient judge and saviour and sovereign. He can be this only if he is Emmanuel, God-with-us. Otherwise he is no more than a charlatan and we are no more than suckers. In confessing him to be Emmanuel, the church catholic has always known that any diminution of Jesus, however slight, in fact is a total denial of him.

 

II: — Just as the church catholic has always confessed Jesus Christ to be the Word made flesh, it has also always been afflicted with those who want to diminish him and thereby deny him. While perfidious attempts at diminishing him and resolute resistance to such denial have occurred in every era, there was one period in the church’s life when all of this was brought to sharpest focus. The year was 325. The place was Nicaea, a city in present-day Turkey. The contenders were Athanasius and Arius. At different times both had been bishop of Alexandria, Egypt. Athanasius insisted that Jesus Christ is precisely he whom the apostles acknowledged and confessed. Arius, on the other hand, felt he could “improve” on the apostles. Since the wording of the apostolic confessions couldn’t be altered (that is, since the vocabulary of scripture couldn’t be changed), Arius “weaseled” different meanings into familiar words. For instance, “son of” is a Hebrew expression meaning “of the same nature as.” Arius, however, “weaseled” a different meaning into “Son of God.” Now he told everyone that “Son of God” meant “similar to God.” Now the Son was said to be similar to the Father; the Son was like the Father.

The obvious question was, “How like? A lot like or a little bit like?” Athanasius replied that the real issue wasn’t how much like whether a little or a lot. The real issue, rather, was this: if Father and Son aren’t of the same nature, it makes no difference how much similar or how little similar they are, since a miss is as good as a mile. The apostles had acknowledged that the nature of the Father and the nature of the Son are identical: Father and Son have identical essence or substance or being.

Arius continued to disagree. He insisted that Jesus is a prophet, as Hosea and Amos and Jeremiah had been prophets before him. Jesus differed from the prophets, however, in that he was somewhat more than a prophet. Jesus is “prophet-plus.” Plus what? Plus a little more of the Holy Spirit, plus a little more righteousness, plus a little more obedience; it all added up to the “plus” of greater God-likeness. “Weaseling” yet again, Arius agreed that the Word had become flesh in Jesus of Nazareth but insisted that “Word” didn’t mean God’s outermost expression of his innermost heart. It was similar to that, said Arius, very much like that, almost that, but not exactly that. Then what became flesh at Christmas? What became flesh, continued Arius, was a message from God, an idea from God, a truth from God, but not God himself.

“This won’t do!”, replied Athanasius, “it isn’t what the apostles knew and confessed; it isn’t the faith by which the church has always lived.”

Athanasius then asked Arius what he meant when he said spoke of the incarnation. Arius replied that “incarnation” meant that Jesus is God’s agent on earth. “God’s agent on earth”, fumed Athanasius, “the Son isn’t God’s agent at all; the Son possesses the same substance or essence or being as the Father, and therefore the Son is the exact expression of the Father. As for God’s agent on earth, the Son is the Father’s exact expression eternally, irrespective of any earthly incarnation.”

Arius wouldn’t give up. (He also wouldn’t be corrected.) And therefore Arius came back, “Since the Son is only a prophet, albeit a prophet raised to the nth degree, the Son doesn’t know the Father fully; in fact the Son doesn’t really know the Father at all; God the Father infinitely transcends his creation and is ultimately unknowable. The Son knows something of God, is acquainted with truths of God, possesses notions of God, but in the final analysis the Son doesn’t know the Father fully. God remains unknowable ultimately.” Now Athanasius was almost beside himself. “If God isn’t knowable ultimately, on what grounds can we know him now at all? Yet the apostles were unshakably certain that they knew God himself; they didn’t merely know something about him”, said Athanasius.

Arius came back one more time. “Since the Son teaches us about the Father, therefore the Son points us beyond himself to the Father. The Son directs our worship beyond himself to the Father. The Son isn’t the focus of faith; the Father is.” Athanasius, by no means defeated, replied that the newness of the New Testament consists in its recognition of the unprecedented newness of God’s act: he has rendered himself, his nature, incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth. Everywhere in the New Testament faith is faith in Jesus Christ. Everywhere in the New Testament faith in Jesus Christ and faith in God are synonymous. To worship him is to worship God; to obey him is to obey God; to love him is to love God. Why? Because Father and Son are possessed of the same nature, substance, essence, being.

Finally Athanasius formulated the theological expression for which he remains deservedly famous to this day, homoousios. Homo is Greek for “same”; ousios Greek for “substance, being, essence, nature.” Athanasius contrasted his expression, homoousios, with homoiousios, homoi being Greek for “similar.” The difference is the Greek letter iota, the smallest letter of the Greek alphabet, as the letter “i” is the smallest of the English alphabet. Is the letter iota so very small as to be insignificant? Is the letter “i” so very small as to be insignificant? Surely there’s a difference between asking someone to run your business for you and asking him to ruin it. Homoousios means that Father and Son possess the same nature, not similar natures.

And there the debate ended, for the church catholic agreed that Athanasius had faithfully reflected the conviction of the apostles, even as the church catholic agreed that Arius was an anti-gospel heretic.

 

III: — What does it all add up to for you and me today? Does it add up to anything crucial? As a matter of fact the difference between “same” and “similar”, homoousios and homoiousios, is the difference between gospel and no gospel, therefore between faith and superstition, therefore between our salvation and our ultimate loss. Let’s look at what would be the case if Athanasius hadn’t carried the day.

(i) The gospel wouldn’t be the self-bestowal of God. The New Testament declares that in Jesus of Nazareth God gives us himself, nothing less than himself, all of himself. God doesn’t give us something; he doesn’t give us a message or a notion or an ideal or a truth. In the gospel God communicates himself, bestows himself.

(ii) The love of God would be a niggardly love, a stingy love, a miserly love, a tight-fisted love. It wouldn’t be the love that gives all, costs all, holds back nothing. Instead it would be but a truncated love. According to the gospel, in Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, God has condescended to us; not merely condescended to us as creatures, but condescended all the way down to us as sinners. God has condescended to us and numbered himself among us transgressors. God has condescended to us and become one with us. God has identified himself with us sinners fully in the person of his Son.

But if the Son were only similar to the Father, only like the Father (however close the resemblance), then the Son’s love for us sinners would be profounder than the Father’s; the Son of God would have identified himself with us in our sin but God himself wouldn’t have. Then we could only conclude that God’s love for us stopped short of ultimate condescension to us and ultimate identification with us.

(iii) The acts of Jesus would not be the acts of God. Think of Christ’s acts of forgiveness. We know that everywhere in life only the offended party can forgive. Since our sin offends God, only God can forgive sinners. When Jesus pronounces sinners forgiven, what’s going on? Are they forgiven? What right does Jesus have to pronounce people forgiven when God alone is offended? What power does Jesus have to render sinners forgiven when God alone is offended? His only right, his only power, is that he and the Father are one (as he tells us himself.) His only right, his only power, is that he and the Father are identical, not similar, in nature, substance, being.

(iv) What Jesus did on the cross would have nothing to do with atonement, that act of God whereby God makes God himself and an alienated world “at one.” What Jesus did on the cross would be nothing more than the pointless torture of a third party, all of such pointless torture of a third party having nothing to do with either God or world. The apostles insist that in the cross of Jesus, which cross is God’s judgement on and penalty for sin, God himself takes on his own judgement and penalty concerning the sin of humankind. It’s correct to say that as Jesus absorbs in himself the penalty for sin the Father absorbs the same penalty at the same moment if and only if Father and Son are one in substance. If Father and Son are merely similar, however, then the death of Jesus has no more salvific significance than the death of Abraham Lincoln or the death of D’Arcy McGee.

 

IV: — All of which brings me to the moderator of our denomination, Mr. William Phipps. Phipps persists in saying that Jesus isn’t who the apostles recognized him to be and what the church has always confessed him to be. Phipps persists in saying that Jesus Christ, in his very humanity, isn’t the presence and power of God. Phipps persists in saying that Jesus is a window through which it’s possible to see God. While there are many such windows, continues Phipps, Jesus is that window which happens to be the most relatively smudge-free. (Phipps never tells us why Jesus happens to be the relatively smudge-free window.) The apostles, however, suffered and died in allegiance to that Lord whom they found to be not a window through which one looks to God, but that incarnation upon whom one looks as God. Jesus Christ isn’t a window to a deity beyond him; Jesus Christ is the presence and power of the deity identified with him. No wonder the apostle Paul exulted, “In him the fullness of deity dwells bodily.” No wonder Charles Wesley wrote, “Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, hail the incarnate deity.” Phipps persists in denying the foundation of the church; he persists in denouncing what the apostle Jude calls “the faith once for all delivered to the saints.” When Phipps is reminded of this he retreats, saying, “I’m no theologian, I’m no theologian.” True enough. But since he manifestly isn’t, then where theological matters are concerned why doesn’t he simply shut up?

Phipps insists that he hasn’t said anything that United Church moderators haven’t said for 35 years, all the way back to Ernest Marshall Howse. Phipps is correct. His perfidy isn’t new and is no greater than theirs. Well do I remember Ernest Marshall Howse’s public denials of the incarnation when Howse was moderator. Well do I remember Howse’s Easter sermon of 1968. I as flat on my back, encased from neck to groin in a body cast as a result of a three-fatality car accident in which my spine had been fractured. Since I was encased in plaster, I didn’t go to church in Easter ’68; instead I turned on the T.V. set and watched the Howse’s broadcast from Bloor Street United Church. Howse managed to get through the entire sermon, on Easter Sunday, without once mentioning the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This, of course, was no accident, since Howse had already said many times over that such matters as incarnation and atonement and resurrection he disdained. Phipps is right: he’s no different from his predecessors in the office of moderator.

Then what are we going to do? People are always asking me what I’m going to do; many are forever telling me what I should do. One man phones me over and over and tells me every time that if I were possessed of any integrity at all I would leave a denomination whose official representative is plainly heretical.

I have no intention of leaving. Instead I encourage myself by recalling my old friends, the Wesley brothers. On 21st January, 1739, Charles Wesley preached a sermon in which he deplored Anglican clergy who, like him, had promised at ordination to uphold the gospel but who were now, unlike Charles, glibly spouting the Arian heresy. These clergy, theologically degenerate, were perforce unitarians as well. Since these men were denying the faith of the church catholic, Charles correctly pronounced them “schismatics.” And since they were now denying the faith they had sworn in their ordination vows to uphold, Charles’s unhesitatingly pronounced them “perjured schismatics.” Charles, however, would never leave the Anglican church, for he didn’t disagree with the doctrinal standards he had sworn in his ordination vows to uphold and that his denomination had never changed.

The Arian heresy was to predominate in Anglicanism for decades. Forty-seven years after Charles Wesley had spoken against it, John Wesley did as much in his tract, “On Schism.” On 30th March, 1786, at age 83, John explained to his fellow-Methodists why he wasn’t going to leave the Anglican church despite its theological degeneration, even though many of his people wanted him to leave and take them with him. Wesley’s reasoning was twofold. In the first place, regardless of the current theological miasma, the Anglican church’s official doctrinal standards had never been changed and Wesley continued to honour them. In the second place, the denomination neither requested him to do what scripture forbids nor prevented him from doing what scripture commands. As long as this was the case, said John, he had no valid reason to leave.

Three days before Wesley penned his tract, “On Schism”, he had taken a boat from Holyhead (Wales) to Dunleary, a coastal village in Ireland. Once ashore at Dunleary he had been unable to find a horse and carriage to take him to Dublin, and so he had walked to Dublin. How far? Twenty-five miles! At age 83! Why? He wanted only to visit and minister to the small group of Methodists in Dublin. They were few in number and they were harassed. The Methodists in Dublin were so very dear to him that he would have walked 25 miles on broken glass to get to them. As for the denominational defection in 18th century Anglicanism, as for the perjured clergy who ruled it; all of this was nothing compared to his love for his people and their love for him. At age 83 he gladly walked 25 miles to be with the people he loved. Nothing else mattered.

Nothing else matters still.

 

                                                                    Victor Shepherd
December 1997

John 1:1-18

 

Most people feel that words are easy to use; words can never be used up (there are so many of them); therefore words are largely useless.  No wonder words are flung about frivolously.  The microphone is stuck in front of the celebrity and she is asked to say something.  She uses many words to say nothing, and no one expected her to do anything else.  The politician is questioned in the legislature.  He starts talking.  Fifteen minutes later he hasn’t answered the question; in fact, his words are a smokescreen behind which the question is lost in “bafflegab.”  And preachers?  No doubt you have listened to preachers, many of them, who were no different.  Words are easy to use; words can never be used up; words are largely useless — so why not fling them about?

But it was different for our Hebrew foreparents.  For those people a word was an event.  In fact the Hebrew word for “word” (DABAR) means both word and event.  For our Israelite ancestors a word was a concentrated, compressed unit of energy.  As the word was spoken, this concentrated, compressed unit of energy was released.  Thereafter it could never be brought back, never re-compressed just as an event can never be undone.  Once the word had been uttered this unit of energy surged throughout the world, changing this, altering that, creating here and destroying there.

The closest we modern types come to the understanding of our Hebrew foreparents is in our grasp of how language functions psychologically.  We recognize that inflammatory speech can excite people emotionally; we recognize that sad stories can depress people.  We’ll admit that words may alter how people feel, but we still maintain that words don’t alter anything in reality.

The Hebrew conviction is different.  The psalmist writes, “By the Word of God the heavens were made.”  God speaks and the galaxies occur.   So weighty were Hebrew words that they were always to be used sparingly, carefully, thoughtfully.  It won’t surprise you, then, to learn that at the time of the first Christmas the Hebrew language contained only 10,000 words (very few, in fact) while the Greek language contained 200,000.  A word is an event, said our Hebrew foreparents.  A word has vastly more than mere psychological force.  Once spoken, a word is an event which sets off another event which in turn sets off another, the reality of it all extending farther than the mind can imagine.

 

When the apostle John sat down to write his gospel he was living in the city of Ephesus.  John was Jewish; his readers, however, were chiefly Gentile, like you and me.  In speaking about Jesus Christ, the Incarnation of the Word of God, John looked for a word which Gentiles would understand, yet a word to which he could also marry the full force of the Hebrew understanding of “word”.  The word John chose was LOGOS.  LOGOS is the Greek word which means “word”.  But it also means reason or rationality or intelligibility.  It means the inner principle of a thing, how a thing works.  The logos of an automobile engine is how a cupful of liquid gasoline can be exploded to propel a two-ton car, how the engine works.  The logos of a refrigerator is how electricity (hot enough to burn you) can keep food cold; how it works, its inner principle, the rationality of it all.

John brought the Hebrew and Greek concepts together when he stated that Jesus Christ, the babe of Bethlehem, is the word or logos of God.  When the Hebrew mind hears that Jesus Christ is the word of God it knows that Jesus is the power of God, the event of God, the effectiveness of God; an effectiveness, moreover, which can never be overturned or undone, a reality permeating the world forever.  When the Greek mind, on the other hand, the Gentile mind, hears that Jesus Christ is the word of God it knows that Jesus is the outer expression of the inner principle of God himself; Jesus embodies the rationality of God; Jesus discloses how God “works.”  John brings together both Hebrew and Greek senses of “word”.  John’s Christmas message is as patently simple as it is fathomlessly profound: the word of God has become flesh, our flesh, and now dwells among us.  This is the great good news of Christmas.

Great as the good news is, however, we must still ask how far-reaching it might be.  Is it good news, but only for a few people?  Is it good news, but only for the religious dimension of human existence?  Or is it good news of cosmic scope so vast as finally to be imponderable?  In short, how big is the baby?

 

I: — Think first of science.  Two or three generations ago it was feared that new scientific discoveries were taking people farther and farther from God.  The advances of science added up to atheism for intelligent people.  Some people reacted by speaking ill of science: “It doesn’t have all the answers, you know.”  (No scientist ever said it did.)  “There’s lots more to be discovered”.  (Of course there is; this is what keeps science humble.)  Nonetheless, the bottom line was clearly stated: “If your sons and daughters are going to study science, don’t expect them to be Christians.”

The apostle John disagrees entirely.  John insists that the realm of nature which science investigates has been made through the word, made through the logos.  This means that the inner principle of God’s own mind and being, the rationality in God himself, has been imprinted on the creation, imprinted on nature, and imprinted indelibly.  There is imprinted indelibly upon the creation a rationality, an intelligibility, which reflects the rationality of the Creator’s own mind.  What’s more, the inner principle of God himself which has been imprinted on that creation which science investigates; this inner principle is the word which has been made flesh in Jesus Christ.  All of which means that however much we may come to know of science our scientific knowledge will never contradict the truth and reality of Jesus Christ; our scientific knowledge can never take us farther from God.

Science is possible at all only because there is a correlation between patterns intrinsic to the scientist’s mind and intelligible patterns embodied in the physical world.  If this correlation didn’t exist then there would be no match-up between the scientist’s mind and the realm of nature that the scientist investigates.  To say the same thing differently: science is possible only because there is a correlation between the structure of human thought and the structure of the physical world.  If this correlation didn’t exist then no one could think truthfully about the physical world.  Then what is the origin of this correlation, this match-up?  The origin is the word, the logos, through which the realm of nature and scientists themselves have alike been created.  John Polkinghorne, a mathematical physicist and a Christian writes, “The Word is God’s agent in creation, impressing his rationality upon the world.  That same Word is also the light of men, giving us thereby access to the rationality that is in the world.”

Speaking of mathematics and physics; mathematicians don’t make scientific investigations.  Mathematicians arrange symbols, the symbols representing relations within human thinking.  Physicists, on the other hand, physicists do investigate the world of nature.  Recently it was found that when mathematicians and physicists have compared notes they have seen that the relations purely within human thinking reflect the patterns and structures in nature which scientists uncover.  In short, there is a correlation between the rationality of human thinking and the rationality imprinted indelibly in nature.  How?  Why?  Because all things have been made through the word of God: all things in the creation, including the mind of the scientist herself.

Everyone knows that science is based on observation.  But to observe nature scientifically is not to stare at it.  If I were merely to stare at the stars for the next twenty years I still shouldn’t learn anything about stars.  The kind of observing that science does is an observing that is guided by theoretical insights. These insights uncover the deep regularities undergirding what can be observed.  Where do these theoretical insights come from, ultimately?  They are produced by the word, the logos, the rationality of God, the word that became flesh in Jesus of Nazareth; for through this word both nature itself and the human mind were fashioned.

How big is the baby?  Very big.  He who was born in Bethlehem is the Word of God incarnate.  All things were made through him.  He is the outer expression of God’s “innerness”.  And by him God’s “innerness” has been imprinted on the “outerness” of nature.  Scientific discovery never distances us from God, never contradicts the truth of God, never points people toward atheism.  On the contrary, to uncover scientifically the rationality imprinted indelibly on the creation is ultimately to ask for the ground of nature’s intelligibility.  The one, sufficient ground of nature’s intelligibility can only be the intelligibility or word or logos of God himself.

 

II: — How big is the baby?  Big enough to embrace not just someone here and someone over there; big enough, rather, to embrace all men and women everywhere.  All humankind, without exception, is summoned and invited to become sons and daughters of God.  To receive the Word made flesh; to receive Jesus Christ in faith, says John, to embrace the one who has already embraced us is to find ourselves rendered children of God.

A minute ago we spoke of the rationality or order in creation.  Without such rationality scientific investigation would be impossible; more to the point, without such rationality or order life would be impossible.  No one could survive in a world where bread nourished us one day but poisoned us the next; where water doused fire one day but fuelled fire the next.  Without elemental order to the universe human existence would be impossible.  And yet while this elemental order perdures in a fallen world, the fact that the world is fallen means that the dimension of disorder is always with us.  Disease, for instance, is a manifestation of disorder.

Yet the disorder in the natural realm is slight compared to the disorder in the human mind and heart.  We men and women are fallen creatures.  We are alienated from God in mind and heart.  Because we are alienated from God in mind and heart we are disordered in ourselves; in addition, we are an infectious source of disorder in nature.  The environmentalists never weary of reminding us of this fact: we human beings are an infectious source of a huge disorder in nature.  The environmentalists don’t understand, however, that we are such inasmuch as we are disordered in ourselves and unable to restore order in ourselves.

It is as we embrace the word incarnate who has already made us and embraced us; it is as we become children of God through faith in the Son of God that alienation from God gives way to reconciliation.  Mind and heart, disordered to this point, begin to be re-ordered.  We are on the road to recovery, and we are guaranteed utmost restoration.

How big is the baby?  The word made flesh is big enough to embrace every last man and woman.  The word made flesh, our Hebrew foreparents would remind us, is also strong enough, effective enough, to render us all children of God and keep us such until that day when nothing will even threaten to separate us from him.

 

III: — Lastly, John tells us that out of the fullness of the Word-become-flesh you and I have received, and will always receive, grace upon grace.  To say that the Word has become flesh is to say that Jesus Christ has taken on our humanity in its totality; he has taken on our humanity in its exhilaration, its weakness, its frustration, its sin and its mortality.  And this humanity, yours and mine, is so surrounded by the goodness and kindness and mercy and wisdom and undeflectable purpose of God, so steeped in the grace of God, says John, that we are always receiving “grace upon grace”.  To say that we are set behind and before by the grace of God isn’t to say that God is indulgent or tolerant or blind in one eye.  But it is to say that there is a gracious persistence in God as he pardons us, assists us, and takes up whatever is done to us and whatever we do to ourselves and uses it all as only he can as he moves us toward a restoration so complete as to bring glory to him and adoration out of us.

How big is the baby?  So very big that out of the fullness of Jesus Christ we shall always receive grace upon grace and nothing but grace.  The Lord who knows my profoundest needs better than I know them myself will always supply what I need most.  It would be a very small Lord who gave me what I wanted, or gave me what I thought I needed.  If I were given what I wanted or thought I needed I should only be confirmed in my superficiality and cemented into my immaturity.  Yet so big is the incarnate one that he gives me not what confirms me in my disorder, but precisely what moves me a step closer to my recovery and restoration in him.

When I was ordained and appointed to a seacoast village I spent hours at the beach watching the Atlantic.  Hundreds of metres out to sea a wave emerged from the ocean’s immensity.  It broke on the beach, flooding the sand.  Before the wave wholly receded, however, another wave broke on the beach and flooded the sand.  Now the sand was flooded both by the incoming wave and the outgoing wave; that is, the sand was always flooded.  And then a third waved surged onto the beach before the second one (even the first) had had time to recede.  Wave upon wave.  One day as I stood on the beach before the Atlantic and watched wave upon wave I understood what John meant when he wrote, “Out of God’s fullness we have all received grace upon grace.”

It all adds up to this.  God’s immensity is always flooding us with grace.  However much we blunder, our blunder cannot ungrace us.  When our faith flickers and we feel like a half-believer at best, our flickering faith won’t expel us from the sphere and realm of grace.  When we are proud and need humbling; when we are dispirited and need encouraging; when we are bruised and need comforting; when our resilience is shaken and we need reassurance; whatever our profoundest need the immensity of grace will always prove sufficient.  The Word made flesh is this big.

 

At the beginning of the sermon I said that for our Hebrew foreparents a word is charged with power.  It is an event that, unleashed, alters reality in a way that can never be undone.  For our Gentile foreparents a word is the inner principle of a thing, its rationality, how it works.  John brought these two senses together when he spoke of Jesus Christ as the Word of God made flesh.

The rationality of the incarnate word is mirrored in the structure of creation and in the structure of human thinking, thus facilitating scientific investigation.  The recreative power of the incarnate word is able to render us children of God, thus remedying our disorder.  The grace of the incarnate word is fathomless, thus proving daily that Jesus Christ is deeper than our deepest need.

Then John’s cry must elicit an identical exclamation from us; namely, that to behold the Word made flesh is to behold glory, glory without rival and without end.

 

                           Victor Shepherd

                                                                                                        Advent 2009

 

 

John 1:14

 

TRUTH     For years I have been intrigued by the psychology of perception. What do people see? What do they think they see? Or hear? Or not hear? Everyone knows that people tend to see what they want to see and tend not to hear what they don’t want to hear. In situations of stress or fatigue or social pressure people can “see” or “hear” what isn’t there to be seen or heard at all.

Recently I found myself listening to a psychologist who has worked much in the area of perception. He told his audience the following.

An adult is placed in a pitch-black room. A pinpoint light is turned on, 10 or 15 feet away. (The light is only a pinpoint; it illumines nothing else.) Once the light is turned on it remains fixed in the same place for the duration of the exercise. Without exception, the psychologist reported, the person in the pitch-black room will say that the light moves. How much it is said to move varies from person to person: from 1 inch to 8 feet, the average being 4 inches.

There is another aspect to this experiment, an aspect that makes my blood run cold. When all the people who participated in the experiment are brought together to chat among themselves, they eventually agree (no one has overtly pressured them into agreeing) that the light moved 4 inches. Even those who, when asked alone, reported that it moved anywhere from 1 inch to 8 feet; even these people now swear that the light moved exactly 4 inches.

Note, in the first place, that people “see” what isn’t there to be seen at all: they are inventing something (a light that moves), and then are genuinely unable to distinguish what is from what they imagine. Note, in the second place, that they come to agree unconsciously lest they appear odd person out, lest they appear to be a social misfit. Note, in the third place, that all of this occurs with something (the pinpoint of light) that hasn’t been rendered deceptive or seductive in any way.

By extension, what does this experiment say about our society’s perception of political issues, educational issues, moral issues, spiritual issues, issues that concern us all?

Now suppose that the pinpoint of light, instead of being left in place, were manipulated so as to deceive people. Then think about the political issues, educational issues, moral issues, spiritual issues where there are attempts and schemes aimed at misleading us. In an election campaign Brian Mulroney swore that Canada’s social benefits were untouchable (“a sacred trust”). Upon being elected, the first thing he did was try to tamper with old age security. What did Canadians do about it? They re-elected him. Lest you think me politically biased I must remind you that Pierre Trudeau defeated Robert Stanfield by means of a promise never to implement wage and price controls. Trudeau implemented them within 90 days of being elected. Whereupon Canadians elected him again.

The two instances of turpitude I have just mentioned aren’t very subtle. (For all their obviousness, however, most Canadians still didn’t recognize them). Every day there are instances of deception far more subtle, far more devious, far more convoluted. Every day we are lied to, and lied to again, as falsehood is piled upon falsehood, fabrication upon fabrication.

How much worse it would all be if we (and our society) were victimized not only by the cunning of men and women, not only by the propaganda of the politicians, not only by the ideologues in the offices of social planning and the military and the church, but also by malignant spiritual forces that underlie and compound and disguise the distortions that we know to be deliberately engineered! Scripture insists that this very thing is happening all the time. St.Paul reminds us in II Corinthians 4 that “the god of this world” obstructs and obscures and perverts the spiritual perception of us all.

Then where is there truth? More profoundly, what is truth? Unless we know what truth is, we shan’t know where to look for it. If we don’t know what truth is and therefore don’t know where to look for it, how shall we ever find it? As a matter of fact, we aren’t going to find it. We are never going to find it. Truth must find us!

Our foreparents in faith were ecstatic over Christmas just because they knew that truth had appeared; truth had found them. Truth had overtaken them and stamped itself upon them when they hadn’t known where to look or what to look for. Truth had come upon them when their perception was distorted (and they were unaware of it), when they had been deceived by human cunning (and were unaware of it), when “the god of this world” had deceived them (and they were unaware of it).

Truth, in John’s gospel, always has the force of reality. Truth is reality as opposed to illusion (illusion being, as Freud taught us, deception that mentally healthy people cling to). Truth is reality as opposed to delusion (delusion being, as Freud taught us, deception that mentally ill people cling to). Truth is reality as opposed to falsehood, as opposed to mythology, as opposed to fantasy. Truth is reality, John insists.

John, we all know, was a Jew by birth and upbringing. He knew Hebrew. Truth, in Hebrew, has the force of firmness, stability, solidity. When truth (firmness, stability, solidity) describes a person, that person is said to be steadfast; and because steadfast, trustworthy.

“The word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.” Christmas upholds the incursion of truth into our world. The incursion of truth means the incursion of reality, firmness, solidity, steadfastness, trustworthiness. Jesus Christ comes to us with a unique power to penetrate our world of misperception, deliberate falsification, and spiritual deception. Jesus Christ is truth.

 

GRACE     All of us make promises. When we make promises we intend to keep them. Despite our utmost resolve to keep promises, however, we break them. We are promise-breakers.

God, on the other hand, is the promise-keeper. He invariably keeps the promises he makes. There is no treachery in him that could lead him to “welch” on his promises to us; on the other hand there is much treachery in us that could excuse him for abandoning his promises to us. Still, nothing deflects him. However exasperated he is with us, he never gives up on us. However frozen our hearts may be to him, his heart throbs for us. However fitful we may be in our devotion to him, he is constant in his to us. Fitfulness in us is met with only more resolute faithfulness from him.

Now to say that God is faithful is not to say that he is inflexible, rigid. Because he is flexible his faithfulness to us takes a special form when his faithfulness meets our fickleness and folly: when his faithfulness meets our sin his faithfulness takes the form of mercy. (If God were inflexible, then as his faithfulness met our sin his faithfulness — his promise ever to be our God — could only condemn us, without provision for our rescue and without opportunity for our repentance.)

You must have noticed that St. Paul begins his letters to assorted congregations with the greeting, “Grace, mercy and peace to you”. Grace is God’s faithfulness to us, promised from of old, kept unto eternity. Mercy is God’s faithfulness “flexing” so as to deal with our sin. Peace (the Hebrew word is shalom); peace, in Hebrew, is a synonym for salvation. Whenever Paul speaks first of grace he speaks finally of peace; the peace, shalom, salvation that grace finally forges. In other words, grace is faithful love so resilient, so resolute, so undeflectable that not even our icy ingratitude, not even our defiant disobedience, can discourage such love. Grace is faithful love so flexible that it “bends” itself around our sin. Grace is faithful love so constant and consistent that not even our resistance can impede it or interrupt it. For this reason whenever Paul begins by speaking of grace he ends by speaking of peace, shalom: he has imprinted on his heart the logic of grace.

Let’s gather it up in a nutshell: GRACE is God-in-his-faithfulness keeping the promises he has made to us, all for the sake of a mercy-wrought salvation that renders us his children, members of his household and family forever.

To speak of grace and truth is to say that God’s promise-keeping faithfulness (grace) is the reality, the solidity, firmness, stability, that we can trust in a world of distortion and deception and depravity

 

WORD     Perhaps there is a sceptic (even a cynic!) among us who has a most important question to ask. “If God keeps the promises he makes to us, does he do this merely because he wills to do it (the implication being that he could break his promises if he willed to break them), or does he keep his promises because it’s his nature to keep them?” When God keeps his promises, are we merely looking at something God does (for reasons known only to him), or are we looking into the innermost, unalterable heart of God?

We have already determined that grace means God is consistent in his attitude and act. But is God consistent in the sense of being a consistent actor? When the movie Awakenings was about to be filmed Oliver Sacks, the neurologist who wrote the book (Awakenings), spent much time with two superb actors, Robin Williams and Robert de Niero. Sacks was startled and more than a little frightened at the ability of these two actors, since he noticed that they could take on any role, any identity, and act it with perfect consistency for as long as they wanted. But of course none of the roles, identities, they took on were they themselves; none of their roles reflected their innermost heart.

What about God? The “face” that he “puts on” for us in Jesus Christ; is this “face” only skin-deep, or does it reflect depths in God that are so deep they couldn’t be deeper? Does it reflect the innermost heart of God?

As we answer this question you will have to bear with me as we make a short detour into the Greek dictionary. There are two Greek words for word. One word for word is hrema, while the other is logos. Hrema means “that which we utter”. Logos, on the other hand, means “outermost expression of innermost essence”. When John speaks of the Incarnation as the Word becoming flesh, he uses logos. John is plainly telling us that what looms before us in Jesus Christ isn’t merely an act or action of God (as though God could act differently if he felt like it); what looms before us in Jesus Christ is the outermost expression of the innermost essence of God himself.

God doesn’t keep his promises to us just because he feels like keeping them, his promise-keeping telling us nothing about his heart or nature. God doesn’t keep his promises today, the implication being that he might not tomorrow. The consistency God displays isn’t the consistency of actors like Robin Williams and Robert de Niero. Rather, in Jesus Christ we are beholding the heart of God himself. God will never do anything other than what he has done in Christ and is doing now simply because he cannot do anything other.

To say the same thing differently, grace and truth are not roles that God acts superbly; grace and truth are the Word, the outermost expression of the innermost essence. God will always be — can only be — what he is for us in Christ Jesus our Lord. Put the other way around, what God is for us in Christ he is in himself eternally. It is the innermost heart of God that has invaded our world of distortion and deception and depravity.

 

FLESH     “The Word became flesh.” Typically, in scripture, “flesh” refers to our creaturely weakness. “Flesh” is the bible’s one-word abbreviation for our frailty, our fragility, our vulnerability to betrayal, to disappointment, to disease and to death. “Flesh” refers to our ultimate defencelessness in the face of everything we struggle to protect ourselves against but finally can’t.

To say that the Word became flesh is to say that God has stepped forth from his eternal stronghold and has stepped into our frailty, fragility, vulnerability and mortality. But he hasn’t done this just to prove that it can be done; and he hasn’t done this just to keep us company. He has done it in order that his grace and truth might become operative in you and me this instant. He has done it in order that grace and truth might seize us and soak us and shake us as often as we think that our vulnerability or our fragility or our mortality is the last word about us. He has done it in order that on any day of confusion or collapse truth will find us yet again; on any day of disgrace grace will bend the love of God around us and wrap us in his love as God’s faithfulness to us flexes yet again in the face of our sin. He has done it in order that on every day we shall know that we aren’t orphans lost in the vastness of the universe; rather we are children of him who has promised never to abandon us, always to cherish us, thoroughly to save us.

Christmas: an event in four words.

TRUTH: a firm, stable reality we can trust.

GRACE: God’s promise-keeping faithfulness as his love becomes mercy whenever it meets us in our sin, bringing us peace, shalom, salvation.

WORD: All of the this reflecting not merely something God does occasionally but reflecting who God is eternally.

FLESH: God himself going so far to keep his promises to us as to step forth from his stronghold and give himself up for us in the midst of our suffering and death.

 

“The Word became flesh…full of grace and truth.”

                                                                     Victor A. Shepherd                   

Christmas 1995

John 1:14

 

I: — It means a rescue operation, a salvage operation. Salvation (the unique work of the saviour) is a salvage operation.

One week after the birth of Jesus, Mary and Joseph took their infant son to the temple to have him circumcised. There they met Simeon, an aged man who had waited years to see God’s Messiah. With a cry that relieved decades of aching longing Simeon took the baby in his arms and exclaimed, “Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.” Peace? Did Simeon mean that at last he had peace in his heart, peace of mind? No doubt he meant that too, but that wasn’t what he meant primarily when he cried, “Peace! At last!”

You see, Simeon was an Israelite. In the Hebrew language “peace” is a synonym for “salvation”. “Peace” means God’s definitive reversal of the distortion, disfigurement and distress which curse the world on account of sin and evil.

Years later, in the course of his earthly ministry, Jesus healed a menorrhagic woman. When he had identified her in the crowd he said, “Daughter, your faith has saved you; go in peace.” He meant, “Through your faith in me God’s salvation has become effective in you; now you step ahead in the reality of your salvation; you walk in it; you live out of it for the rest of your life.”

When Simeon lifted up the week-old Jesus and cried, “Lettest now thy servant depart in peace” he added, “for mine eyes have seen thy salvation…light for revelation to Gentiles.”

Why does he speak of the Gentiles? Plainly Simeon thought that prior to the advent of Jesus Christ Gentiles were “in the dark” with respect to God. The light that Jesus Christ is, said Simeon, alone could save us Gentiles who know nothing of the Holy One of Israel. Was Simeon correct? Years later Paul would describe Gentiles as “separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.” Apart from him who is the Christmas gift are we Gentiles Godless and our predicament hopeless? Paul assumed this to be unarguably obvious!

Two weeks ago the University of Toronto conferred an honourary doctorate on Isaiah Berlin, professor at Oxford University. Isaiah Berlin is regarded as one of the finest scholars of humanist conviction anywhere in the world. Multilingual, philosophically erudite, possessed of a remarkable grasp of history, he is intellectually awesome. In his address to the university he detailed the undeniable dark side of human history. While humankind had always been prone to warfare (with the huge loss of life unavoidable in war), it was Napoleon who first developed large-scale slaughter, large-scale in that the slaughter spread vastly farther than battlefield combatants. Then Isaiah Berlin pointed out that the 20th century was unparalleled for slaughter on an even greater scale: the Stalinist purges (not to mention the people Marxism has slain wherever Marxism has been ascendant), the Holocaust, the Killing Fields of the Khmer Rouge, and so on. It is the 20th century that has provided conclusive proof of what the previous centuries suggested to be the state of the human heart. As Berlin spoke, making his case stronger by the moment, the weight of his cumulative argument seemed on the point of convincing everyone that humankind of itself could never reverse its history of rapacity and cruelty. At precisely this moment (according to the Globe and Mail write-up) Berlin turned 180 degrees and announced, without any justification at all, that a glorious new day was just around the corner. History, to this point bleak beyond imagining, would suddenly reverse its course in the 21st century. Humankind was on the cusp of generating a genuinely new future for itself, said Berlin, and his only regret was that he, an old man now, would not live long enough to see us do finally what we had never been able to do to this point!

I was stunned. Berlin’s intellect is far greater than mine. Nevertheless, he exemplifies the point scripture makes over and over: a major consequence of our sinnership is blindness — blindness to truth, blindness to reality, blindness to the nature of sin and the necessity of the saviour. The worst aspect of blindness, of course, is blindness to our blindness; ignorance of our ignorance; insensitivity to our spiritual insensitivity. In a word, the worst consequence of our condition is utter unawareness of our condition and its consequences.

Then Paul was correct, wasn’t he! Humankind is Godless and its predicament is hopeless!

Except that the saviour of humankind that human history cannot generate; this saviour has been given to us. It is the fact of the gift that made Simeon’s heart sing. The fact of the gift means that humankind doesn’t have to remain Godless; its predicament doesn’t have to remain hopeless! What we must crave to do is receive the gift, never spurning it, never trifling with it, never pretending, along with Professor Berlin, that no such gift is needed even though the cumulative evidence is that such a gift — God’s own rescue — is our only hope.

I rejoice that this gift does not come to us with the impersonal label “humankind” written on it, as though it were for everyone in general but no one in particular. Rather I rejoice that it comes with my name on it. As often as I rejoice in this I recall the verse from the Hebrew bible — “I have engraved you on the palms of my hands, says the Lord”. And then I think of the four-line ditty I learned as a child:

My name from the palms of his hands
Eternity cannot erase.
Impressed on his heart it remains
In marks of indelible grace.

I rejoice that the gift with my name on it has come to me in such a manner as to impel me to own the gift, cherish the gift, glory in the gift. For I too can say with Simeon, “Peace! From the prince of Peace himself! Immanuel: ‘God-with-us'”. And because of “God-with-us”, I with God eternally.

 

II: — Christmas means something more to me. It means that the saved life I have been given in Christ I must henceforth live and can live. A minute ago I referred to Christ’s saying to the healed menorrhagic woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” He meant, “Your faith has immersed you in the salvation of God; now you live out of that salvation, live from it, for the rest of your life.” What she had been given in Christ she was obliged to live and — most importantly — could live.

When the woman caught in the very act of adultery was brought to Jesus he said to her, “I don’t condemn you; now you see to it that you never do this again.” What she had been given in Christ she was obliged to live and could live.

When the paralyzed man was brought to Jesus he said to him, “Your sins are forgiven; take up your bed and walk.” Our Lord didn’t mean, “Walk around, go for a stroll, meander, try a little sightseeing.” “Walk”, rather, is the commonest metaphor in the Hebrew bible for the obedience God requires of his people. In light of what God’s salvation, God’s people can walk as he requires them to walk.

When Jesus says to three different people on three different occasions, “Go in peace”, “See to it that you never do this again”, “Start walking and never stop”; when our Lord says these he is saying exactly the same thing to all three. What the salvaged are supposed to do the salvaged can do.

Christmas celebrates the Incarnation. The Incarnation is God himself living among us under the conditions of our existence. The Incarnation is therefore God himself living our difficulties, our disappointments, our distresses. The book of Hebrews speaks of Jesus as “the pioneer and perfecter of our faith”; he has forged a way through life’s thickets ahead of us. We don’t have to forge a way through the thicket; we need only follow him on the path he has forged for us. But this we must do, and by his grace this we can do.

Many years after Christmas, when our Lord was full-grown and had embarked on his public ministry, he told his followers that they were light and salt. Obviously we are not light in exactly the same sense that Jesus Christ is. He is the light of the world; our vocation is to shine with his light so as to reflect it into nooks and crannies where life unfolds for us.

Jesus also insisted that his followers are salt. Salt, in the Hebrew bible, is the symbol of God’s covenant with his creation. His covenant is his promise that he will never fail us or forsake us, never quit on us, never give up in disgust or despair, however angry with us he might be for a season. Christians are to be the living sign that God has not abandoned his creation and will not abandon it.

We are to be such a sign. Impossible? Except that our Lord has pioneered this for us already. We need only follow him on the proof-path. Because the salvager has been there ahead of us, we the salvaged must follow him and we can.

 

III: — Christmas means one thing more to me. It means that the ordinary is fraught with eternal significance. The apostle John speaks of the Incarnation as the Word becoming flesh. He means more than the fact that the self-utterance of God clothed itself in a human body: bones, blood, skin, hair, teeth. He means that the Word immersed itself in every aspect of our existence, from employment problems to temptation to fun-time partying to betrayal to exhilaration to grief to laughter to pain. None of it is foreign to God.

We must never forget that our Lord was born to ordinary parents, grew up in an ordinary town (Nazareth being a generic town like North Bay or Moose Jaw); he worked at an ordinary trade and ate ordinary food. He was so ordinary as not to be noteworthy; there is virtually no mention of him in the literature outside the New Testament. He was one more itinerant preacher of one more Messianic sect handled one more time in the manner Roman security guards were so good at. Yet he was also the sole, sovereign Son of God whose coming among us is the occasion of God’s most intimate presence, God’s most effective mercy, God’s unique opportunity.

Since life is 98% ordinary, it is in the ordinary moments of life that we are going to have serve God. Instead of looking for the extraordinary, the dramatic, we should understand that we are salt and light not particularly when we try to be or are challenged to be; if we are salt and light at all then we are salt and light all the time.

Jesus went to a wedding, and there was given opportunity to attest the mission of his Father. After the wedding he went to a funeral, and opportunity was given him for a different ministry. On his way to the next village a distraught parent told him of a daughter’s sickness; while he was sorting out this development someone who didn’t like him accosted him. It was all so very ordinary — and therefore it was all the opportunity of a particular word and deed and blessing and comfort.

The child in front of us in the variety store is crying because her mother has sent her to the store for a loaf of bread the child has lost her money. Two teenagers in front of us are maliciously teasing an elderly man in Erin Mills Town Centre. The stranger in the bed beside the person we have gone to see in the hospital calls out to us. Our spouse arrives home with horrendous headache and hair-trigger nerves on account of a sneak attack at work when she never expected it and therefore could not protect herself against it.

This is where we live. Christmas, the celebration of the Incarnation, reminds us that this is where God lives too. Then there is opportunity for discernment and service and intercession and courage right here. Depending on the situation there is opportunity (and need) for ironfast inflexibility or for the gentlest accommodation.

I am moved every time I recall a story of St. Francis of Assisi. An eager, enthusiastic novice among the friars told Francis that day-to-day existence with brothers in the order was suffocatingly ordinary. The two of them should move out into the wider world and bear witness to Jesus Christ. Francis agreed that this was a good idea. “But first let’s first walk through the city of Assisi from end to end”, insisted the older man. The two fellows did nothing more than walk through the city. When they had traversed it the impatient novice, puzzled now, turned to Francis and remarked quizzically, “But I thought we were going to testify to our Lord!” “We just did”, replied Francis quietly, “we just did.”

Life consists of the ordinary punctuated by the extraordinary. Punctuation marks are found relatively infrequently, aren’t they? I have yet to see a sentence that had more punctuation marks than words! Punctuation marks may help us read a sentence but they don’t make up the sentence. And strictly speaking, punctuation marks are not even necessary. (Something as important as a telegram, after all, has no punctuation marks.)

It is a sign of spiritual maturity when we understand that the ordinary is the vehicle of the eternal; it is a sign of spiritual alertness when, from time-to-time, we see how this has occurred. It is a sign of faithfulness when we live day-by-day in the certainty that there is no ordinary moment that God doesn’t grace, and therefore there is no ordinary moment that is finally insignificant.

Christmas is the celebration of the Incarnation. Incarnation — the living word and will and way of God becoming flesh of our flesh in our midst; Incarnation is the foundation of everything pertaining to the Christian faith.

Incarnation means a salvage operation that is nothing less than the salvation of God.

Incarnation means that the salvaged life God grants us through our faith in Jesus Christ is a life we must live and can live, since our Lord has pioneered it for us.

Incarnation means that the ordinary is the vehicle of God’s summons to us, as well as the occasion of our obedience to him through service to others.

This is what Christmas means to me.

                                                                          Victor A. Shepherd

December 1994

 John 1:43-51          Genesis 28:10-17

 

“Faith is an experiment which results in an experience”, many preachers used to say a few years ago. Myself, I have never liked the expression. Anyone with even highschool training in science knows that experiments are carefully controlled set-ups designed to prove something about nature.  But life isn’t a carefully controlled set-up.         Therefore life has little in common with laboratory experiments.   What’s more, life, human existence in all its grandeur and depth and mystery and wonder, can’t be reduced to nature.  To be sure we human beings do have one foot in the world of nature; i.e., we share much with our second cousins, the animals.  But we also have one foot (better, head and heart) in a higher world. We transcend nature in a way that the animals don’t. I don’t like the expression, “Faith is an experiment which results in an experience.”

There is another reason why I don’t like it.  What is the experience which is supposed to follow from the experiment? Is it some kind of intrapsychic fireworks or frenzy or ecstasy?  I’ve seen many people, but especially younger people, who have been urged, “Try Jesus for the best experience of all”.  Then they try to work up a religiously-fuelled experience, never satisfied with the experience they have (whatever that may be), always comparing their rather mild experience to someone else’s intense experience, or at least comparing it to the intense experience they think they are supposed to have. Eventually they give up on it all, sadly turning away from the church which has disappointed them, even bitterly denouncing faith as fraudulent.

I dislike the expression, “Faith is an experiment which results in an experience”, for yet another reason.  Any “experiment” in life is going to result in an experience of some kind. Driving an automobile at 200 kph will result in an experience of some sort: either the exhilaration of ultra-high speed, or the distress of being arrested, or the pain of colliding with a bridge abutment.  These are all experiences too.

The purveyors of street-drugs are quick to tell young people that experiments with angel-dust and nose-candy result in a terrific experience. And so they do.

When we move from the sensational to the apparently profound the problem remains the same. Everyone is faced with a cafeteria of options for believing and living.  Christianity is one item in the cafeteria, along with the New Age movement, hedonism (maximization of pleasure), nationalism, eastern religions, existentialism, you name it.         When younger people especially look over the cafeteria-offerings, which one are they supposed to select as their experiment?   Since all of them result in an experience of some sort, how prefer one to another?

And yet I don’t pretend for a minute that a clergyman like me, saying, “Forget the cafeteria; Jesus is the way to go”, is going to persuade very many people either. Then how do people become disciples of our Lord, follow him through life, all the while finding their conviction growing that in following him they have set out on the sure and certain route and desire to look nowhere else? We can be helped in understanding just how this happens as we probe our Lord’s encounter with Phillip and Nathanael in the first chapter of John’s gospel.

I: — Phillip says to Nathanael, his neighbour, “We have found what all of us are looking for; we have found the one who addresses the unspoken longing of every human heart; he is the satisfaction of every thinking person’s quest; he’s from Nazareth.”

“ Nazareth !” Nathanael explodes; “Can anything good come out of Nazareth ? What did that one-horse town ever produce?” Nathanael is plainly sceptical. And there’s nothing wrong with being sceptical.  The opposite of being sceptical is being gullible.  I’ll take the sceptical person every time.  The sceptical person, the “doubting Thomas”, the man or woman “from Missouri ” is less readily damaged herself and inflicts less damage on others.

Gullible people, readily “taken in”, are always being played for suckers.  Because they are always throwing themselves after anything that sounds the slightest bit appealing, they are always on the edge of throwing themselves away. Again and again they are left jaded, discouraged and embarrassed.  It’s far better to be sceptical.  “Nazareth has never produced anything worthwhile that anyone can recall”, is Nathanael’s ice-cold reply to Phillip’s enthusiasm, “and I don’t want to run after this fellow you say you have turned up, only to be left looking like a gullible fool.”

And yet scepticism, carried to the extreme, renders us immobilized.  If I am ceaselessly sceptical then not only will I not purchase what is pushed at me through slick advertising, I won’t purchase anything. If I’m forever sceptical of the automobile salesperson, I am going to be stuck with walking everywhere. If I’m sceptical of every last woman, I’ll never be married.  We can’t live like this. If we are going to avoid being frozen in 100% paralysis, then at some point we have to suspend our scepticism.

II: — How does Nathanael come to suspend his?   His friend Phillip says to him, “I know you are a ‘doubting Thomas’, but come and see for yourself.” Nathanael trusts his friend enough to put his own scepticism “on hold” for the moment. Phillip himself had met Jesus on the recommendation of Andrew and Peter.  All four men lived in Bethsaida and knew one another. We suspend our scepticism upon the recommendation of someone we know trust.

I didn’t always think this way. I used to think that scepticism was to be hammered out of one’s head by rigorous logic. People were to be argued out of their unbelief and into faith.  Let me say right now that I don’t think faith to be illogical; I don’t think that coming to faith means pickling one’s brains.   Nevertheless, to say that faith is reasonable isn’t to say that people can be argued into it. Still, I used to think that they could be, they should be, and I was the one to do it.

When I lived in residence at university and was schooled in philosophy I relished the daily after-supper entertainment.  Before serious study got underway for the evening we customarily had an intellectual joust. I was good at intellectual jousting. Bold and brazen I took on all those who argued against faith and slew most of them. Some students were easier to argue into silence than others.  (Generally it was easier to turn inside out someone from the social sciences than someone from the natural sciences.)   I have to tell you, however, that not one of the students I hammered intellectually was won to the kingdom (as far as I know).  Public defeat did nothing to overcome their scepticism.  Instead, their attitude was, “Shepherd, you may have won this round through your verbal footwork, but we aren’t impressed, we aren’t persuaded, and we remain unconvinced as to the truth of what you tell us.”

As a matter of fact most people won’t be argued out of their unbelief.  Then how do they emerge from it?  Different factors, many different factors, work together to bring them to the one whom Phillip had met and whom he now recommended to Nathanael.

An important factor is our own transparency, our singlemindedness.  Upon the recommendation of Phillip, Nathanael started toward Jesus. Our Lord saw him coming and exclaimed, “Here is an Israelite in whom there is no guile” – no deceit, no duplicity.  To be honest with oneself, to be without wiliness and cunning is to have taken a giant step towards truth.  If at present we are able to believe so little about God that we appear to believe nothing about him, believing only that we ourselves must be transparent, without duplicity, then we have unknowingly taken a giant step towards faith. You see, to be sincere in one’s quest for truth is to find that truth comes forth to meet us. God grants truth to transparency.

Transparency, however, isn’t the only factor in the mix that moves us from unbelief to faith. Another factor is sitting under the fig tree. When Jesus said to Nathanael, “Here is an Israelite as transparent as the day is long”, Nathanael replied, “How do you know me?” Jesus came back, “Even before Phillip recommended me to you, I saw you under the fig tree”. In Israel of old the fig tree was the symbol for the salvation of God.  People sat under a fig tree when they reflected upon the salvation of God, when they reflected upon it so as to quicken their longing for it. When Jesus said to Nathanael, “I saw you under the fig tree”, he meant, “I looked into your heart, and I saw that deep down you are concerned about the salvation of God and every aspect of it.  Your consuming concern is God, his truth, his way, his triumph.  I know that you long for God’s restoration of a world the fall has rendered false, a world evil now torments.         I know that you long for God’s restoration of men and women who were created to be his sons and daughters and are currently living like orphans. I saw you under the fig tree.”

At this moment Nathanael cried out, “You are the Son of God. You are the King of Israel.” At that point Nathanael’s scepticism evaporated completely.  He moved from healthy scepticism to healthier faith.

Remember: he wasn’t argued into faith. He wasn’t moved by a barrage that left him unable to reply yet still unconvinced in his heart. Instead there were several factors moved him from unbelief to faith: a friend whose recommendation he could trust, his own transparency and sincerity, his concern with matters that are oceans deeper than sports scores and interest rates; namely, his concern with the salvation of God and his place in it – all these factors fused together and were made fruitful by the approach of Jesus Christ himself.  Together they moved Nathanael to become a believer.   This is how people become believers today.

III: — Lastly we should ponder our Lord’s promise to the newest disciple: “You will see heaven opened, and the angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man”.  Here Jesus brought forward the old story of Jacob and his dream.  Jacob lay down to sleep and dreamt of angels ascending and descending upon a ladder that linked heaven and earth.  When Jacob awoke he exclaimed, “Surely the Lord is in this place…. This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” Jesus adapts Jacob’s dream, replacing the ladder linking heaven and earth with himself; he is where God “houses” himself; he binds heaven to earth and earth to heaven; he acquaints us with God just because he himself isthe outpoured heart of God and the face of God.  At the same time he acquaints us with a restored humankind and a restored creation just because he himself is this.

 

I can say without hesitation or qualification that Jesus Christ is indeed all that he promises to be. He is truth and way and life.

Jesus Christ is truth. As truth or reality he exposes illusion and fantasy and falsehood for what they are.  As I read novels or biographies I read them through the spectacles of God’s truth. And as I do this, I discern both reality and illusion not only in the characters of novel or biography, but also in the writers themselves.  In turn I am moved afresh to pursue truth in my own life, repudiating the seductive illusions, the enticements that lap at me as surely as they lap at you.

Jesus Christ is life. Since he has been raised from the dead, death cannot overtake him; neither can death overtake us who love him.

For years I have been intrigued by a peculiar awareness that looms in forty-year olds and grows as they age until it becomes haunting.  It’s the realization of their mortality.  When someone much older, someone ninety or ninety-five, dies, even dies easily, people much younger are disturbed, I have found.  The elderly person’s death has swelled even more their awareness not only of their own mortality but of the transience of everything about them – children, spouse, parents, careers, savings, aspirations. It’s all going to be swallowed up in death. Except – to love him who is resurrection and life is to know two things: first, our coming death is nothing more than mere biological interruption, nothing more than a momentary disruption of the order of a petty nuisance; second, everything about us that has reflected the goodness of the kingdom of God, will be brought with us through the momentary interruption. Jesus Christ alone is resurrection and life; to love him is to be the eternal beneficiary of what he is in himself.

Jesus Christ is way. The road of discipleship leads us to a glorious destination.  The road we walk in faith never winds down into a swamp, never lands us in quick-sand or dead-end.  Of course it’s not always an easy trek.  Any suggestion it might be is routed by one reading of the gospels or of John Bunyan’s masterpiece, Pilgrim’s Progress.

Yet as challenging as discipleship is, the challenge will never be greater than the reward.  And if in a moment of discouragement we are tempted to think that this way, the which our Lord himself is, is too challenging, a quick glance at other roads – meandering, desert-riddled dead-ends – will keep us following him who has pioneered the way ahead for us, now accompanies us on the road, and simultaneously cheers us on from the finish line where he awaits us.

Twenty centuries ago a man named Phillip said to his friend Nathanael, “I have found someone you should know.         Come and see for yourself”.  Phillip’s recommendation inched Nathanael past his scepticism.  Nathanael saw for himself, with the result that Jesus Christ became the truth and wonder of his life as well as his eternal destiny.

Come and see for yourself.

 

                                                                                            Victor Shepherd          

July 2006

 

John 3:1-17

It would be difficult to imagine anyone more rigid, more defensive, more inflexible – in a word, more “uptight” – than John Wesley in Georgia, 1737. When day-old infants were brought to the church for baptism, Wesley insisted on immersing them completely three times over! As horrified mothers objected to this dangerous practice (wasn’t it enough that the infant-mortality rate was already 50%?) Wesley reacted by refusing to serve Holy Communion to the mothers themselves.

At this point in his life Wesley was a moralist. He thought the mission of the church to be that of improving the moral tone of the society. Like all moralists he was also a legalist; that is, he thought that people were admitted to God’s favour on the basis of rule-keeping. Like moralists and legalists in general, he was superior, disdainful, autocratic, unbending: in a word, obnoxious.

Obnoxious he certainly was; stupid, however, he was not. A graduate of Oxford University, Wesley was proficient in the ancient languages: Latin, Greek, Hebrew. He knew philosophy, history, literature, logic, theology. French appears to have been the only modern language in which he was schooled formally. Still, on the three-month voyage to Georgia he taught himself German so thoroughly that years later he translated dozens of Paul Gerhardt’s hymns from German to English. In the New World he came upon some Italian settlers who were without a clergyman. Wesley conducted worship for them, reading the Anglican Prayer Book service to himself while translating it aloud into the Italian he had recently taught himself. In Frederica, a village a few miles from Savannah, Wesley came upon a Jewish community. The Jewish people were from Portugal but spoke Spanish. Whereupon Wesley taught himself Spanish in order to converse with them.

Then disaster overtook him. He was 34 years old and had become infatuated with an 18 year old woman, Sophy Hopkey. She rejected him in favour of another man whom she subsequently married, Mr. Williamson. Hurt, frustrated and angry all at once, Wesley found excuses to withhold Holy Communion from Sophy, thereby suggesting to the public that she was scandal-ridden. Her husband was outraged. He had the politically powerful summon a Grand Jury. The Grand Jury indicted Wesley, and he took the next ship back to England in order to escape a lawsuit.

Why had he gone in the first place? He had gone inasmuch as he was a spiritual groper. He had thought that going to the wilderness in the New World would somehow translate into a fresh start for him in his spiritual quest. Candidly he said he’d gone in hope of saving his own soul.

Having returned to England a disillusioned man, haunted by his failure and tormented by his quest, he floundered for months until one Sunday evening he went to a service in London. He says he went “very unwillingly”, no doubt because he felt there was no point to going: his situation was hopeless and he himself helpless. Listen to Wesley now in his own words:

“In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where
one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter
before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart
through faith in Christ, I felt my heartstrangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ,
Christ alone for salvation, and an assurance was given me that he had taken away
my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”

It was 24^th May, 1738, the occasion of the long-awaited turn-around in his life. His moralism and legalism were behind him forever. Immediately his preaching shifted from moral exhortation to gospel-offer. His attitude to people, especially those beneath his social position, shifted from contempt to compassion. His rigorous self-discipline shifted from an achievement by which he sought to gain favour with God to a simple life-style that freed up everything about him and made it available to others. It happened on 24^th May, 1738, thereafter known to all Methodist Christians as “Wesley Day.”

Years later he and other Methodists (Methodism at this time was still a movement within Anglicanism) began to speak of “Our Doctrines.” The doctrines of the Methodists, however, weren’t unique to Methodists. “Our Doctrines” were the doctrines of the church-at-large. There was nothing novel about them. Wesley abhorred theological novelty, insisting that anything novel had to be heretical or cultish. “Our doctrines” were the doctrines of Christians everywhere. At the same time, Wesley insisted that his people own them, and own them with mind and heart, understanding and zeal.

 

[1] First among “Our Doctrines” is justification by faith. Justification or righteousness means right-relatedness to God. Justification, right-relatedness by faith is always to be contrasted with justification by something else; namely, justification by achievement. The issue is this: is our righted-relationship with God, our standing with God, a gift from God, or is it something we earn and therefore merit? With the help of friends who were spiritual descendants of Luther, Wesley came to see that scripture clearly affirms our right-relationship to God to be God’s gift, a gift that we come to possess by faith.

To say that sinners are justified is to say that those in the wrong before God are put in the right with God. It’s to say that they are pardoned, or forgiven, or acquitted, or freely accepted. All these terms mean the same. To say that this happens through the faith of the believing person is to say that such a person welcomes God’s forgiveness, endorses God’s acquittal, accepts God’s acceptance of oneself. Needless to say, faith must never be construed as a virtue that God recognizes and rewards. Faith must never be construed as an achievement that merits pardon with God.

Faith is simply the bond that binds us to Jesus Christ. Isn’t Jesus Christ the Son with whom the Father is well-pleased? Then as we are bound to Christ in faith, and bound so closely to him as to be identified with him, we are now the son or daughter with whom the Father is pleased. Isn’t Jesus Christ the only covenant-partner of God who keeps the covenant with his Father? Then as we are bound to Jesus Christ in faith and thereby identified with him, we who are covenant-breakers in ourselves are now covenant-keepers in Christ. Isn’t Jesus Christ the one whose cross bore the sin of humankind? Then as we are bound to him in faith and identified with him our sin is borne away.

The apostle Paul gloried in the truth of justification by faith. Yet we mustn’t think that Paul invented the doctrine. He had found it everywhere in the earthly ministry of Jesus.

Jesus stopped at the foot of the tree where a wistful but cautious Zacchaeus was hiding. “Come on out of that silly tree-perch”, said Jesus, “I’m going home with you to eat with you.” To eat with someone meant, in first-century Palestine, to accept that person. There was our Lord’s justification of the tree-percher! And Zacchaeus’s eager welcome of our Lord was faith.

Our Lord told a parable of two men who went to church to pray. One fellow, indisputably a moral giant, tried to use his moral attainment as a bargaining-chip with God. The other fellow could only plead, “God, be merciful to me a sinner.” “I tell you”, said Jesus, “this man went home justified.”

Justification by faith is the beginning of the Christian life; it’s the beginning of the Christian life and the stable basis for all else in the Christian life. Justification by faith is first among “Our Doctrines.”

 

[2] Second is the new birth. Whereas justification is a change in the believer’s standing before God (from condemnation to acquittal, from rejection to acceptance, from expulsion to welcome), regeneration or new birth is a change within the believer herself. Wesley spoke of justification as a relative change (relative because of a changed relationship) and of new birth as a real change.

Through the prophet Ezekiel God had promised to create a new heart, a new spirit, within his people. Ezekiel contrasts the new “heart of flesh” with the old “heart of stone.” The heart of flesh beats, pulsates, throbs. It invigorates someone who is alive. The heart of stone, on the other hand, is the heart of a corpse, a heart taken over by rigor mortis. The difference between the heart of flesh and the heart of stone is the difference between someone who is alive unto God and someone who is inert before God. It’s the difference between someone who is responsive to God, meeting God, and someone who is insensitive, unresponsive, indifferent.

As glorious as justification is (the freely-bestowed forgiveness of God), Wesley knew it wasn’t enough. He asked himself a question as simple as it was profound: can people be changed, really changed, changed from the inside out? Everyone knew that behavioural conformity could be fostered. (Moralists and legalists major in this.) But could a change so very profound occur that someone was given new aspiration, new motivation, new obedience, in short a new nature? Wesley knew that either God can make a real change in us or the most the gospel offers is a pronouncement of pardon upon our bondage to sin even as the bondage is unrelieved. As glorious as he knew forgiveness of sin to be (no one would pretend that clemency visited upon the condemned to be anything else), Wesley knew that God could do something with sin beyond forgiving it. He insisted that the gospel not only relieved people of the guilt of sin, it also released them from the power of sin. Life could be begin again.

When Jesus tells Nicodemus, “You’ve got to be born again, born anew”, the English word “again” or “anew” translates the Greek word, ANOTHEN. ANOTHEN has three meanings: (1) again in the sense of “one more time” (Nicodemus says he can’t re-enter his mother’s uterus and be born one more time), (2) or it can mean “again, anew” in the sense of “from above, from God”, (3) or it can mean “with a completely different nature.” Nicodemus fastens on the first meaning only; Jesus has in mind only the latter two. Our Lord insisted that anyone could, and everyone should, be reconstituted at God’s hand so as to be possessed of a new nature.

People can change; better, people can be changed. God will grant them a new heart. God can do something with sin beyond forgiving it. The person he forgives he also remakes. Either this is true or the gospel isn’t good news. It is true. Hope is therefore more than wishful thinking. Deliverance can be asked for and acknowledged. The relative change of the remission of sin is always accompanied by the real change of regeneration. Believers have a genuine future.

 

[3] Third in “Our Doctrines” is the witness of the Spirit (i.e., the witness of the Holy Spirit.) The children of God can know themselves to be such. When people come to faith in Jesus Christ and are renewed at his hand they are no longer mere creatures of God but are now children of God. God seals this truth upon them so as to leave them with every assurance that they are his.

Wesley was aware that the spiritually hungry look to our Lord in hope of being fed. Plainly a sense of need has impelled them to look to him. Plainly the more urgent their sense of need, the more anxiously they look. If in looking to Jesus Christ they lack assurance that they have met him and are now fused to him, then their everyday bundle of anxieties remains unrelieved and is in fact swelled by a fearsome religious anxiety. Then it’s crucial that those who have passed from death to life know it.

Since Wesley invented nothing we mustn’t think that he was the first to speak of the witness of the Spirit. He found it writ large in scripture, largest of all in Romans 8:15 where Paul exclaims, “The Spirit, God himself, constrains us to cry out, ‘Abba, Father.’ As the Spirit pulls this cry out of us the Spirit himself bears witness to us that we are children of God.”

Wesley knew that one thing only relieved anxious people concerning their standing with God: the “stamp” of that Spirit who presses himself and impresses himself upon believing people so as to authenticate himself to them, authenticate their adoption at God’s hand to themselves, and all of this unquestionably.

Needless to say there are mysteries to our engagement with God that leave speech halting. Wesley admitted this. Wesley, however, was never tongue-tied over the fact of the Spirit’s testimony. The manner of it, on the other hand, how it occurs, he admitted he had to leave to the inscrutable mystery of God. His laconic comment here is, “It is hard to find words in the language of men to explain ‘the deep things of God.’”

The witness of God’s Spirit resembles happiness in one respect: if we pursue it, it forever escapes us. Happiness, everyone knows, overtakes people when they aren’t looking for it but are getting on with what they have to do. In the same way God’s Spirit assures us of our standing with him (“No condemnation now I dread” wrote Charles) as we are busy with what God has given us to do.

 

[4] Fourth among “Our Doctrines” is the declaration of the law to believers. Believers have to be guided on the road of discipleship.

Over and over throughout the history of the church, wherever the glorious truth of justification by faith has been declared, some people have drawn the wrong conclusion. “If we are set right with God by our faith in the provision he has made for us in his Son, then it makes no difference what we do thereafter.” The apostle Paul had to contend with the same misunderstanding during his ministry. When he announced the good news of the gospel (we are justified by grace through faith, not on account of our conformity to law), some hearers assumed that the law of God had been overturned. “By no means”, the apostle expostulated. “On the contrary, faith upholds the law!” The law of God is necessary if believers are to live out, live rightly, the new life they have received in Christ.

Once again, Wesley didn’t invent anything here. Apart from scripture’s insistence on the law of God as a guide to believers Wesley took it most immediately from the Puritans who had preceded him. The Puritans took it from Calvin, who found it ultimately in Melanchthon, the fellow who “packaged” Luther’s theology. Melanchthon called it “the third use of the law.”

The first use, Luther had said, was to order the society, to prevent social breakdown, even social chaos. The second use was to convict people of their sinnership as they came to see that they violated the law of God and were therefore guilty before God. The third use of the law was to guide believers along the road of discipleship.

Think, for instance, of the prohibition concerning theft. The first use of the law forestalls a social snake-pit where community-existence is impossible. The second use convicts people of their deep-down sinnership and points them to the gospel for relief. After all, the prohibition against theft includes envy, greed, covetousness – sins of which everyone is guilty. The third use guides believers along the road of discipleship as believers now know they must repudiate any envy, greed, covetousness that laps at them even as they must put everything they own at the disposal of their neighbour.

Did I say that the third use of the law is to help believers along the road of discipleship? I did. But isn’t Jesus Christ our companion on the road? Isn’t he always our companion on the road even as he leads us? He is. Then the law of God, for believers, is simply the claim of Jesus Christ upon our obedience. Our Lord himself insists that we obey him, obey him in person. Then the third use of the law is simply our Lord’s relentless insistence that we obey him and thereby walk in that newness of life which he has already bestowed on us.

“Our doctrines” included – and must ever include – the declaration of the law to believers.

 

[5] Last, but no means least, is Christian Perfection. Now don’t be put off because you’ve heard the word “perfection.” Wesley didn’t endorse a perfectionism that renders people neurotic. He didn’t endorse a religious superiority that leaves people snobbish and self-righteous. He did, however, encourage his people to look to God for deliverance from every vestige of selfism.

Wesley knew, as the church catholic has always known, that selfism is the essence of sin. To be freed from sin profoundly is to be freed from a self-preoccupation that measures everything and everyone in terms of catering to the self and magnifying the self and promoting the self. Since we all need to be freed from such self-preoccupation as we need nothing else, and since all of Christ’s people have been appointed to be delivered from it in heaven, why not look to God to be delivered from it now? Why set arbitrary limits to what God can do to free any of us in this life?

I know what you are going to tell me: you are going to say that any concern with deliverance from selfism is at bottom another form of self-preoccupation. But not so for Wesley. For him Christian perfection was self-forgetfulness, self-forgetfulness that frees us for love of God and neighbour. Self-forgetful love for God and neighbour entails a self-sacrifice that is so thoroughly selfless as not even to be aware of being a sacrifice. “Lost in wonder, love and praise”, wrote Charles Wesley. Be sure to underline “lost”; self-abandoned to discerning and doing God’s will, self-abandoned to assisting the poor, the lonely, the outcast, the disadvantaged, the spiritually inert.

When Wesley saw the plight of the sick, poor people who first joined the Methodist societies he gathered to himself a surgeon and an “apothecary”, and then scrounged the money to pay them. In the first five months of this program his apothecary distributed drugs to 500 people. The drugs cost 40 pounds. He raised the money himself. By 1746 he had established London’s first free dispensary.

Wesley was distressed at the plight of aged widows. He purchased houses and refurbished them (“We fitted them up so as to be warm and clean”). Would the widows who had to live in them feel themselves demeaned as charity cases much beneath the social position of Wesley himself? Every time he was in the neighbourhood he ate from their table and ate the same food.

When the banks refused to lend money to sobered, industrious Methodists who wanted to start up small businesses, Wesley scrabbled for 50 pounds and then handed out small loans. In the first year he helped 250 people make a fresh economic start.

Remember: Christian perfection is simply self-forgetful love of God and neighbour. When Methodism moved over to America, young men were needed for a ministry that unfolded amidst appalling hardship. Of the first 737 Methodist ministers in America, one-half died before they were 30 years old; two-thirds didn’t live long enough to serve 12 years. Did their premature death cheat them? They would have laughed at the suggestion. They had in them the fire that had fired Wesley before them.

 

Every year, when the new president of the Methodist Conference of Great Britain and Ireland is installed, he(she) is handed John Wesley’s field bible, the bible he put in his long coat-pocket as he moved on horseback throughout Britain and dismounted to preach outdoors. The flyleaf of his field bible contains his signature, the date, and two Latin words: Vive hodie, “Live today.”

I want to live today. Surely you want to live today too, even if you are still on your way to Wesleyan conviction, fire and fruitfulness in the service of our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

                                                              (Reverend Dr. Victor Shepherd)

John 3:1-21

 

I: — They are, without doubt, fighting words. I’m speaking of the two little words “born again” or “born anew” that Jesus used in his encounter with Nicodemus. As soon as these words are repeated today people choose sides; people are polarized, and from their position (which position they will defend ardently) they contend with one another.

In one corner are those for whom the words “born again” are a badge of identification to be worn unashamedly. If others don’t use the expression, or don’t use it as frequently as they salt and pepper their food; if others are thereby thought not to support instantaneous conversion arising from a crisis, then they are deemed not to be Christians at all. In the other corner are those who minimize the element of crisis while maximizing the need for nurture. They insist that people become Christians through a steady process of nurture. Often they maintain that their approach is the only sensible one. If others disagree, they smile condescendingly and suggest that all who disagree lack social sophistication and intellectual profundity. One group suggests that if we don’t use the words “born again” we lack spiritual authenticity. The other group suggests that if we do use the words we lack intellectual substance.
When the fighting words “born again” bring out religious nastiness (as they often do, regrettably), the “nurturists” point to a few “born againers” who are manifestly emotionally unstable. The truth is, all of us are acquainted with someone who wields the expression “born again” like a hammer even as his psychological balance is precarious. On the other hand the “born againers” remind the nurturists that what often passes for Christian nurture is so very dilute, anaemic, that it wouldn’t nurture a chickadee. And besides, they add, what can nurture do for stillbirths?

These latter people do have a point. On my first pastoral charge the Sunday School lacked teachers. But this was thought to be no problem: teachers were simply recruited – usually cajoled or otherwise embarrassed into “volunteering” – from anyone who stepped through the church door, had no acquaintance with the truth and reality of the gospel, was willing to help out the village folk, to be sure, yet who seemed not to know Jesus from a gerbil. The “born againers” say to me, “Do you have any confidence in the capacity of those people to provide Christian nurture for your child?”

It’s regrettable whenever the conversation between these two groups spirals down into nastiness, for at this point neither party hears what the other is saying.

It’s also regrettable when “born again” becomes a tool to secure political advantage. When Ronald Reagan was pursuing the presidency of the USA he advertised himself as “born again” for purely political reasons (it would help him garner votes) even though he didn’t so much as go to church or exhibit any interest in the faith.

Let’s go back to the two polarized parties. We are going to move beyond the polarization only as we recognize there to be as many ways of encountering Jesus Christ as there are ways of falling in love. To be sure, some people are overwhelmed so as to be swept off their feet: “love at first sight” we call it. Despite the popularity of the notion of “love at first sight, the fact of it isn’t common at all. Relatively few people fall in love “at first sight.” Far more people find their relationship with someone they will eventually admit they love developing steadily, bit by bit, in a positive direction. Still others find that their coming to know someone else intimately is a much more drawn-out, up-and-down matter. Turbulent at times, it has to contend with dark moments and doubt, misunderstanding and confusion. But at the end of this up and down, hot and cold, more intense and less intense undertaking there finally is resolution. And two people step ahead in a relationship that they will thereafter neither regret nor renounce.

Plainly it’s false to maintain there’s only one way of forging a most significant human relationship. Because false, it would also be silly to insist on “one way only.” We don’t question the authenticity of someone else’s relationship because of the manner in which she arrived at it. We never say, “You can be in love now only if you came to be in love by the route I prescribe.”

Then surely the polarization that arises within the church is overcome as we recognize that how someone comes to faith, by what route, isn’t important at all; how someone comes to faith doesn’t impugn the authenticity and integrity of her standing in Christ.

This is the first thing I want to say in our look at our Lord’s encounter with Nicodemus: whatever the expression “born again” might mean, it doesn’t mean that there is only one way of entering into and abiding in the company of Jesus Christ.

 

II: — In the second place we must recognize that the reality, the life-filling, life-transforming reality to which the expression points is something that everyone longs for. At least thoughtful people long for it, and so do wistful people, and more than a few desperate people.

The word in the text translated “again” or “anew” (anothen) has three meanings. It can mean “again” in the sense of “one more time;” that is, “again” in the sense of chronologically repeated. Or it can mean “from above;” that is, from the realm of the transcendent, from God. Or it can mean “from the beginning, a re-creation, with a new, different nature.” Plainly Nicodemus fastens on the first meaning only, “one more time.” “It’s absurd,” he says in effect, “to suggest that a grown-up like me can enter his mother’s womb one more time and repeat his physical birth.” He’s right: it is absurd. But this first meaning of anothen is precisely what Jesus doesn’t have in mind. Our Lord is thinking only of the latter two meanings: everyone may, and everyone should, be born from above, from God, and thereby be reborn with a new nature. Jesus maintains that life can begin anew; there can be a fresh beginning for everyone; we can begin again with a new nature, a different nature – and all of this a gift of grace from God’s hand.

A minute ago I mentioned that everyone, deep down, longs for this, even if many of those who long for it despise the church, snicker at the gospel, and use the name of Jesus only to curse. Still, the endless religious pursuits that people pursue tell us over and over everyone wants a fresh start that is more than a repetition of the “same old;” everyone wants a new beginning that is qualitatively new.

Not so long ago I saw a television documentary on Marin County , the wealthiest area of California . Marin County leads the nation in the per capita purchase and use of hot tub baths, yoga, physical fitness zeal, transactional analysis, consumption of valium and self-help courses of a thousand different kinds. The TV documentary made several trenchant points. One of them was this: the levels of unsatisfaction and frustration never decrease. Oasis after oasis turns out to be mirage. Everything that’s supposed to advance people to the next level, a higher level, of “being” invariably fails to do so. None of the techniques, programmes or regimens, appears to work.

Marin County , of course, is at bottom an intensification and magnification of the omnipresent longing to find a new factor in life that won’t be merely one more factor but rather something that proves to be nothing less than a genuine transformation of life. They want something that’s going to make a significant difference. Thwarted, frustrated, irked, and now quietly desperate, people continue to grope. Many such people have told me they are jaded from trying new techniques and old panaceas, none of which delivers what it holds out. They are less certain of what they are looking for (if they knew precisely what they were looking for they’d also know where to look: the gospel) than they are certain of what they want to be rid of. “ Marin County ” happens to be everywhere.

At the same time that the earliest Christian community was adding daily those people who had come to know and enjoy what Jesus spoke of and delivered, Greek Mystery religions, next door to the church, were seeking converts. In one of the rites of these Greek Mystery Religions the devotee, the “convert,” stood in a pit that was covered with latticework. A bull was led onto the latticework. At the climax of the religious ceremony the bull’s throat was slashed. As blood poured down the devotee lifted her face and was bathed in blood. At this point the Mystery Religion priest pronounced her “reborn for eternity.” Greek Mystery religion knew what it was to feel after something crucial; knew what it was to long for transformation of human existence; but Greek Mystery religion couldn’t deliver the reality. What gave the earliest Christians their remarkable credibility was their ability to point with assurance to the One, Jesus Christ, who could deliver and did.

Years ago I saw the movie, Apocalypse Now. I’ve seen it six times altogether. Featuring the U.S. conflict in Viet Nam , the movie portrays the contradictions that are part of any war. The movie ends with primitive Indo-Chinese backwoodsmen ritually slaughtering bulls. The sword falls. The animal’s head is severed. Blood spews. It sounds grotesque to the point of being nauseating. Yet the movie-scene doesn’t appear to affect movie watchers in this way. Doesn’t this scene parallel the outlook of Greek Mystery religion 2000 years ago?—that is, that the shedding of blood somehow, inexplicably, unpollutes the past, restores the present to sanity and integrity, and points to a new future that is genuinely “future” just because the “new” is genuinely new? Still, regardless of what is pointed to or felt after, the reality isn’t delivered.

The apostle John, however, possesses conviction born of experience. For right in the midst of his account of our Lord’s conversation with Nicodemus, John interjects the lifting up of Jesus, the blood-shedding of that One. John knows that there is One whose blood is effectual, and there is One who does deliver what he holds out.

Regardless of how turned off people are by the glib use of “born again,” there is no little evidence that all around us are people who long precisely for what Jesus holds out. Nicodemus, a mature, middle-aged man, and a member of the Sanhedrin, the highest religious council, came to Jesus under cover of darkness. What would a sophisticated fellow like him hope to gain from a thirty-year old peasant with sawdust in his hair, who came from a one-horse town, and whose contacts with religious leaders were consistently negative? We know what Nicodemus hoped to gain.

 

III: — Even though he hopes to gain what he needs most, Nicodemus misunderstands Jesus’ assertion. “Born again?” he asks, “It’s physically impossible.” All the while, of course, our Lord is talking about something different. While Jesus isn’t speaking about physical birth, he’s certainly using an analogy of physical birth. Let’s think about the analogy for a minute.

Birth, everyday birth, is plainly a change of context. When a human being is born the context of that person’s life changes from amniotic fluid to air; from confinement to freedom; from darkness to light; from silence to exclamation.

The kind of birth, “new birth,” that Jesus speaks of in his conversation with Nicodemus is also a change of context: from spiritual inertia to spiritual vigour; from culpable ignorance of God to child-like wonder at God; from a human existence that prides itself on being self-sufficient to an existence that humbly thanks God for his condescension and grace. There’s nothing un-understandable or cryptic about this.  “You are a teacher of Israel and you don’t understand this?” Jesus asks in genuine amazement. Surely Nicodemus ought to have understood this. After all, the presence and weight and force of the living God is the context in which Israel ’s life unfolds. God has made himself known to Israel in a way that he hasn’t elsewhere, with the result that Israel ’s knowledge of God differentiates it from the surrounding nations. Israel has been given to know the One who creates life, moulds it, informs and directs and fulfils it. The prophets of Israel speak tirelessly of what it is to have life rooted in, informed by, and conformed to the God who acts upon his people and speaks to them in such a way that they know who he is and what he has done and what he requires of them. The prophets know that when God speaks to his people he quickens in them the capacity to respond and the desire to respond. Thereafter what we call “life” is life-long dialogical intimacy with him who comes to us conclusively in Jesus Christ. Such dialogical intimacy means that we live henceforth in God, in a sphere, an atmosphere, whose reality is more vivid than the vividness of our five senses. It issues in new understanding, lively obedience, and profoundest contentment.

Surely there’s nothing bizarre or spooky about this. When people today hear the words “born again,” instantly they think of a highly unusual psychological development, an inner “trip” which they’ve never been on themselves and which they suspect in any case. Instead we should always remember that birth means primarily change of context. To have our lives unfold in the context or atmosphere of the living God is to live in an ongoing dialogue with God whose reality, simplicity, profundity is deeper than our language can describe

“Too vague,” someone objects, “All this change-of-context stuff; it’s too nebulous.” What’s vague about it? Those whom Jesus first called to himself didn’t find him vague at all. Isn’t the same Lord present to us now in his risen life? My entire ministry is built on the assurance that he is. The saints of every age have known this. There’s nothing vague here at all.

“Too presumptuous,” someone else adds. No. There’s nothing presumptuous about someone who knows he’s at the banquet by invitation only. The certainty that accompanies mercy-quickened faith has nothing to do with snobbish superiority. Those whom Jesus called didn’t they’d “arrived” in any sense. Still, they were certain that they were on the right road and didn’t need to look for any other.

“Too narrow,” someone insists, “It reeks of religious sentimentality, a nostalgia-trip unrelated to life.” No. It would be sentimental only if it promoted maudlin mush. It would be unrelated to life only if were a private trip that had nothing to do with everyday matters. But in fact it has everything to do with every aspect of life.

Birth always means change of context. To be born again, born anew, born from above is to become involved with God in a dialogue wherein we know our sin pardoned, our way in life made plain (I didn’t say easy; I said plain), our hearts encouraged and our minds informed and our wills fortified.

 

In light of the understanding we’ve gained today let’s move beyond a polarization that helps no one. Let’s acknowledge that how one comes to faith, or how long one takes to come to faith, is beside the point.

Let’s admit that there’s a persistent and profound spiritual hunger in people all around us. And in word and deed let us point to him who is that context in which all of life is transfigured, and therefore our lives as well.

                                                                                                   Victor Shepherd                                                                                                                

May 2004

 

John 3:16-17

We all have our favourite author, our favourite book, our favourite food, our favourite athlete. And the all-time favourite text of scripture, I’m told, is the text of today’s sermon: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” I’m sure that the text elicits a visceral response from everyone. Some people cherish it as they cherish nothing else; others feel that the text is frequently used as a bludgeon with which to beat unbelievers. Regardless of the circumstances in which the text is uttered, regardless of the zeal with which it’s announced or the affection with which it’s cherished, the fact is this text enshrines the heart of the gospel; which is to say, this text bespeaks the heart of God himself.

 

I: — We are told that God so loved the world. What in the world is the world? The world, according to John’s usage, isn’t that globe which we call “the earth.” Neither is the world the earth plus all the other planets and stars; i.e., the universe. The world, in John’s use of the word, is simply people. Specifically it’s the sum total of disobedient men and women in their hostility to God and their contempt for his truth and their dismissal of his way and their postured superiority to his gospel. Plainly, the word “world”, for John, isn’t a pretty word: it bespeaks humankind’s arrogance and ingratitude, self-importance and pomposity. It bespeaks a disdainful defiance that imagines itself to be the soul of sophistication but in fact is the silliest folly. The world, for John, is the sum total of men and women in their tacit conspiracy to loathe, privately and publicly, the one to whom they owe their life, the one to whom they would cling if they possessed any sense at all.

A minute ago I spoke of “tacit conspiracy.” Both words are important. The world is tacitly conspiratorial in that there’s never been a formal agreement among humankind that it disdain the holy One of Israel. The world is tacitly conspiratorial in that its common defiance of him is plainly more than accidental; the world’s corporate posture with respect to God isn’t a random occurrence. When the next baby is born we can predict with perfect certainty that this child is going to mirror the world all over again. All such individuals, fallen creatures every one, are tacitly conspiratorial in that we — humankind — “pack” in our opposition to God the way a school class can pack on a teacher or a baseball team pack on an umpire.

 

II: — What is God’s attitude to the world in the face of the world’s attitude to him? Specifically, what does God do in view of the world’s having packed on him? We might expect him to do what a schoolteacher does when the class packs on her or what an umpire does when a baseball team packs on him. Since this congregation is “knee-deep” in schoolteachers, I shall let the teachers tell me what they do when the class packs. I will tell you, however, what an umpire does. He walks over to the bench where the team has tacitly conspired to give him a hard time and he expels a player, any player at all. It doesn’t have to be the player who’s giving him the hardest time; it doesn’t have to be the player who spearheaded the abuse. It can be any player at all; sometimes it’s the first player the umpire comes upon. And that one player is expelled, gone.

“How arbitrary!”, you say; “The umpire was simply making an example of that one player. He didn’t merit being singled out.” Your objection is correct. It’s also unavailing. The player arbitrarily singled out is expelled none the less.

The most astounding feature of the gospel is this: in the face of the world’s bombast and its ingratitude, God’s response isn’t to expel it but rather to love it. And not merely to love it in the sense of “feel for” it, even feel sorry for it, but rather to love it so utterly as to give himself for it.

Now right here we have to take a little theological detour. We have to journey back in time to the year 325; we have to journey to a different part of the world and visit the city of Nicaea in what is now Turkey . A huge theological debate was under way at that time over something that shallow people look upon as mere word-play but which in fact has everything to do with the integrity and preservation of the gospel. The Arians who supported Bishop Arius maintained that as Son of God Jesus is of similar nature to the Father, like the Father. The Athanasians who supported Bishop Athanasius insisted that as Son of God Jesus is of the same nature as the Father, same substance, same essence, same being as the Father. If the Son is only like the Father, said the Athanasians, is the Son a little bit like or a lot like? And even if he were a lot like the Father, almost the same as the Father, a miss is as good as a mile. The point is the Son’s suffering wouldn’t be the Father’s suffering; the Son’s identification with sinners wouldn’t be the Father’s; the Son’s weeping over the world wouldn’t be the Father’s. In short, unless the Son is of the same nature, same substance, same essence as the Father; unless the nature of the Father and the nature of the Son are identical and not merely similar, then ultimately what the Son on earth thought and felt and did had nothing whatever to do with what the Father above thought and felt and did. And if what the Son was about had nothing to do with what the Father was about, then the cross of Jesus wasn’t an act of God at all. The cross meant no more than the death of any person who died in a good cause; the world was unaffected; humankind was without provision for its sin; there was no gospel and never would be.

Tell me: is the Son’s nature the same as the Father’s or merely similar to the Father’s? Only if the same as the Father’s is there a gospel; only if the same as the Father’s is the suffering of the Son in his body the suffering of the Father in his heart; only if the same as the Father’s is the Son’s solidarity with a world he won’t abandon regardless of how badly it abuses him at the same time God’s selfsame solidarity with a world he won’t abandon regardless of how contemptuously it dismisses him.

When the apostle John writes, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son…” we must never think that God is giving his Son in place of giving himself; we must never think that God is giving his Son as a substitute for giving himself. Quite the contrary: just because the Father and the Son and are one in nature, substance, being, the Father’s giving his only Son is simply the Father’s giving himself; always himself, never less than himself.

Someone knocks on my door asking for a donation to the Diabetes Association. I give her $25. To be sure, the $25 I’ve given her I now don’t have for a new CD, but in any case I already have so many CDs I can’t keep track of them. Next day someone knocks on my door asking for a donation to the Cancer Society. I give him $25. To be sure, the $25 I’ve given him I now don’t have for a new book, but already I own hundreds of books that I haven’t read yet. Next day someone knocks on my door asking for a donation for the Heart and Stroke fund. I give her $25…. And so I should, in view of the suffering that never relents and my financial resources that never diminish (apparently.)

And then one day there’s a different kind of knock at the door: my daughter needs a kidney. Now a different kind of “contribution” is involved. The $25 contributions, however many there might have been, never entailed any risk for me. Now the gift asked of me does. Still, she’s my daughter, and therefore I’ll gladly do what I can for her at whatever risk to me. Years later will she appreciate it? Or will she joke with her friends, “My old man relinquished a bit of plumbing for me some time ago. His health was never good after that. He must’ve been crazy. But then, he always was odd, you know, a ‘nerd’”. Silly fellow.” If out of love for my daughter I have resolved to surrender that kidney which I might need myself years later; if I have resolved to surrender my kidney then I’ve also resolved to surrender all control concerning her response. Still, at least I haven’t been asked to give up my life for her.

John tells us there’s a love so very loving that someone doesn’t even stop short of giving himself, all of himself, only himself, for those whom he loves unstintingly. Precisely where we’d expect God to withdraw in tit-for-tat coldness he instead pours out himself without remainder or reserve upon those who pull their carriage-trade robes of self-righteousness a little closer and tell him, “Would you mind not bleeding on me? It stains, you know.”

 

III: — But not all respond by cloaking themselves more tightly in those disguises which can’t even be recognised as disguises; not all respond in this way. Some respond so as to illustrate the text in its entirety: God so loved the world…that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” Plainly the self-outpouring of God quickens faith in some at least. “Whoever believes in him.” We must be sure we understand the precise force of “believes.” To believe in him doesn’t mean to have correct ideas about him in one’s head. To believe in him doesn’t mean to have mental reservation give way to mental assent. To believe in the one given for us, to believe in the one given to us, is simply to trust him for that pardon which we can’t generate for ourselves. It’s to trust him for that way apart from which we are going to meander for the rest of our lives. It’s to trust him for a contentment that will steal over us again and again as surely as our superficial pleasures have left us unsatisfied. It’s to entrust him with our life when no one else is worth it, and to entrust him with our death when no one else can defuse it, and to entrust him with our future when no one else can fill it.

The faith of which John speaks when he writes, “that whoever believes in him…”, is simply entrusting as much of myself as I know of myself to as much of Jesus Christ as I know of him. The faith of which John speaks is finally my unreserved self-giving to him whose unreserved self-giving to me is my only hope and my only plea, my only future and my only good. The faith of which John speaks is my embracing in gratitude the one who first embraced me in grace; it’s my pledging myself to him who has promised never to fail or forsake me.

If such faith is what it is to “believe in him” (Christ Jesus our Lord), then what is the eternal life of which John speaks? Eternal life is life that arises in our immersion in the innermost depths of God himself. Eternal life is life that is characterised by utmost intimacy with God, utmost intensity, utmost inviolability (what could ever separate us from him now?) Eternal life is the life wherewith the eternal one blessed us in our creation, before we victimised ourselves in the fall, before our existence became a living contradiction of that which the Creator had pronounced “good”, before our existence became a dying scramble to deny what we couldn’t admit just because we couldn’t face it.

As often as I try to grasp the full import of “but have eternal life” I recall one of my favourite episodes from the written gospels where Jesus comes upon a man in the wilderness (don’t we all live in the wilderness?), who cuts himself (haven’t we spent our lives mutilating ourselves in some respect?), who runs around naked (don’t we all think we’re covering up what every last person can see in us in any case?), and who can’t be subdued (don’t we all fail to master ourselves as surely as we resent the attempt of anyone else to master us?)   At the conclusion of the gospel story we are told that the fellow is found seated, clothed and in his right mind. Seated, he’s no longer driven by his 101 frenzies, any one of which he thought would let him “find himself” and all of which only left him jaded and despairing. Clothed, he now belongs to the community of the people of God. (In scripture clothing is a sign of belonging, and the kind of clothing we wear indicates precisely where we belong. When the prodigal son came home his father clothed him in that robe which indicated he belonged in the family.) In his right mind, the healed fellow has had his reasoning restored by the grace of God.   Only grace restores reason to reason’s integrity; only grace frees reason from its bondage to ends that aren’t righteous. No one doubts that fallen human beings can still reason. Of course we can. But what does our reasoning produce, from the cunning of the three year old to the plotting of the self-serving adult to the rationalisation that is now second nature to all of us? Only grace restores reason to reason’s integrity; only grace frees reason from reason’s captivity to unrighteous ends. The fact that the healed fellow was found seated, clothed and in his right mind is God’s pledge and promise that the same sanity is ultimately guaranteed any believer. It takes root as we cast ourselves upon our Lord, and it will be perfected on the day that we are plunged into an intimacy and intensity so very intimate and intense and as to be indescribable. Eternal life includes the restoration of that reason whose reasoning we’ve never lost but whose reasoning has been too long in the service of everything but righteousness.

“That whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” Eternal life is life lived in relationship to God. It’s our creaturely, human existence now liberated to bring honour to God; it’s our creaturely, human existence now mirroring without impediment him whose image was always supposed to shine forth from us as brightly and unambiguously as a city set on a hill.

 

IV: — “Should not perish but have eternal life.” What’s perishing got to do with all this? Isn’t God light only, there being no darkness in him at all, to quote John once more? Isn’t God life only, death having no place in him at all? Doesn’t he come in Christ Jesus only to bless, there being nothing accursed in his nature or purpose? Then what’s this about perishing?

The purpose of light is always and only to enlighten; the purpose of life is always and only to enliven; the purpose of goodness is always and only to bless. Yet the truth is that as surely as light enlightens, anything that impedes light results in a shadow. The truth is, life rejected can only mean death. Blessing repudiated leaves one with curse. John insists that God’s purpose in sending the Son was always and only that the world might be saved, never that it be condemned. Had God wanted to condemn the world he had all the grounds and all the evidence he needed to condemn it justly without tormenting himself in his Son. Yet he tormented himself in his Son just because he is more eager to save the world than the world is itself to be saved.   And that’s just the problem: God is more eager to save than the world is to be saved. That’s just the problem. While it is never God’s purpose to condemn; while it is always God’s purpose to save, the outcome of his determination to save is that those resisting him, those fixated on remaining in their God-defying arrogance and grandiose self-importance, become fixed in it.

Then it behoves us all to hear afresh the word of grace: God loved the world so much as to withhold nothing of himself in his resolve to woo and win the world. He gave himself in his only Son, without limit, without hesitation, without qualification, and all of this inasmuch as he wanted, and still wants, to save the world from the condemnation it deserves. It behoves us therefore to abandon our perverse posturing before him and own for ourselves life eternal as we trust him today for all he longs to give us; trust him today, tomorrow, ever after.

 

                                                                                                  Victor Shepherd                                                                                                                                  

June 2005

 

      John 3:17     John 12:12-29    13:31   Isaiah 53:11 (RSV)

 

          Today is Palm Sunday. Our service commenced with the familiar hymn, “Ride on, ride on, in majesty; in lowly pomp ride on to die.”         The hymn has it right: Jesus doesn’t ride into Jerusalem like a conqueror, only to have the ticker-tape parade fizzle out a week later when the fickle crowd howls for his death.  He rides into Jerusalem not on a horse (the sign of the military conqueror) but on a donkey, the sign of lowliness, humility, ordinariness.

In the paradox that the gospel will always be, we must be sure to note that our Lord’s humiliation is his exaltation; his degradation is his triumph; his dying gasp “It is finished” isthe declaration that his mission has been accomplished. Paradoxically, again, his victimization at the hands of miscreants is his victory. And in the paradox of paradoxes, Christ’s shame is his glory.

His shame? Sure.  Crucifixion was reserved for the lowest classes in the Roman Empire . Runaway slaves could be crucified; so could despicable soldiers who had deserted; so could vulgar fellows who had raped any of the Vestal Virgins, unmarried women who had dedicated themselves to the Roman goddess, Vesta.  Crucifixion was regarded as a penalty for human scum.  Cicero, a prominent thinker in the ancient world, said that Roman citizens (citizens couldn’t be crucified) shouldn’t be found so much as discussing the topic.

Jesus, however, has lived for the cross.  “Now is my soul troubled”, he pours out.  “What should I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour?’ No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour.  Father, glorify your name.”  Next we are told there were heard the words, “I have glorified it; and I will glorify it again.”
The apostle John insists that Easter isn’t the recovery of glory after the shame of the cross. Easter is God’s ratification that the shame of the cross is Christ’s glory.

 

I: — The starting point for John’s understanding of the cross is God’s unfathomable compassion. Think of our Lord’s conversation with Nicodemus about what it is to be born of God. When the conversation has concluded, John, the writer of the gospel, interprets the incident for us and comments on it.  First John tells us that Jesus must be “lifted up”.  Then he tells us the ground and consequence of our Lord’s being lifted up: God so loved the world that he gave, himself, for no other reason than that we might live in him.  Anyone with even minimal exposure to the church and its message has heard of John 3:16: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son….” Few people have lingered long enough, however, to grasp the next verse: “For God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.”  It is God’s compassion, only his unfathomable compassion, that can get us past the condemnation we deserve.

“Deserve?” someone asks.  Yes. Condemnation is the sentence that an unbiased judge must pronounce on those whose guilt is undeniable. We are sinners before the all-holy God; our guilt is undeniable; God’s judgement is unbiased; therefore we must be condemned.

I cringe every time I see or hear the category of justice thrust forward as the be-all and end-all of Christian truth.  Everywhere in the churches of the western world, it seems today, justice is deemed to be the category that is now to control our understanding of every last aspect of the Christian message and the church’s life. In other words, all we are to think about and do must now pertain to justice.  The gospel can be reduced without remainder to the pursuit of justice.

I am not denying for a minute that victimized people should be redressed; justice should be done and be seen to be done.  Any church that obstructed natural justice would be a church in disgrace. Nonetheless, when I see the attempts at reducing the gospel to the category of justice without remainder I cringe for three reasons.

In the first place, this reduction is a falsification of the gospel. That gospel which reconciles sinners to God and restores reconciled people to each other in the fellowship of Jesus Christ; this gospel cannot be reduced without remainder to a concern for justice.  To pretend that it can be is an out-and-out falsification.

In the second place, while justice may be necessary, justice alone, justice by itself is terrible.  Justice means that people get precisely what they deserve, nothing more than what they deserve, nothing better than what they deserve. To plead for justice only is to plead that God will grant every last one of us (sinners) neither more nor less than what we deserve. Is there any good news here?

In the third place, in biblical Hebrew there is no word for justice. The Hebrew word is MISHPAT, judgement.         Judgement is very different from justice. Justice is a philosophical principle, an abstract category; judgement, on the other hand, is a personal category. Judgement is the activity of a person. Here judgement is the activity of the living God himself — whose heart is mercy. Judgement is therefore to be welcomed. We should run to God for his judgement.  Why? Because God judges us for the sake of saving us.  In other words, there is mercy in God’s judgement; in fact mercy is the ultimate purpose of God’s judgement.  There is no mercy at all in sheer justice.         God bothers to judge us only because his compassion aims at saving us. To put it another way, the great physician pronounces the starkest diagnosis only because he intends the greatest cure.

 

At what cost? In other words, how far will his compassion go?  Is there a limit to it? I said a minute ago that the starting point for John’s understanding of the cross is God’s unfathomable compassion.  His mercy is oceans deep, impenetrably deep.  Still, we are not left clueless about the cost.  After all, as repulsive as you and I might find the cross, our revulsion is nothing compared to the anguish of him whose cross it is. Father and Son are one in their anguish, for they are one in their self-giving for the sake of us who deserve nothing more than justice, one in their love for us who, because of that love, are visited not with simple justice but with a judgement that clothes eternal mercy.

 

II: — Because the gospel is the good news of God (rather than an invention of humankind) there is eversomuch about God’s good news that isn’t readily apparent to us humans.  We have already seen something that isn’t readily apparent: the difference between justice and judgement, the hopelessness of mere justice and the ultimate blessing of divine judgement.  There is more about the gospel that isn’t readily apparent.  God is most exalted when he appears most debased.  God does his most effective work when he appears most helpless.  God is most glorified when he appears most shamed.  In a word, God acts most tellingly when, from a human perspective, he can’t do anything at all – the cross.

It’s different in our everyday world.  When the athlete sets a record for hitting three home runs in the seventh game of the World Series; when the writer is awarded the Pulitzer Prize or the musician first place in the international competition, the athlete, the writer and the musician will be aware of several things. One, they have achieved public acclaim. Two, their triumph has elated thousands, thousands who saw the game or have read the book or listen repeatedly to the piano-recording.  Three, their triumph has guaranteed that they will be remembered for decades. No wonder they look back years later and glow, “That was my hour.”

Over and over in John’s gospel Jesus speaks of his hour.  “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”         “Now is my heart troubled, and what should I say?  ‘Father, save me from this hour?’  No. It is for this reason that I have come to this hour.”  Our Lord’s “hour”, however, isn’t an hour of fame and adulation and fawning congratulation.  It’s an hour of public humiliation, of mental anguish that outstrips even physical agony, of abandonment and isolation; indeed, an hour of an isolation so naked that thinking about it leaves me weak.         Nevertheless, as soon as Judas has left the upper room in order to betray the master, Jesus says, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him.”

How could God ever be glorified in the deathly degradation of his Son? It all has to do with the purpose of God’s sending his Son in the first place.  People normally feel themselves to be glorified when they have achieved that purpose which lies closest to their heart.  When we have achieved what we have long held as the goal and aim and aspiration of our existence we are fulfilled and at rest.  As our Lord breathed his last he cried out, “Finished.         It’s finished.” The Greek verb is in the perfect tense, telling us that an accomplishment in the past will remain effective as far into the future as the future extends. “It’s  been accomplished”, our Lord cries as he dies, “It stands done; it is currently operative, and nothing in the future will ever be able to undo it.” His achievement from the cross is the “hour” that beckoned him from the time of his baptism.

Then what about his hour? Unlike the “hour” of the public celebrity he won’t be put in anyone’s Hall of Fame. But he will be known and loved and thanked eternally by multitudes without number.  He won’t be held up as a “world-class” entertainer (for that’s what athletes and writers and musicians are).  But he will be adored as one whose self-giving unto death has brought others to a self-giving unto life with God. He won’t be remembered as talented above his peers.  Strictly speaking, he won’t be remembered at all; we remember those who are retired or dead, and Jesus Christ is neither retired nor dead. Instead we shall hold on to him whose sacrifice is precisely what has granted us access to him, granted sinners like us access to the all-holy God whose Son he is.

This is what his “hour” is all about.  No wonder it preoccupied him the day he began his public ministry, if not before. And no wonder we recognize his hour by featuring the cross everywhere: church architecture, church furnishings, church decoration, Christian symbolism, and of course Christian hymns.  (You must have noticed that the hymns of Charles Wesley, the finest hymn-writer in the English language, sing about the cross more than they sing about anything else.)

 

Several minutes ago I stated that the starting point for John’s understanding of the cross is God’s unfathomable compassion.  His compassion is unfathomable; we cannot measure the depth of it. Still, we can see more than a little way down into it; we can see enough to know that while our visceral instinct is to flee humiliation and mental anguish and physical torment, above all flee heart-stopping isolation; while our visceral instinct is to flee all of this, Father and Son are one in pursuing this and enduring it. But not because Father and Son were masochists who relished suffering; rather because what they pursued and endured was the unadjustable cost of sparing us that justice which foolish people thoughtlessly say they want. It was the cost of giving us not what we want but what we need; namely, divine judgement whose sentence of condemnation is absorbed by Father and Son alike, with the result that judgement blossoms into salvation and blessing.

When John the Baptist saw his cousin Jesus approaching, John said to his followers, “Don’t look at me; look at him.  He is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”   The cross deals with the sin of the world in that our Lord absorbs in himself, and the Father with him, that impediment which barricaded our access to the holy God who, because holy, neither traffics in sin himself nor trifles with it in us nor will finally tolerate it.  The barricade crumbled, sinners can return to the God who rejoices at their approach as surely as the father of the prodigal son rejoiced to see his boy come home.

 

I understand now what I couldn’t seem to grasp when I was very young: how it could be that our Lord’s wretched death, miserable in every aspect, is nonetheless that “hour” when Father and Son are glorified together. You see, I used to think that the day of the cross was a bad day, the all-time bad day, in Jesus’ life – but never mind, he got over it. I used to think that this “bad day” was a momentary dip, a one-day dip in the outworking of his vocation. But Jesus never suggests that the cross is the temporary frustration of his vocation. On the contrary, Jesus insists that the cross is the fulfilment of his vocation, the crown and climax of his vocation.

Then what is Easter? Easter is the Father’s pledge that this fulfilment is eternally efficacious. “For this reason — my self-offering — have I come to this hour.”

 

III: — There is one last matter for us to emphasize today.  As we behold our Lord in his sacrifice for us we must get beyond gazing at him. Being moved to speechlessness before his sacrifice, together with being sobered upon realizing the need for it; this is certainly appropriate.  But appropriateness suggests common sense and good taste.         Common sense and good taste are not what we need now.  We need to make a sacrifice in the spirit of that sacrifice we trust. The sacrifice we trust is his; the sacrifice we make is our own.

As we do just this, the word of the prophet in Isaiah 53 will be confirmed again. Isaiah 53 is the prophet’s depiction of the servant of God, a depiction that was seen, centuries later, to fit our Lord like a glove.  As the prophet concludes his portrait of the self-giving servant of God he comments (Isa. 53:11 RSV), “He shall see the fruit of the travail of his soul, and be satisfied.”  As you and I give ourselves, or give ourselves afresh, to the One who has given himself for us, we shall be the fruit of the travail of his soul. And as we are the fruit of the travail of his soul, he will indeed be satisfied.

 

On Palm Sunday Jesus ‘rides on’, indeed; he rides on in order to die; and he rides on deathward in majesty just because he, this king, is king like no other. The only crown this king will ever wear is a crown of thorns; the only throne he will ever adorn is a gibbet; and the only subjects who will ever thank and praise and adore him are those who have given themselves to him as surely as he first gave himself to them and for them.

Since it is the efficacy of the cross in drawing men and women to him that satisfies our Lord, I have no difficulty seeing now that his humiliation, degradation and shame are his glory.  But once again, what matters finally isn’t that I see this or see anything else. What matters is that I – you too; what matters is that we give ourselves up afresh to him who finds our adoring gratitude and love the fruit of the travail of his soul. For then he will be satisfied for ever and ever.

         

                                                                                                   Victor Shepherd        

Palm Sunday 2010

John 4:5-26      John 39-42

 

Recently western journalists were telling an Arab oil magnate how fortunate he was that his country had huge reserves of oil. “Fortunate?” the Arab oilman retorted, “What’s so fortunate about having oil? You people have rain.” He’s correct. The country that’s rained upon is ever so much more fortunate than the country with non-replenishable oil.

The modern state of Israel has proved that it takes only one thing to make the desert blossom like a rose: water. Water is life. People of every era have known this.

Jesus speaks of himself as living water. He is water in that he alone quenches life’s profoundest thirst. He is “living” water in that he is alive himself and satisfies parched people by giving them himself as they come to know what it is to live in his company, under his authority, suffused with his Spirit. He wouldn’t be “living” water if he offered them a formula, guidelines, principles, schemes or techniques. He is “living” water just because he is alive himself with the life of God and he draws men and women into the life that he is.

The early church exulted in the one who was life-giving water and who unfailingly lent fruitfulness to human existence. Peter writes to Christian friends, “You believe in him with unutterable and exalted joy.” Paul cries, “He loved me, and gave himself – for me.” John exclaims, “We know that we have passed out of death into life.” And the unknown author of Hebrews insists, “We have tasted the powers of the Age to Come.”

What the apostles exclaim in their ardour; what wells up out of them and spills over onto us; they don’t regard this as extraordinary or secret or meant only for a privileged few. Unselfconsciously they speak as they do because they have tasted Jesus Christ for themselves and have found that he satisfies so thoroughly as to leave them looking no farther. Their experience of their Lord has assured them that his claim to turn the desert of people’s lives into garden; their experience here has confirmed his claim as truth and confirmed him as reality. Seeking nothing else and no one else, their one task now is to announce the Nazarene as humankind’s hope.

From time to time I imagine my work over, my life concluded, and a few people gathered around my casket. Someone says, “Shepherd was smart. He knew a lot about the Sixteenth Century, especially the early Sixteenth Century.” Someone else says, “Shepherd was clever; his sermons exhibited clever wordsmithing.” And then I long to imagine hearing someone else say, “But he was more than clever. Through his testimony I came to know what the Samaritan woman came to know.”

You see, I’m always aware people don’t come to church to hear about the Sixteenth Century; they come because they are thirsty with a thirst nothing else in the world can meet. Whether or not they use the language of the apostles, they long for that of which the apostles speak. They expect their spiritual leader to be acquainted with the “living water” and they expect him to be a means whereby they can come to taste it. I’m always aware that if people come to church and leave disappointed in this regard then their thirst-fuelled anguish haunts them and stares me in the face. Margaret Anderson, a British poet, knows this anguish and his written about it. Listen to her poem, Wail of a Distressed Soul:

O preacher, holy man, hear my heart weeping;

I long to stand and shout my protests:

Where is your power? And where is your message?

Where is the gospel of mercy and love?

Your words are nothingness! nothingness! nothingness!

We who have come to listen are betrayed.

 

Servant of God, I am bitter and desolate.

What do I care for perfection of phrase?

Cursed be your humour, your poise, your diction.

See how my soul turns to ashes within me.

You who have vowed to declare your Redeemer

Give me the words that would save.

 

I: — On one occasion a woman every bit as needy as Margaret Anderson met Jesus at a well. She assumed that he was thirsty too. (Why else would he be standing beside a well?) It’s no wonder, then, she was surprised to see him standing there without a bucket. How did he think he was going to draw water? Then she got the point: he didn’t need a bucket, since he had just asked her for a drink. She was to give him a drink. Noticing that Jesus was Jewish, and painfully aware that Jews and Samaritans had been hostile for centuries, she shot back, “You, a Jew, are asking an inferior Samaritan like me for a drink? Jews don’t stoop to ask Samaritans for anything.” Jesus replied, “If you knew God’s gift of living water; if you knew who I am, you’d be asking me for a drink.”

She misses the point entirely, and continues in her off-hand, semi-flirtatious way, “You’re the only person I’ve ever seen who goes to a well without a bucket.” Ignoring her banter, Jesus speaks to her again, once more at a depth she doesn’t apprehend: “If you drink the water I give, you will never thirst again.” She misses the point yet again and playfully retorts, “Give me your super-duper water, then; at least it will spare me a daily trip to this well.”

Isn’t this the misunderstanding overheard today between believer and unbeliever, between church and world, between those who have “tasted the powers of the age to come” and those who look upon churchgoers as stuck in an antiquated habit? Those who haven’t “tasted the powers of the age to come” may converse with believers at length but they never get the point of the church’s presence and worship and mission. To be sure they’ll admit there’s a historical reason for the church’s presence; they admit there’s a moral dimension to the church’s life (even as they deny that the church is essential to morality;) but beyond this they don’t penetrate. Beyond this they don’t perceive that the church is the instrument of the living Lord whereby he renders available to others without number his own gift of living water without limit.

II: — The woman’s banter doesn’t go on for ever. Just when she’s overcome her shyness at having a strange man – and the enemy of her people at that – chit-chat with her, Jesus ends the chit-chat. “Why don’t you go get your husband and bring him here?” Suddenly the time of banter, casual chit-chat, coquettish evasiveness; it’s over. Suddenly it’s truth-time. “My husband?” the woman gasps, “I don’t have a husband.” “You are right,” continues Jesus, “you don’t have a husband. You’ve had five husbands. And the man you are currently living with isn’t one of them.” Reeling now, she knows that the game she was enjoying with Jesus has ended.

We do play games with our Lord, don’t we. We can play them for a long time, glorying in an evasiveness born of our supposed cleverness; we can play such games until his question or comment exposes our game-playing as just that: frothy fun and shallow self-congratulation – as his word to us goes to our heart like a dagger. Deflated now, we sag under the wound.

Our Lord stopped the woman’s evasive banter by forcing her to come to terms with a marital deficiency. But we shouldn’t assume that such a deficiency is the only kind. Neither should we assume that if we aren’t deficient in this area then we aren’t deficient at all, couldn’t be.

In fact Jesus Christ forces self-perception upon us, the self-perception we’ve lacked for years just because we’ve preferred to be without it, as he puts any number of questions to us:

“Go call your alienated child.”

“Produce your income tax return.”

“Show me the lonely person needing comfort for whom you gave up leisure time.”

“Bring back the person your tongue slew.”

Unfailingly he directs our attention to that area of our lives whose desert remains desert just because living water has never been seen there. He gets our attention by shattering our illusion of self-sufficiency and complacency.

C.S. Lewis, for instance, knew for many years a nameless, profound longing that haunted him and which he couldn’t identify. One day he saw that the nameless longing haunting him was the question the Master was addressing him. On that day his long-studied avoidance, his evasiveness born of years of self-willed agnosticism; on that day all of this evaporated as his resistance to the Master crumbled.

Those of us who relish abstract thought, and find few things more enjoyable than armchair philosophical speculation; one day we hear our Lord saying, “What you relish as real and defend as profound isn’t nearly as profound as you think and in fact is an unconscious attempt at avoiding reality. Why don’t you let it go and admit the truth about yourself?”

Or on another day we have to admit, however, reluctantly, that the trinkets and toys with which we’ve cluttered our lives haven’t rendered us one whit happier – and why should they, since trinkets and toys are mere trifles – we see now.

Or perhaps Jesus Christ not only looms before us but also leans on us until we admit that our besetting temptation retains its deadly grip upon us just because we secretly enjoy it.

All such discernment is merely the converse side to our Lord’s comment or question. There’s no end to the ways he stalls effectively our attempts at trifling with him. While he doesn’t say “Go, call your husband” to all of us he speaks to all of us nonetheless.

 

III: — And then what? How does it all end? How did it end for the Samaritan woman? We must note that she isn’t crushed; she doesn’t collapse. She doesn’t say to our Lord, “All right; you’ve pulled the skeletons out of my closet. I give up. There’s no hope for me.” So far from being crushed, she’s elated. Thrilled at her encounter with the Master, she runs off to tell her story to the townspeople. Her encounter with Jesus has done for her what nothing else has ever done or was ever going to do. To be sure, it has held a mirror up to her and forced her to look into it. What has stared back at her can scarcely be called pretty. On the other hand, because Jesus Christ is more than mirror; because he comes to move us beyond the penultimate truth to the ultimate truth about us; because he informs us of the bad news about us only to sharpen our hearing for the good news, the Samaritan woman is set on her feet with her heart rejoicing. Now she sees herself no longer rejected but accepted; no longer condemned but pardoned; no longer slinking around in shame but honoured. Yes, the mirror which our Lord is acquainted her with her private and public wretchedness; and at the same time the living water which he is assured her that from this moment the desert of her life would be a garden. “This man is truth,” she exclaims to her neighbours; “He is truth and life for all of us.”

We are told that the townspeople are startled on account of the woman’s testimony concerning Jesus. They press Jesus to stay with them. He stays two days, at the end of which these townspeople say to her, “It is no longer because of your words that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world.”

The ring of assurance is unmistakable: “We have heard for ourselves, and we know….” The ring of assurance is unmistakable everywhere in scripture. The first epistle of John, for instance, is only a few pages long; we can read it in five minutes. Still, the little expression “we know” or “you know;” this expression is used thirty-two times. Of course there’s a phoney kind of “certainty,” a specious certainty born of fanaticism. And we’ve all met the person whose “certainty” is iron fast because rooted in immoveable prejudice. We’ve all met someone who is certain that the world is ending in four years, or certain that all Viet Namese newcomers are crypto communists, or certain with the certainty born of a script she dare not depart from – like the Jehovah’s Witness caller who can only parrot stock lines.

Yet we all know that such “certainty” is contrived. We crave the authentic certainty of the townspeople who say to the Samaritan woman, “It is no longer because of your words that we believe (even as they would never have come to believe apart from her testimony,) for we have heard for ourselves, and we know….”

Faith, we must understand, isn’t something we exercise in the absence of knowing. Faith, rather, is a particular kind of knowing. Faith knows God. Faith doesn’t know God, however, the way we come to know chemistry – i.e., by manipulating chemicals while remaining personally detached. Faith knows God, on the contrary, as we suspend detachment and allow ourselves to be included in God’s own life. Faith knows God as believers meet him and love him and honour his purposes for them.

When Harold Ballard owned the Maple Leaf Hockey Club he used to go to Maple Leaf Gardens early in the morning when the arena was empty. He put on his skates, and, hockey stick in hand, skated up and down the ice tapping a puck here and there. Ballard was living in his fantasy world. He was fantasizing that he was an NHL player, a star even, caught up in the game’s intensity and explosiveness. But he wasn’t a player and was never going to be. His fantasy world, the next best thing, in fact was light years removed from the real thing. Regardless of what information he possessed about hockey Ballard would never know hockey in the sense of participating in the game.

The townspeople who came to meet Jesus after the woman had met him; they came to say with utter authenticity “We have now heard for ourselves, and we know that you are the world’s sole sovereign and saviour.” Elsewhere Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and they know me.”

Assurance swells in us as we look away from ourselves to him who comes ultimately to bless. Our Lord isn’t merely water. Water cascading over us might just drown us. He is living water, and he causes to come alive all who welcome him and receive him, thereafter to love him and obey him.

 

                                                                                                          Victor Shepherd                                                                                                    

June 2004

John 6:25-34        Numbers 11:1-9         Revelation 10:6-10

“They don’t have bread?” said Marie Antoinette contemptuously; “Then let them eat cake.” The people crying out for bread were the poorest, the hungriest, the most wretched of revolutionary France . They wanted an end to a wicked system of privilege that kept a few aristocrats fat and everyone else hungry. Cake? There weren’t even crumbs. To suggest that the people who lacked the plainest brown bread eat cream puffs was cruel. Marie Antoinette paid dearly for her cruelty. One day the people she disdained caught up with her. They disembowelled her. Her pronouncement spelled death.

Christ Jesus our Lord also made a pronouncement concerning bread. His pronouncement spelled life, and still spells life. He took a piece of bread and said, “This is my body, my very self, given for you. And my self, my life, given over to death for you, will bring you life.” Earlier in his public ministry, anticipating his last supper with his disciples, he had insisted that he is the bread of life. What did he mean by this? How is he the bread of life?

 

I: — In the first place, for the Israelite person bread suggested intimate acquaintance. In everyday conversation Israelite people spoke of eating the bread of sorrow or the bread of toil or the bread of laughter and so on. To eat the bread of something – anything — was to become so intimately acquainted with that thing as to internalize it; to internalize it so very profoundly that it altered them forever, characterized them ever after. To eat the bread of pain meant that someone had been in such pain, was so intimately acquainted with pain, that her experience of pain had altered her. She’d never be the same again.

We must be sure to note the difference between intimate personal acquaintance and textbook information. A textbook on neurology will inform us as to how an injury to our body sends a message via neural pathways to our brain. But of course a person can read the most informative books on pain without ever having been in pain herself. To eat the bread of pain, on the other hand, is to have intimate, personal acquaintance with pain, experience of pain – and all this in such a way as to leave us altered ever after. To eat the bread of joy means that joy hasn’t merely alighted on us; joy has penetrated us, now permeates us, and will always characterize us.

When our Lord insists that we eat the bread he is, he is pressing upon us the most intimate, personal acquaintance with him, and all of this with the result that we are characterized by him and marked as his disciple.

All of us people at different levels of intimacy. Some people we merely nod to; others we chat with; others still we engage. If we have one or two intimate friends, people before whom we need hide nothing; people before whom we could confide anything regardless of our shame or guilt; people who we know would never despise us or mock us or dismiss us – if we have one or two friends before whom our lives can lie open without dissimulation or disguise, we are fortunate.

At the same time, however intimate we are with our best friend, we are aware that there are recesses in us, depths in us that not even our best friend can reach; not even the most loving spouse can reach.

Then who can? Black slaves in the Deep South of yesteryear knew. They knew that God alone can. There are recesses in all of us that only the Spirit, God himself in his most intimate penetration, can reach. For this reason black slaves in the Deep South used to sing, “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen; nobody knows – but Jesus.” They were right.

When Jesus directs us to eat bread, and in directing us to eat bread insists he is bread, the bread of life, he’s offering himself to us as the only one who, as the Spirit Incarnate, can reach us, meet us, heal us in the innermost recesses of our heart where no else has access however much she may love us. Our Lord – and our Lord alone – is the bread of life.

 

II: — Eating bread means something more. None of us eats bread the way we eat chocolate éclairs or angel food cake or French pastries. Desserts we nibble daintily. Bread we chew robustly. We bite off a hunk of bread, half-chew it and swallow it at a gulp.

Joshua and Caleb are leaders of the Israelite people on their way out of Egypt and into the Promised Land. The Israelite people are surrounded by Canaanites. The Canaanites are enemies. They are enemies of God, denying the Holy One of Israel, disdaining his claim upon his creatures, sneering at the Way he appoints his people to walk. The Canaanites intend to eliminate every last Israelite. They are fearsome, and the Israelites, understandably, are fearful.

“Don’t be alarmed,” shout Joshua and Caleb; “Under God our enemies are bread for us. We can swallow them at a gulp. They aren’t going to devour us.”

The name “Jesus” is merely a Gentile way of spelling the Hebrew name “Joshua.” Jesus our Lord is always and everywhere aware that he’s been named after Joshua, 1200 years back, Joshua, whose name – Yehoshua – means “God saves.” Our Lord’s intimacy with you and me guarantees us deliverance from our enemies. Our enemies are bread for us. They aren’t going to devour us.

Who or what are our enemies? What would wound us most tellingly or shatter us most dreadfully? What occurrence do we fear might just break down our confidence and trust in God? To sit in an armchair and try to list our “enemies,” whatever it is that would eclipse God, is highly artificial. Of course we can draw up a list: the death of a child, the disgrace of a Christian leader, utter financial reversal. It’s so very artificial just because we never know how telling a suspected enemy is until we are out of the armchair and in the hands of the enemy.

Several years ago, before the dismantling of the USSR , Major Eva den Hartog spoke in Toronto . Eva den Hartog, Dutch, is a clergywoman with The Salvation Army. At that time she worked on behalf of The Salvation Army in refugee camps. She said that the human degradation of the refugee camps in Thailand and Cambodia was indescribable. Some refugees attempted to maintain minimal human decency; others decided the word “decency” had no meaning. “Now,” said Eva den Hartog to her audience, “Could you go on believing that God never ceases loving just because he is love; could you go on commending him in a situation like that?” One thing’s obvious: Eva den Hartog herself can, and obviously can just because she does; she does extol the truth and mercy and faithfulness of God – from her heart, with conviction – in situations that are plainly the enemy of all she cherishes. In fact those hostile situations have become bread for her: she, her faith, are not going to be devoured by them.

One day she flew in a small plane from one Asian country to another. When the plane landed communist soldiers grabbed the pilot and co-pilot and beat them horribly. Eva sat in the plane, knowing in a few minutes it would be her turn. She prayed, “Lord, if they want to kill me, let them kill me. But don’t let them torture me or rape me.” Then the soldiers pulled her out of the plane. They saw the “S” insignia on both sides of the collar of her uniform blouse. One fellow snorted, “Hmph! S – S: soviet soldier.” They let her go. In the presence of Jesus Christ her enemies were bread for her. She wasn’t going to be devoured by them.

What if the very thing she feared most had happened? What if she had been tortured or raped? Horrible as it would have been, even there her Lord wouldn’t have abandoned her. She’d have gone to her death knowing that her trust hadn’t been misplaced.

The truth is, Jesus Christ, the bread of life, renders all our enemies bread for us. We aren’t going to be devoured by them. Major illness? Mental illness? Terminal illness? Of course we shrink from it. Ultimately, however, it can’t expel us from our Father’s house or stifle his love for us. Cataclysmic reversal, anywhere in life? Crushing, numbing letdown? Jarring to be sure, yet it will never expose as imaginary the grip God has on us, or the grip we have on him.

Joshua and Caleb saw the people of God, their people, quaking before Canaanite enemies. “Enemies?” said the two men; “They are bread for us.   We aren’t going to be devoured by them.”

“What can separate you and me from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord?” asks Paul. Nothing can. Anything that threatens to or wants to is but bread for us.

 

III: — Eating bread means something more. In biblical times bread was the chief item at every meal. And every meal – not just special meals, but everyday meals – sealed a covenant or promise. Sharing bread with someone at a meal was re-affirming the covenant. Promises were always sealed by a meal, by bread.

On one occasion Jonathan was disgusted at the behaviour of his father, King Saul. His father was bent on murdering David, Jonathan’s best friend. Jonathan left the table, refusing to eat, because he wanted to announce unambiguously that he wasn’t party to his father’s evil intent and wasn’t obliged to his father in any way. When you and I receive bread from the hand of Christ and from the hand of each other, however, we are announcing that we are obliged, and gladly obliged, both to him and to each other. By eating bread with him and with each other we are signing our name to the promises all of us have made to one other.

When we eat bread together we are announcing that we cherish one another and have pledged ourselves to one another. We mean it. To pledge ourselves to one another doesn’t mean we thereafter must agree with one another. There has to be room for disagreement within our fellowship. Still, we have promised that we aren’t going to slay or slander one another.

Paul and Barnabas disagreed over whether they should take Mark along with them on their second missionary journey. Mark had been on the first missionary journey and had “chickened out”, as we like to say. He had let them down. “Give him a second chance” Barnabas urged; “He’s only nineteen. He’s young. “If he’s that young then he’s too young” replied Paul; “We can’t risk jeopardising the mission. We can’t risk having him let us down again.” Luke tells us in the book of Acts that Paul and Barnabas “disagreed sharply.” They didn’t become foes; they didn’t flail each other; they didn’t harbour a grudge for the rest of their lives. But they did disagree. Paul moved off into his second missionary foray without Mark. Barnabas took Mark under his wing (and this time Mark didn’t let anyone down.) Years later — this is a point we mustn’t overlook – Paul spoke of Mark in the warmest terms.

I’m convinced that early-day Christianity was much less monochrome than we commonly think. To be sure, all Christians, regardless of background or outlook, acknowledged Jesus Christ to be the Son of God Incarnate, the bearer and bestower of the Holy Spirit, the Messiah of Israel, and the world’s only Saviour and Lord – faith in whom is the Father’s insistent invitation. All Christians acknowledged this.   But their common affirmation of Jesus didn’t render them monochrome in all respects.

As a matter of fact there were three major clusters of Christians in the earliest days. There were Palestinian Jewish Christians like Stephen. There were Hellenistic Jewish Christians like Paul. There were Hellenistic Gentile Christians like Titus. What they had in common was Christ, and he kept them together. For there were many things they didn’t have in common. For instance the Palestinian Jewish Christians went to the temple in Jerusalem , even after the resurrection of Jesus, to sacrifice a lamb. They felt they were obliged to keep all aspects of Torah. Hellenistic Gentile Christians, on the other hand, saw no point to animal sacrifice. They killed lambs only to eat them.

The three Christian groups (Palestinian Jewish, Hellenistic Jewish, Hellenistic Gentile) were united in their common life in their common Lord. For this reason they pledged themselves to each other as well. Where they disagreed after that would be a disagreement, for sure, but not such as to undo their covenant with fellow-Christians. When the Palestinian Jewish Christians in Jerusalem were threatened with famine who gave most sacrificially to help them? – the Hellenistic Gentile Christians in Corinth . The Christians in Corinth were furthest fro the outlook of Christians in Jerusalem . Still, in pledging themselves to Jesus Christ they had pledged themselves to each other as well.

“Let them eat cake” Marie Antoinette sneered disdainfully. “Let us eat bread” Jesus invites graciously. We do eat bread.

We receive him who is the bread of life. We live with him so very intimately that he reaches us where no one else can and therein characterizes us as we are marked his.

In eating bread, the everyday foodstuff we bite off and gulp, we are confirmed in God’s truth concerning our enemies: they are bread for us. They aren’t going to devour us, for nothing can separate us from our Lord.

And in eating bread with our Lord and with each other we have signed and sealed our pledge, our promise, our covenant with him and with his people.

Let us break bread together now.

 

                                                                                                  Victor Shepherd
March 2005

 

 John 6:52-59      Deuteronomy 8:1-10

 

[1]         When the Japanese besieged Hong Kong sixty-plus years ago and began starving the people inside the city, a British banker was found sitting on the curb with his feet in the gutter. He was dressed like a British banker: cutaway coat, Homburg hat, pin-striped trousers, grey spats. He was the picture of upper-class privilege. He had found an orange in the gutter. The orange had been stepped on several times, had been exposed to the sun, and had begun to putrefy. He was about to bite into it when a British soldier knocked it out of his hand, shouting, “Do you want to get sick?”   Whereupon the banker, still sitting on the curb, hung his head and blubbered like a child.

Hunger is terrible. Hunger bends people. Hunger forces people to be what they never thought they’d become. The British banker would have given everything he owned for just one slice of bread. But there was no bread.

Bread was the all-important commodity in the ancient east.  Bread? Not money?  Money didn’t even exist in old, old Babylon . In lieu of currency grain was the medium of exchange. Hundreds of years later, in Hosea’s day, Hosea lurched broken-hearted to the market in order to purchase his “hooker”-wife from the clutches of the local pimp. Hosea paid part of the purchase-price in grain.  Whereas in our society there are few public officials more important than the minister of finance and the president of the central bank, in the ancient world the most important public official was the one responsible for bread.

 

[2]         Bread is one of life’s necessities.  Because bread looms so large in our lives and is essential to life, we use the word “bread” metaphorically.  “I’ve got to have a second job just to put bread on the table.” Everyone knows what the expression is meant to convey.  When we pray, as we are taught to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread”, we are asking for all of life’s necessities: bread, to be sure, but also water and clean air and safe cities and national security and effective schooling and adequate medical care. What, after all, would be the point of bread (literal) to sustain us if disease then carried us off? What would be the point of eating bread to forestall malnutrition if we then had to breathe lung-corroding air or live in lethal streets or succumb to military aggression? When we pray for daily bread we are praying for all of life’s necessities as symbolized by bread.  When our Lord multiplied the loaves and healed the sick and raised the dead he wasn’t doing three different things.  He was doing one thing: bringing with him that kingdom whose manifestation we long to see.

Then is bread a physical matter or a spiritual matter?  To put such a question is to pose a false dichotomy.         All of us at Tyndale have been schooled in the logic of the Hebrew bible, and therefore we know that to dichotomize life into the physical (or material) and the spiritual is to dichotomize life falsely.  Dennis Niles, a thoughtful South Asian Christian of an earlier era, used to say, “If I lack bread – that’s a physical problem; if my neighbour lacks bread – a spiritual problem.”   Since the Christian community is birthed by the Spirit of God and is concerned with spiritual matters, the Christian community is therefore concerned with material matters – which is to say, the Christian community is always concerned with bread of every kind.

 

[3] While we are speaking of bread metaphorically we should recall the way the older testament speaks of the bread of tears and the bread of affliction and the bread of idleness and the bread of adversity.  Because bread was the staple food in the ancient world, it was eaten in huge quantities. Then as now people knew that in one sense they were what they ate. What they ate became so thoroughly a part of them that they were characterized by what they had had to swallow.

When the Hebrew bible speaks of the bread of tears or the bread of sorrow, it means that someone is so thoroughly grief-saturated she’s consumed by her grief; someone has been so thoroughly saddened that she’s characterized by her sorrow and is now identified with it.

We all know people whom adversity has devastated so thoroughly that we would say, were we living in the time of our Hebrew foreparents, that they have eaten the bread of adversity.  As soon as we hear the word “adversity” we think of those people who exemplify adversity and whom we now identify with it.

We know too people who have eaten the bread of wickedness.  They have become so very wicked that they are deemed to exemplify wickedness

[4] In view of the different kinds of bread that we can eat and do eat, it’s plain that we need one more kind of bread as we need nothing else: we need him who is the bread of life. We are sinners and we are sufferers. We need our Lord, and he meets us at every point of our need.

In Israel ’s 40-year trek through the wilderness there was given them a most glorious anticipation of Jesus Christ, the bread of life.  They were given manna. Manna sustained them in that era when bleakness loomed wherever they looked.         “Manna” is a Hebrew word meaning “What is it?”   They were sustained by God’s provision, the nature of which they couldn’t explain (let alone explain away), yet whose presence and significance they couldn’t deny. “What is it?” How God sustains his people is always a mystery; that he sustains them is never in doubt.         Manna appeared to be so very ordinary, yet it was extraordinary in its origin, its nature, its effectiveness.

Twelve hundred years after the wilderness episode some descendants of wilderness-survivors said to Jesus, “Our fathers ate manna in the wilderness. Moses fed his people.  What can you do for us?” Jesus replied, “It wasn’t Moses who fed your foreparents; it was my Father.  He gives true bread from heaven, and I, Jesus of Nazareth, am that bread. I am the bread of life, just because I am living bread. Whoever comes to me will never hunger; whoever comes to me will never perish.”

Manna was an anticipation of Jesus Christ.  To say the same thing differently, Jesus Christ was the hidden truth of the manna in the wilderness.  It was he who sustained the people even though they knew it not.  “Now, however”, says our Lord, “you people are to know that I am God’s provision. To be sure, I appear so very ordinary as to be readily overlooked.  Yet my origin, nature and effectiveness are rooted in the mystery of God. I am living bread, the bread of life; whoever comes to me from this moment neither hungers nor perishes.”

In the service of Holy Communion we eat ordinary bread, everyday bread, bread plain and simple, and yet we are fed him who is the bread of life. The bread that sustains our bodies also sustains, by God’s grace, our life in Christ as our Lord Jesus gives himself to us afresh.

Wine

[6]         Not only was bread eaten at Israelite meals; wine was drunk at every meal as well. Where wine is concerned our Israelite foreparents differed from our society in two ways. On the one hand, they abhorred drunkenness, finding it disgusting, whereas we seem to find it amusing. On the other hand, Israelite people customarily drank wine at every meal.   The rare exception was the highly unusual ascetic like John the Baptist. People like John who didn’t touch wine also refrained from touching much else, including soap and shampoo. They also avoided women. They lived on the fringe of society. Their witness had its place, to be sure, but it was never the witness that God had appointed his people to bear characteristically.  John, it must be remembered, lived in the wilderness, dressed in animal skins, stank like a garbage can, and drank no wine.  Jesus did none of this.

Again and again the Older Testament speaks of wine as God’s gift that gladdens the heart of men and women.         Wine doesn’t appear to be essential to life.  Bread is essential to life, but not wine.  Yet wine is essential to life, said our Hebrew foreparents, just because joy is essential to life. Life in the kingdom of God is never to be bleak or drab or dull.  Life must never become utilitarian only.  In addition to the utilitarian there has to be a light heart and a glad countenance, a happy time and a festive mood.

Jesus, we know partied frequently.  He partied so often that his enemies accused him of overdoing it.  They said he ate too much and he drank too much.  Whereupon he wheeled on his detractors, “John came neither eating nor drinking and you said he was demon-possessed, crazy if not wicked. I’ve come eating and drinking, and you call me a glutton and drunkard.  You don’t care about God’s Kingdom.  You care only about spearing those who challenge your self-righteousness and your lovelessness.  That’s deplorable. But in any case I and the people who love me are going to a party.  And we’re going to have a good time.  You’re welcome to come to the party too.  Maybe you’d rather stay home and pout.  We can’t help that. But in any case you aren’t going to spoil our party.”

Wine is God’s gift that gladdens the human heart.  When our Lord insists, wine cup in hand, that he is the true vine, the wine of life, he means that he is that gift of the Father who profoundly makes the human heart to sing.         Whenever we drink wine, therefore – at the Lord’s Supper, at a meal, on any occasion – we are announcing once again that Jesus Christ is the one who profoundly delights and satisfies, doing for us what no one else can and imparting to us what no one can ever take away.

  Since our Lord most profoundly gladdens us through the blessing of his shed blood, the apostles, together with the church after them, have associated wine with blood. In fact the church hasn’t hesitated to speak of eating Christ’s body and drinking his blood. This isn’t surprising, since Jesus himself said that he abides in us and we in him only as we drink his blood. (John 6:54)

What did he mean? What did he mean, in view of the fact that Jewish people abhor drinking blood as they abhor little else? The Torah forbids them to drink blood, and they take such precautions with kosher meat as to ensure that they don’t eat or drink blood.  At the last supper, when Jesus took the cup and declared to the disciples, “This is God’s covenant with you renewed in my blood,” the one thing that his disciples never thought they were doing was literally drinking his blood. The thought of it would have sickened them.

It so happens that among the Israelite people to “shed blood” meant to murder. Murder was reprehensible. It so happens that among the Israelite people to “drink blood” meant to murder and to profit from the foul deed.  While it’s dreadful to murder, it’s worse to murder and then profit from the murder.

When Jesus tells us that we are going to drink his blood, he means that our sin is going to do him in.         Humankind’s sin, collapsing on him, will crush him to death.  And humankind’s sin, crushing him to death, he will gladly bear and bear away for our sakes, thereby giving us life.  We kill, and we profit from it.  We shed blood and we drink blood.  In the paradoxical mystery of God’s grace, the treachery of the human heart, culminating in murder, the murder of the Son of God; this becomes the means of our forgiveness and freedom.  Let me say it again. In the paradoxical mystery of God’s grace, human treachery (the cross) becomes the means whereby human treachery is pardoned and purged.  Plainly we do drink our Lord’s blood.

Then let us come to Christ’s table now, for as he invites us to drink wine with him, the fruit of the vine, he invites us to drink again that blood which we have already drunk in any case.  And he invites us to eat bread with him, and therein know afresh that he, and he alone, is now and ever will be the bread of life.

 

                                                                                         Victor Shepherd

April 2007

                  John 6:54         Genesis 8:13-22       Luke 19:1-10

 

I: — Time magazine, McLean ’s, together with most magazines that appear weekly or monthly, are customarily divided into sections according to subject matter.   One section discusses business, another politics, another sport, as well as medicine, education, finance, the environment and clothing fashions. The format of the magazine suggests that these compartments have little to do with each other. Sport has little to do with business, education little to do with finance, medicine little to do with politics.

Actually, all of these subjects have been artificially compartmentalized. Sport has a great deal to do with business; sport has as much to do with business as sport has to do with sport.  Education has as much to do with finance as education has to do with the philosophy of education or with pedagogical technique.  And what has become more politicized than medicine?  It’s always possible to compartmentalize a magazine; it’s never possible to compartmentalize life.

For this reason we should always suspect the magazine section on religion. It’s usually towards the back of the magazine, so that if the weary reader puts down the magazine before she finishes reading she won’t have missed much. What’s more, the article on religion is as highly compartmentalized as the other articles. We are informed that a church in a Vancouver suburb has been involved in scandal; or that there’s fierce infighting in one particular denomination; or that two religious bodies are going to amalgamate.

The magazine left-handedly gives the impression that religion is on the margin of human existence; it has little if anything to do with life.  It may have something to do with leisure time or hobbies or abstract musing for those who enjoy abstract musing, but it has little to do with life.

People of biblical conviction, however, think differently. We know that faith pertains to life, not to the margins of life.  Jesus came to restore our humanness to the glory in which it was created. He had no interest – and has no interest – in making us more religious.  People whose lives were complicated and twisted pretzel-like welcomed him; people preoccupied with religion couldn’t stand him. He said himself that he came to bring life not religion, and life richer than anything available anywhere else.

My students are startled when I tell them that a Jewish youngster, upon learning the Hebrew language, is directed first to read – read where in the Hebrew bible?  Psalm 23 – “The Lord is my shepherd” – wouldn’t that be a good place to have a youngster start reading Hebrew sentences?   As a matter of fact the Jewish youngster is directed to the book of Leviticus (a book that the church rarely reads) just because Leviticus 17-22 describes “holiness,” holy living.         We are not to bribe judges; we are not move surveyors’ stakes; we are not to falsify weights and measures; we are not to exploit defenceless people. Holiness has everything to do with life; holiness has very little to do with a trembly feeling in one’s tummy as the sun sets over the lake and the loon loons on.

 

II: — In our service today we are going to share the Lord’s Supper together.  What’s the connexion between the Lord’s Supper and any supper? Between what we eat here and the roast beef we eat in two hours?   Between this meal and any meal?

Let’s think for a minute about the matter of eating meat – ordinary, everyday meat.  Let’s revisit the old sagas in the early chapters of Genesis.  Humans are created to live, under God, in the realm of blessing.  We are also created on the same “day”, the sixth day, as the animals. This means that we are related to the animals more closely than we are related to anything else in the creation. We and the animals are first cousins; not quite brothers and sisters, but certainly cousins. For this reason we were never meant to eat them.  What sort of people eat their cousins?

Since God is the God of shalom, peace; and since he alone is Creator, the world was created to live in peace: peace between us and God, peace between us and our neighbour, peace between us and our environment, peace between us and the animals.

As the timeless story in Genesis unfolds we are told that on account of our arrogant disobedience; on account of our ingratitude and God-defiance, we are expelled from paradise.  Forfeiting God’s blessing, we now know curse.         Husband blames wife for what’s gone wrong.  Wife blames snake. Snake has no one to blame, even though snake in turn will be despised and loathed. Cain kills brother Abel. Everyone is at everyone else’s throat. Daily work becomes frustrating and only partially productive.  Difficulty and pain attend everything we do.  Creation, cursed, is spiralling down into chaos.

The next episode in our collection of sagas is the story of Noah’s ark. This story informs us that as wickedness spreads throughout the creation God’s anger is aroused and his judgement is provoked.  A flood occurs. But as I have pointed out here relentlessly, the purpose of God’s judgement is always his restoration.  When the flood has receded, Noah and his family have been borne through God’s judgment; they have been spared.  In gratitude to God for his mercy they kill an animal and offer it to God as a sacrifice; specifically, as a sacrifice of thanksgiving to God for his life-giving goodness.  In addition to the animal offered up in thanksgiving to God, humans begin eating animals. At this point in the old Hebrew sagas, and only at this point, humans become meat-eaters. Permission to eat meat is God’s concession to the depravity of the human heart.

At the same time, as often as our Hebrew foreparents ate eat meat at daily meals and acknowledged the depravity of their heart (after all, they were eating their cousins, weren’t they?); as often as they ate meat at daily meals our Hebrew foreparents were reminded of the sacrifices that priests offered up on their behalf in the temple.         Sacrifices were the God-appointed provision whereby defiled people could come before a holy God and survive meeting him.  Sacrifices were the God-appointed provision whereby sinners could repent and find pardon. Ultimately, in Israel ’s history, the sacrifices in the temple came to point to the sacrifice, the sacrifice of God’s own Son that would thereafter render animal sacrifice unnecessary.  In other words, every time an Israelite family sat down to roast lamb at the dinner table, the family considered the lambs that were being sacrificed, by God’s appointment, in the temple.  And every time they reflected upon the lambs being sacrificed in the temple, they anticipated the lamb of God who would gather up all the sacrifices that had anticipated his, crowning them with his own self-offering on behalf of all people everywhere. When John the Baptist saw Jesus approaching him at the Jordan he cried “There’s the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

In two hours we are going to go home and eat meat.  We shall eat it because it sustains us.  It provides ever so much that we need, not the least of which is iron for our blood, without which we would only flop around anaemically.  Because, however, as Christians we know how it is we have come to eat meat, our eating meat will always mean more than mere bodily nourishment. Our eating meat will have about it the flavour of sacrifice, and the flavour of sacrifice in turn will direct us immediately to the lamb who has been offered up for us all.  Specifically, the dead animal we eat will point us to someone else whose death has brought us life.  We have been given life through the death of a fellow-creature who was slain on our behalf. Any occasion of meat-eating – even a burger at McDonald’s – sears upon us the truth that we are the beneficiaries of God’s mercy on account of another creature whose blood was shed for us.  In other words, unlike Time magazine or McLean’s, we who have been to school in Israel ; we don’t compartmentalize life.  Meat-eating on any occasion, for any reason, is shot through with spiritual significance.

Customarily before we eat a meal we “say grace.” The English word “grace” has two meanings. One meaning is the dozen words we utter sincerely before we pick up knife and fork and begin dismembering the meat.  The other meaning of “grace” has to do with God’s undeserved mercy. Strictly speaking grace, in scripture, is God’s faithfulness to his covenant with us; and when his faithfulness to us collides with our sin, his faithfulness takes the form of mercy.         There is the profoundest connexion between the grace of God and our “saying grace.” The words we utter before eating are intimately connected to the mercy of God, connected specifically to that self-offering, sacrifice, whereby God fashions our pardon and bleaches our stains and summons us home.  So far from compartmentalizing life, Hebrew logic renders all of life – hamburger joint snack and weekly worship, thrice-daily meals and once-only Messiah Banquet to come – a seamless whole.

 

II: — Not only was meat eaten regularly at Israelite meals; wine was drunk at every meal as well. Where wine is concerned our Israelite foreparents differed from us in two ways. On the one hand, they abhorred drunkenness, finding it disgusting, whereas we seem to find it amusing. On the other hand, Israelite people customarily drank wine at every meal.  The rare exception was the highly unusual ascetic like John the Baptist. People like John who didn’t touch wine also refrained from touching much else, including soap and shampoo. They also avoided women. They lived on the fringe of society. Their witness had its place, to be sure, but it was never the witness that God had appointed his people to bear characteristically.  John, it must be remembered, lived in the wilderness, dressed in animal skins, stank like a garbage can, and drank no wine.  Jesus did none of this.

Again and again the Older Testament speaks of wine as God’s gift that gladdens the heart of men and women.         Wine doesn’t appear to be essential to life.  Bread is essential to life, but not wine.  Yet wine is essential to life, said our Hebrew foreparents, just because joy is essential to life. Life in the kingdom of God is never to be bleak or drab or dull.  Life must never become utilitarian only.  In addition to the utilitarian there has to be a light heart and a glad countenance, a happy time and a festive mood.

Jesus, we know partied frequently.  He partied so often that his enemies accused him of overdoing it.  They said he ate too much and he drank too much.  Whereupon he wheeled on his detractors, “John came neither eating nor drinking and you said he was demon-possessed, crazy if not wicked. I have come eating and drinking, and you call me a glutton and drunkard.  You don’t care about God’s Kingdom.  You care only about spearing those who challenge your self-righteousness and your lovelessness.  That’s deplorable. But in any case I and the people who love me are going to a party.  And we’re going to have a good time.  You’re welcome to come to the party too.  Maybe you’d rather stay home and pout.  We can’t help that. But in any case you aren’t going to spoil our party.”

Wine is God’s gift that gladdens the human heart. When our Lord insists, wine cup in hand, that he is the true vine, the wine of life, he means that he is that gift of the Father who profoundly makes the human heart to sing. Whenever we drink wine, therefore, on any occasion – at the Lord’s Supper, at a meal, in a place of public refreshment – we are announcing once again that life is seamless. Jesus Christ is the one who profoundly delights and satisfies, doing for us what no one else can and imparting to us what no one can ever take away.

 

III: — Since our Lord most profoundly gladdens us through the blessing of his shed blood, the apostles, together with the church after them, have associated wine with blood. In fact the church hasn’t hesitated to speak of eating Christ’s body and drinking his blood. This isn’t surprising, since Jesus himself said that he abides in us and we in him only as we drink his blood. (John 6:54)

What did he mean?  What did he mean, in view of the fact that Jewish people abhor drinking blood as they abhor little else?         The Torah forbids them to drink blood, and they take such precautions with kosher meat as to ensure that they don’t eat or drink blood. At the last supper, when Jesus took the cup and declared to the disciples, “This is God’s covenant with you renewed in my blood,” the one thing that his disciples never thought they were doing was literally drinking his blood. The thought of it would have sickened them.

It so happens that among the Israelite people to “shed blood” meant to murder.  Murder was reprehensible. It so happens that among the Israelite people to “drink blood” meant to murder and to profit from the foul deed. While it’s dreadful to murder, it’s even worse to murder and then profit from the murder.

When Jesus tells us that we are going to drink his blood, he means that our sin is going to do him in.         Humankind’s sin, collapsing on him, will crush him to death.  And humankind’s sin, crushing him to death, he will gladly bear and bear away for our sakes, thereby giving us life.  We kill, and we profit from it.  We shed blood and we drink blood.  In the paradoxical mystery of God’s grace, the treachery of the human heart, culminating in murder, the murder of the Son of God; this becomes the means of our forgiveness and freedom.  Let me say it again. In the paradoxical mystery of God’s grace, human treachery (the cross) becomes the means whereby human treachery is pardoned and purged.

Plainly we do drink our Lord’s blood.

 

What about bread, both everyday bread and Eucharistic bread?  Everyday bread, Eucharistic bread, and the body of Christ?   A discussion of this will have to wait for another sermon.

 

Today it is enough to know, as we come to the Lord’s Table, that the wine we drink is the blood of Christ. It is enough to know that two hours from now, when we eat pork chops or fried liver, we are joining in mind and heart the animal we eat (our cousin had to give up its life for us) with the sacrifice of the lamb of God, who gave up his life for us in order to give us his life.

 

Life in the kingdom of God is seamless.

 

                                                                                                            Victor Shepherd                                                                                                                                                                                                  

February 2007

 

John 3:2   “You are a teacher.”            (John 7:12)   “He is a good man.”

“My Lord and my God.” (John 20:28)       “He is possessed by Beelzebul [Satan].” (Mark 3:22 )

 

When most people hear the name “Jesus” they immediately think of “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild.” When they think of “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild” they think of a kind fellow walking through the countryside patting little children on the head, spouting “bromides” here and there, being as kind and helpful as any one of us would want to be. Those who imagine Jesus to be like this always assume that everybody in first century Palestine liked him.

Then again there are those who know that every now and then Jesus said or did something that riled the people around him. He must have done something to rile others, or else his life wouldn’t have ended the way it did. People who think like this assume that the larger part of the population understood him and liked him, while a small minority didn’t understand him or like him yet had enough political “clout” to have Jesus executed.

The truth is, the reactions to Jesus throughout his earthly ministry were always mixed. Some people loved him (a few), some people hated him, some people were puzzled by him, some people understood this or that aspect of him, some people followed him at a distance (or thought they could), others followed him more closely but only for a short while.

Reaction to Jesus was always mixed; and not only mixed, extreme. Those who loved him couldn’t have loved him more; those who hated him loathed him beyond telling; those who were indifferent were cemented into their indifference. The written gospels reflect all these judgements about Jesus. Today we are going to examine four such judgements.

 

I: —  One judgement was wholly negative: “He is possessed by Beelzebul, by Satan.” We mustn’t think that such an assessment occurred once only. “He is possessed by Beelzebul” was pronounced in Nazareth , in his home town. In Jerusalem his detractors hissed, “He has a demon.” The bottom line is the same: what was meant is, “He’s evil.” Some people accused him of being a wolf in sheep’s clothing; others accused him of being a wolf in wolf’s clothing. In other words some people thought him to be sneaky-evil; others thought him to be blatantly evil. But in any case, they thought him to be in league with the evil one himself. They judged him to be destructive, fiendish, accursed himself and cursing others. From that time until this the world hasn’t lacked those who render this judgement concerning Jesus.

When I was recovering from my fractured spine I had to have periodic check-ups with the orthopaedic surgeon who had treated me. One afternoon that I shall never forget, in the old medical arts building of downtown Toronto , this man flew into a tirade upon learning that I was a theology student. “Every society that your Jesus has penetrated now thinks it has to look out for its physical and mental cripples”, he raged, “and I want to tell you that no society has ever been able to afford the upkeep of its physical and mental cripples. You Christians have done it to us. You Christians are responsible for the economic millstone around society’s neck; and this millstone is going to spell financial ruin for all of us. No society can afford what you Christians say we must.” But to maintain that Christians have done this foul deed is to say that our Lord himself is foul. “He is possessed by Beelzebul; he has a demon.”

The next time educators speak of “Values Education,” examine closely what is put forward as “values”. The assumption is that “values” are purely subjective; “values” are really “preferences”; “values” are opinions; “values” reflect no more than what an individual or a society likes or wants. Nowhere is it even hinted that there is such a thing as truth; nowhere is one allowed to speak of the will and purpose and command of God. As soon as Christians say, “But our lives aren’t shaped and directed by what we prefer or by what we like or by opinions we have; the lives of Christians are shaped and directed by a truth of God that is as much the structure of the universe as the law of gravity. Is the law of gravity a human invention? Can we set it aside if we don’t like it? Are we going to vote on it? Is it part of the smorgasbord of choices that is arrayed before youngsters? Then why do you think that that which orders the lives of Christians is mere subjectivism? mere preference? mere whim? mere opinion?” — as soon as Christians say this we are dismissed. If you think I’ve got it wrong about “Values Education” then you should raise the issue of truth in the midst of such a discussion and see what the reaction is. The reaction will be, “These Christians are possessed by Beelzebul” — which is to say, he who forms them and informs them has a demon.

 

II: —  Not every judgement of Jesus was negative, however. Some people said, “He is a good man.” “He’s a decent fellow.”

On the one hand I am convinced we live in a fallen world whose depravity is bottomless. On the other hand, I am aware that there remains among some people who make no profession of faith an apprehension of decency. Decency can disappear, to be sure; yet as it disappears and life becomes unendurable, decency reasserts itself if only because without it social existence is impossible.

People who say of our Lord today, “He’s a good man”, aren’t making any Christian profession and don’t care to. Yet their assessment of Jesus shouldn’t be scorned for that reason. After all, the fact that they find Jesus decent means that they appreciate decency. And therefore they are aligned with all who stand on the side of decency and stand against degradation.

We must always remember that the balance between decency and degradation is a precarious balance; the scales can be tipped by only the slightest pressure. Anyone who supports decency is to be encouraged, since our society will never lack those who are shameless, who violate that decency which, if rampant, renders social existence impossible.

I have long found what I regard as the shameless vulgarity of CFRB radio broadcasting difficult to endure. Yet I listen to CFRB if I need up-to-the-minute traffic reports. Not so long ago I needed a traffic report, turned on CFRB, and was exposed to yet another wretched phone-in scene. This time people were to phone in to the station (and have their phone call broadcast) as they answered the broadcaster’s question, “What was it (i.e., sexual intercourse) like the first time?” Can you imagine it? – the utmost human intimacy blabbed as though it were less significant than a baseball score. Scripture speaks of “the way of a man with a maid” as a wonder beyond telling. The prophets use the intimacy of marriage as an analogy for our most intimate relationship with God — a relationship so intimate as finally to be inexpressible. And vulgar oafs, devoid of decency, superficially titillate radio-listeners while the broadcaster eggs them on. One young man described his first encounter in a shopping mall. “Where’s the mall?” the broadcaster laughed lasciviously.

The people who believed no more about Jesus than “He’s a good man” at least believed that much. Many today believe no more than that. But at least they are tipping the balance between decency and degradation in the right direction. I, for one, am not going to speak ill of those who share my horror at the coarsening of society and who are endeavouring to restore a modicum of wholesomeness.

For a long time ethical humanists have perplexed Christians. Ethical humanists don’t attend church, don’t worship, don’t make a profession of faith, don’t agree with the church’s assessment of Jesus — but are morally upright. We shouldn’t look upon such people as a perplexity; we should thank God for them. In his providence he has seasoned the world with those who are going to resist the erosion of decency.

Regardless of what Jesus claimed for himself concerning Israel’s hope of a Messiah; regardless of what Jesus elicited from his disciples concerning his unique relationship with his Father; regardless of any of this the common people couldn’t help noticing that the sick were attended to, women were elevated, the deranged were restored, children welcomed and the poor honoured. Anyone could see this much; anyone with a shred of decency had to say, “He’s a good man.”

 

III: — There was yet another judgement of Jesus: “He is a teacher.” To say this isn’t to say, “He is an able instructor; he has mastered the technique of teaching.” When those Israelites who profited from him concluded, “He is a teacher”, they meant, “His teaching comes from above; he is a prophet; he has an authoritative word from God.” In biblical thought only the person who has first listened to God can speak for God. Only the person who has first heard can speak. The teacher, the prophet, is one whom God has drawn to himself, to whom he has disclosed himself, and whom he now commissions to teach concerning himself. When the people said of Jesus, “He is a teacher”, it was no little accolade. Moreover, in naming Jesus “teacher” they were admitting themselves to be without excuse if they didn’t take his teaching to heart.

Inasmuch as you and I honour Jesus as teacher we have logically committed ourselves to heeding his teaching; and logically we are without excuse if we do not.

At the beginning of the sermon I mentioned that more than a few people look upon the teaching of Jesus as nothing more than the handing-out of bromides, commonplaces that any thoughtful person would come up with if she thought for five minutes. Actually, our Lord’s teachings are anything but bromides, anything but commonplaces. We need to read the written gospels and re-read them until the startling teachings of Jesus jar us awake.

“Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is in heaven.” Our reward will be granted us in heaven; in heaven, be it noted, and not one day before. Even so, just because it will be granted us in heaven we must and may rejoice and be glad right now. This is anything but a commonplace.

“No one after lighting a lamp covers it with a vessel, or puts it under a bed, but puts it on a stand, that those who enter may see the light. For nothing is hid that shall not be made manifest, nor anything secret that shall not be known and come to light.” Christians are the light of the world, says Jesus. The purpose of light is to enlighten. Therefore the light should always be held up so that others may be enlightened by the same light that has enlightened us. Our Lord’s teaching here readily makes sense and isn’t startling. Then Jesus adds a word that ought to ring in our heads constantly: there is nothing hid that isn’t going to be made manifest, and there is no secret that isn’t going to be brought to light. Yes, Christians are and are to be the light of the world; but if there is any hint of darkness in them at all, anything smudged, anything covered up, anything painted out (supposedly) — it’s going to be exposed. Finally, there aren’t going to be any secrets. That in us which contradicts our discipleship, which is anything but bright and would never illumine life for anyone; that which we think we have hidden from everyone for so long that it’s going to remain hidden forever — “think again”, says Jesus, “and deal with it now, otherwise it is going to be dealt with in a way that will shame you publicly.”

When I hear “the teacher” in such matters I sink down into a chair and ask myself, “What is there in me that would humiliate me if it appeared on the front page of the newspaper? What is there about me that would shame me if it were aired at an official board meeting? What is there that I’d prefer my wife not to see?” And then I know that there is only one thing to do: deal with it now.

When some of the men and women who surrounded Jesus remarked, “Not only is he a good man, he’s a teacher”, they meant, “God has appointed him to instruct us. We should hear him and heed him.”

Our Lord is still a teacher. And therefore still we must hear and heed.

 

IV: — The final assessment of Jesus is one beyond which there is no advance. It is the confession of Thomas following the risen one’s appearance to him. Our Lord’s appearance to Thomas ended forever the disciple’s vacillating, his uncertainty, his roller-coaster conviction and feeling. “My Lord and my God”: everything that had been unsettled in Thomas was settled in that instant. It is an unqualified confession of the incarnation. What Thomas affirmed in his five words Charles Wesley affirmed in his Christmas carol, “Veiled in flesh the Godhead see; hail th’Incarnate deity; pleased as man with man to dwell, Jesus our Emmanuel” — “God-with-us”.

I have always believed that doctrine has eversomuch to do with life. The doctrine of the incarnation has everything to do with where we live.

(i) Think first of our suffering. Scripture tells us that God himself suffers in our suffering. Does he? How much does he suffer? With what kind of suffering does he suffer? Does he suffer in my suffering the way I “suffer” in the suffering of those in Mexico who were devastated by a hurricane? When I read about the hurricane I feel dreadful. I am moved at the plight of people who lost children, homes, livelihood, even their own lives. But as moved as I am at their plight, their plight isn’t mine. I am aware of it, am informed of it, suffer it (to some extent) with them. Nonetheless, alongside the suffering they undergo through enduring the disaster my “suffering” upon being informed of the disaster is nothing.

So God suffers in our suffering. Does that mean he is moved when he observes ours? Does it mean he is merely informed of it even as he safely remains a spectator of it?

When Thomas cried to Jesus, “My Lord and my God;” when Thomas confessed the truth of the incarnation, Thomas knew that God knows our suffering not the way we know of Mexico’s through reading about it in a newspaper; God knows our suffering in that he has lived the worst human suffering himself. In the person of his Son he has tasted first-hand the bitter taste of rejection, misunderstanding, hostility, slander, abandonment, mental anguish, physical torment. He suffers in our suffering not because he sympathizes with us (largely a useless sentiment); he suffers in our suffering just because there is no suffering afflicting us that he hasn’t endured himself in his Son. It is for this reason alone that he can comfort us profoundly, comfort us realistically, comfort us really.

Non-Jews have to be very careful in speaking of the God who comforts when they speak with Jewish people. Sooner or later our Jewish friends are going to raise the matter of the death-camps, particularly the camps like Theresienstadt where a million children perished. When I am asked how I can continue to affirm God in view of such suffering, as gently and sensitively as I can I say that I can continue to live with the God who permitted it to happen only because I see that particular horror comprehended in, gathered up in the abandonment and execution of his own Son. And because the incarnation is what it is, God himself has suffered in the distress of his Son the hideous distress of the one million children. Apart from my conviction on this matter what could I say, as a pastor, to any suffering person?

(ii) There are few things worse than our suffering. As often as the people of Israel insisted there was nothing worse than their suffering, however, the prophets of Israel insisted there was one thing worse: their sin. The people kept saying there was nothing as horrible as their suffering; the prophets kept saying there was one thing more horrible: their sin. The prophets were right.

All the questions we raised about God’s involvement with our suffering we can raise as well about God’s involvement with our sin. We say that God forgives repentant people. And so he does. Does he do so because he is indulgent? Don’t so much as breathe the suggestion that God is indulgent: the just judge indulges nothing. Then does he forgive because he is constitutionally incapable of doing anything else? Anyone who can’t help doing what he does is merely obsessive/compulsive. God is able to forgive repentant sinners for one reason: in the person of his Son he has so entered into our sinnership, so taken it upon himself, so absorbed in himself his just judgement upon it, that he can now show forth his mercy without compromising his holy opposition to it. God doesn’t know sin the way I know brain tumours: through informing myself about them. He knows sin by immersing himself in a fallen world — and all of this in order to restore those who are not ashamed of him when he comes to restore them in the humiliation of his Son.

The incarnation isn’t an abstraction good only for teasing those with a philosophical turn of mind.   The incarnation has everything to do with life. When Thomas cried, “My Lord and my God”, he knew that his suffering and his sinning had been dealt with — and would continue to be dealt with — in a manner that would leave him with the profoundest comfort in his pain and the profoundest assurance of his pardon.

 

Whenever people came upon Jesus in the days of his earthly ministry they couldn’t avoid having to assess him. The assessments varied.

Whenever people are face-to-face with Jesus Christ today they can’t avoid having to assess him. What is our assessment going to be?

“He’s possessed by evil.” Entirely the wrong assessment, and rendered only by those who seek to work evil themselves.

“He’s a good man.” The pronouncement of those who recognize decency when they come upon it and long to exalt it.

“He’s a teacher.” The judgement of those who hear in his teaching the ring of authority just because what he teaches is the truth of God.

“My Lord and my God.” This is a confession of faith. Anything less than this, while true, remains inadequate. “My Lord and my God.”

                                                                                              Victor Shepherd                                                                                                                                                                                        

November 2004

 

 John 7:17        Psalm 139       1 Corinthians 13:12

 

I:– “Does God exist? Does God exist for sure?” There is no single sentence which can persuade the doubter or the sceptic. There is no single twenty-minute sermon which can nail down the case for God. There isn’t a four hundred-page book which will prove, beyond any refutation, that God is. In fact, there is no proof, irrefutable proof that will convince anyone possessed of elemental logic, that God exists.

At the same time, there is no proof that God doesn’t exist. Sigmund Freud maintained that what people call “God” is simply their wishful thinking projected outside themselves. People believe in God because deep down they want to; they invent God in the way that a child invents an imaginary playmate. But of course this argument cuts both ways. We can just as easily turn Freud’s argument back on Freud himself and say that people don’t believe in God because they (Freud included) don’t want to or don’t dare to; they find it convenient not to have God around and therefore they invent God’s absence the way a child wishes away someone she doesn’t like.

II — To be sure, there have always been arguments which claimed to prove God’s existence, such as the argument from design. If you came upon a wristwatch lying on the sand of a deserted beach, you would have to conclude there was a watchmaker around somewhere. The universe appears to be a grand design, it is sometimes said. Therefore, there must be a designer. But of course the question is begged. After all, when we see a watch we already know it’s been designed by a watchmaker. But when we look at the universe, we don’t already know it’s been designed. Eight billion years ago a huge meteor crashed to the earth at Sudbury. The force and heat of the impact left lines in patterns on the rocks around Sudbury. The lines on the rocks are exactly twelve degrees apart, like evenly-spaced-wheel-spokes. But we shouldn’t speak of a “design” here, simply because no one designed these impact-lines twelve degrees apart. It was a random occurrence. The pattern was formed by accident. No one who doubts the existence of God travels to Sudbury and comes away exclaiming, “Now I really know that God exists!” Other arguments which attempt to prove God’s existence never quite prove it. Or at least a philosopher seems to have proved God’s existence when another philosopher refutes the proof, only to have a third philosopher refute the refutation. In other words, “proofs” of God’s existence are forever inconclusive.

III — Nevertheless, if we cannot prove that God exists (or doesn’t exist) might there be some pointers which incline us in one direction or the other?

[a] Let’s be honest. There are pointers which suggest that God doesn’t exist, or at least that a God worth believing in doesn’t exist. Think of the evil that scourges people. A parishioner in my former congregation spoke to me of her relatives, husband and wife, who waited for years to have a child. At last they had the child of their dreams. A baby girl. Before long they noticed something peculiar about the baby’s eyes. An ophthalmologist informed them that the eyes were diseased. Before the child was six months old both eyes had been removed.

A pastor from Lithuania visited New York City where he listened to some American clergy discussing their work. The discussion struck the Lithuanian pastor as insufferably shallow. Finally he said quietly, “I was a pastor during the last war. The front (i.e., the leading edge of the fighting) surged back and forth through my village eight times. After it had passed each time, all I did was bury people, mostly children.”

Most of the world is hungry. In Latin America a handful of very rich people own virtually all the farmland. They use it to grow luxury crops, like carnations for dining-room table decorations in North American homes. The wretched poor have no access to the land; they are not allowed to grow the food they need. At the same time, they are paid such a pittance for their semi-slave labour that they cannot afford to purchase the food they need. They remain malnourished and disease-ridden. My cousin went to Honduras as part of a visiting medical team. He found people lining up at the clinic at five o’clock in the morning. All of them were infected with something. They all had fevers, high fevers in some cases. Many of them had been infected and feverish all their lives.

The suffering some people have to endure is simply indescribable. When I was newly ordained I became friends with a fellow my age who was also fresh out of seminary. He had come from a large family (eleven children) and had had to go into debt in order to prepare for the ministry, since his parents could provide no financial help. He was serving a small congregation which paid the minimum salary, scarcely enough to live on in those days, never mind retire a debt. One evening as he told me how long it would take him to get out of debt (by now he had three children) he wryly remarked to me, “You know, it costs a fortune to be God’s witness.” Later four inoperable tumours appeared in his head. “It costs a fortune to be God’s witness.” Does God care a fig for the love and devotion and sacrifice of his servants?

Then perhaps God doesn’t exist. At least a God worthy of being loved and adored and obeyed doesn’t exist.

[b] But hold on a minute! If God isn’t, simply isn’t, then there are sober consequences to be faced.

If God isn’t, then there is no ultimate redress for human suffering. The terrible unfairness which victimizes people heartlessly in life is never redressed finally, ultimately. Those whose lives were afflicted ceaselessly with much less privilege and much greater pain never have it made up to them, never. Victimized in life, they are cheated still in death. The random loose ends of anyone’s life are never gathered up and woven together definitively. Life is just a bagful of loose ends as pointless finally as it is patternless now.

If God isn’t, then there is no true meaning to life, no transcendent meaning, no ultimate meaning. Certainly there can be a meaning to life without God. There can be a thousand different meanings, all the way from what is humanly profound to getting rich through the porn trade or pulling the slot machine handle in a provincial casino. People who pursue these matters find them exceedingly meaningful. But if God isn’t then whatever meaning we find in life is a matter of mere whim, mere taste. Which is to say, there is no true meaning, no transcendent meaning, no eternal meaning, nothing more that this person’s opinion or that person’s taste. In a word, there is nothing ultimately substantial and finally perduring for us to pursue in life. If God isn’t then life ultimately “signifies nothing” (in Shakespearean vocabulary).

In the third place if God isn’t then we can never know what is good just because there is no ultimate good to be known; there is no good which isn’t finally arbitrary; there is no good beyond this culture’s assertion of what it deems good or that culture’s assertion or someone else’s guess as to what might be good or what we hope is good.

If God isn’t then what is now called “God” is at bottom mere preference. It may not appear to be mere preference. The preference may be preceded by and followed by reasoning of greater or less rigour, arguments of greater or less cogency, wisdom of greater or less persuasiveness. Nonetheless, at the end of the day, if God isn’t then there is no good which is eternally good inasmuch as there is no good which is good because it’s of the nature of the eternal God himself.

If God isn’t, finally, then life is a capricious jumble headed for a death whose very deadliness reaches back and begins to deaden life long before we die.

On the one hand, if God does exist, there are hard questions to be asked. On the other, if God doesn’t exist, there are equally hard questions to be asked. Then where are we?

IV: — We are precisely where the psalmist was when he was surprised by the Voice. The Voice: “Be still, and know that I am God!” (Psalm 46: 10) “Be still”. The Hebrew means, “Stop being frantic. Stop your frenzy. Stop doing flip-flops in your mind and heart (`Does God exist, does God not exist?’) Stop going around in circles. Just be still for a moment and know — come to know — that I am God”.

Even if we can be still in this sense, how are we ever going to know that God is God? We have to take one step forward in however little faith we have. One step. As we do, we shall find that this one step is confirmed as a step along The Way. This one step is confirmed as God’s way, God’s truth, and God’s wisdom. Which is to say, God himself confirms himself to us as God. Whereupon we shall take a second step. After all, one step ventured in the littlest light we have means greater light; a second

step, greater light still until that day when faith gives way to sight and we are bathed in the light of him who is eternal light. On the other hand, one step not taken in the littlest light we have means greater darkness; another step not taken greater darkness still until that day when non-faith gives way to irrecoverable blindness and we are sunk in that darkness which our Lord never hesitated to call “outer darkness”.

But what is the first step we should take? There are dozens. Begin anywhere. Begin where what is regarded as the truth of God seems to collide with the inclination of your own heart. For instance, the book of Hebrews tells us we must uproot any root of bitterness in our heart, lest many people (including us) become defiled. When next we are kicked or betrayed and have every reason for allowing the root of bitterness to thrive, THIS TIME we are going to root it out and see what happens. We find that we have spared people defilement, including ourselves. We find that we have promoted reconciliation and peace, THE work of God. We understand now what it is that makes the kingdom of God the kingdom of God and how the kingdom of God differs from the kingdoms of this world. Truth and reality are stamped on us. Which is to say, God has taken on a solidity, a density, which he had always lacked for us.

Or our first step can be taken elsewhere. Having trifled with “Now I lay me down to sleep” for too long we resolve to get serious about praying. Either we are going to get serious or we are going to give up the childish recitations as surely as the person who is no longer a child is finished with thumbsucking. We start with ten minutes a day wherein we mean business. After a month we know perfectly well why Jesus never argued for prayer but simply regarded it as as natural and as necessary as breathing. Another step along the way is confirmed as truth. Which is to say, God looms bigger for us.

The apostle Paul tells us that love is not irritable or resentful; neither does it rejoice at wrong. Let’s be honest: love is hard work. Kindness pressed upon others without regard for their merit or our recompense — this is hard work in the face of situations where it’s easy to be irritable or resentful or vengeful. Yet as we become “still”; i.e., as we dampen down our frenzied irritability and resentment and pursue kindness we “know”, profoundly know, the very God whose love for us is a persistent self-giving without regard for our merit or his recompense. As we take even as small a step as the three or four we have mentioned today enough light appears for a second step. And then a third.

Several years ago I visited the Sojourners Community in Washington, D.C. For years now the Sojourners Community has exercised a ministry in what is deemed to bet the worst slum in the USA. At the time I was interested in ministering to poor people, and so I arranged to visit the community and speak with members of the congregation. (I might say in passing that while I learned much, I didn’t learn a great deal that could be used immediately in Canada, and this for two reasons. One, the social history of the United States is hugely different from the social history of Canada, if only on account of the horrific blight that slavery has been and its aftermath continues to be. Two, the American poor are much poorer, vastly poorer, than the Canadian poor. What we call slums in Canada bear no resemblance to slums in the U.S) While I was in Washington I stayed at the home of Paul and Joanne Sparacio. Paul had been raised in an agnostic household and had remained an agnostic throughout his teenage years and early adulthood. He had gone to Viet Nam in the U.S. Army. He had been in firefights of the sort depicted in movies like Platoon or Apocalypse Now: phosphorus flares soaring into the air, illuminating the battle scene; machine-gun fire, grenade explosions, mortar fire, tracer bullets glowing like laser beams, men screaming in terror and pain. He told us he knew that if he raised himself six inches off the ground he was gone. Eventually he returned to the USA and enrolled in a southern university. He was still an agnostic. The students who belonged to the Christian organizations on the campus turned him off utterly. Many of these Christian students who babbled so cavalierly about their beloved master were racist to the core. They were bent on using religion to reinforce social superiority. Paul Sparacio told these students that he wasn’t a Christian, didn’t want to be, and despised the God they believed in, if such a God there were. Thanks to the Christian students he was no longer an agnostic; he was now a soundly converted atheist. Then one day Paul began to suspect — for who knows what reason, in that providence of God which remains forever mystery — that these students might have misrepresented Jesus Christ. He avoided the students and began reading the New Testament itself. The Sermon on the Mount arrested him. He found himself taking that one step. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied”. And the longing — the profoundest hunger and thirst — which he had never been able to identify was now identified in the moment of its being met. “Don’t be anxious…but seek first God’s kingdom, and what you have will be enough”. The kingdom confirmed itself as truth.

I admit, our first step or two may seem artificial, but not for long. Our first step or two may seem awkward, even contrived, even embarrassing to us, but not for long. The day comes when we know with all the assurance we shall ever need that God is and we are God’s child. God is. God thrives. God throbs in his people.

 

Just when we get to this point of conviction and assurance, just when we have come to know that God is God, something peculiar happens to us. We understand that while we do know God, knowing God isn’t as crucial as being known by God. Being known is always more profound than knowing. When we were little children and felt strange or frightened, what we knew brought very little comfort. (How much does a child know?) Far more important was the fact that we were known; we were known by our parents. We were known by people we could trust; we were known by those who knew vastly more than we knew. The ground of our confidence and comfort and reassurance wasn’t anything that we knew; it was rather that we were known.

The psalmist says he has been searched by God and is now known by God. Paul says that regardless of how well we might know God, we are a long way from knowing God fully — even though we are fully known by God right now. The God who knows us fully now wants only to bless us as our knowledge of him grows surely, however slowly, until that day when we do know fully — as fully as God knows every one of us at this moment.

It all begins with one step.

Victor Shepherd   

November 2002

 

                          John 7:24    Judges 2:16; 3:9,15   Matthew 7:1-15    Luke 6:37-38

 

I: — “There they go again. Always finding fault; always carping, criticizing, nit-picking. Who do they think they are, anyway? Why do they think they’re a cut above everyone else, not to say flawless paragons of perfection?”

Who are these people? Who are these folk who think themselves more virtuous than most, as eager to find fault as a neurotic housekeeper is to find a piece of lint on a neighbour’s carpet? Who are these people who build themselves up only by tearing others down? They appear to have less compassion than a stone has water. They seem to have no understanding of life’s complexities, of how many shades of grey there really are, of how difficult it is to sort all of this out.

Make no mistake. These people do exist. Jesus spoke of them himself. He cautioned his disciples against becoming like them. “My followers,” he insisted, “must never be found trying to remove a dust-speck from someone else’s eye when a pine tree is sticking out of theirs. What’s more,” continues Jesus, “it would be utterly foolish for you, my disciples, to be carping nit-pickers, because the measure you give will be the measure you get.” In other words, those who coldly, callously fault others are going to get the same treatment themselves. Everyone has heard quoted the KJV version of the chief text under discussion, “Judge not lest ye be judged.” Good. We mustn’t make judgements. The matter is settled.

But it isn’t settled. In the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus says, “Don’t judge lest you be judged yourselves,” he also says, “Beware of false prophets. They have the appearance of harmless sheep when all the while they are fierce wolves eager to eat you alive.” Isn’t it obvious, now, that a judgement has to be made here? Doesn’t Jesus himself insist that we make a judgement of some sort? How else are we to distinguish between defenceless sheep and marauding wolf? How else survive?

Our Lord gets even tougher. Immediately after warning us disciples about dust-speck and pine tree and how we mustn’t be blind to our own depravity, Jesus adds, “Don’t give what is holy to the dogs; and don’t throw pearls before pigs – because pigs and dogs (he’s speaking here of humans) don’t appreciate the value of what you put in front of them. They will only turn on you and devour you.” Plainly Jesus is telling us that either we exercise judgement here or else we invite victimisation.

From the texts we’ve examined in the last three minutes it’s plain that Jesus insists on two matters: one, we must never be judgemental; two, we must always make sound judgements. In John’s gospel Jesus announce, “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgement.” ( 7:24 NRSV) Other translations are worth hearing. “Stop judging by external standards, and judge with true standards.” (TEV) “You mustn’t judge by the appearance of things but by the reality.” (JB Phillips) Plainly there’s a kind of judgement Jesus forbids us to make; and just as surely there’s a kind of judgement Jesus commands us to make.

Now I realize that you people may be somewhat weary of the weekly lesson in Greek, but only a Greek lesson can help us here. So here goes. When Jesus says “Don’t judge by appearances” the verb tense in John’s gospel refers to repeated, ceaseless action. “Don’t judge” plainly means “Don’t fall into the habit of carping all the time.” When Jesus uses the word “judge” the second time – “but judge with right judgement” – he uses a verb tense that refers to one, pointed, particular event concerning which we are to make a discernment and decisively draw the proper conclusion.

Here’s the event. People have been carping at Jesus for months. They don’t like this about him; they don’t like that. They find fault here and find fault there. One day Jesus heals a man who’s been paralysed for thirty-eight years. No problem. But Jesus has healed the man on the Sabbath. Big problem, since the Sabbath has been desecrated (they think.) After all, if a man has been paralysed for thirty-eight years, can’t his healing wait one more day? Whereupon our Lord’s detractors carp at him some more.

Jesus tells them they ought to be more discerning. They simply ought to possess better judgement. “Think about it;” says Jesus, “You carpers permit a man to be circumcised on the Sabbath. You believe – correctly – that it’s all right to circumcise on the Sabbath because circumcision is a sign that this man has been covenanted to embrace that life in God to which the Sabbath points, that life in faith which God wills for him, which life God pronounces blessed and one day will perfect. Circumcision (Jesus is still talking, since by now he’s steaming) means that his man is committed irrevocably (as surely as circumcision itself is irreversible) to a life in God that God has promised to enrich and crown. In healing this crippled man I am doing the very same thing,” says Jesus. “In healing this man I am moving him along to that ultimate restoration of body, mind and spirit that God guarantees for all who love him, a restoration which the Sabbath rest anticipates. Can’t you nit-pickers see this? Don’t you discern what I’m doing and why? Why aren’t you possessed of better judgement?” Jesus is not encouraging us to become judgemental. At the same time he commands us (note this: it’s a command) to acquire and exercise sound judgement.

 

II: — Surely the need for sound judgement is obvious. Recently a physician spoke bitterly to me of those people who have spent years abusing their bodies only to land on the physician’s doorstep demanding to be made better immediately. Surely such people show appalling lack of judgement. If we maintain that proper diet and exercise are good, then we have judged that junk food and inertia are bad. We aren’t advertising ourselves as superior to those who inhale potato chips in front of the TV and whose only exercise is pressing the channel changer. Still, we have made a judgement concerning bodily health and how it’s maintained. Those who don’t make such a judgement aren’t congratulated for their tolerance or magnanimity or humility; they are merely pitied for their folly.

All parents do their best to equip their youngsters with a critical mind concerning truth and goodness. The English word “critical” is derived from the Greek word KRITIKOS, “able to judge.” The authentically critical person isn’t the chronic fault-finder; it’s the person who is able to judge. We all raise our children to be critical in this sense. We all want them to be able to judge that glue-sniffing has consequences that won’t enhance them in any way. What’s more, we don’t want them to refrain from glue-sniffing just because their parents have laid a “heavy” on them and years later they are still cowering neurotically. We want them to understand truth and goodness; to understand their nature and destiny under God; to understand what reflects this and what contradicts it. And on the basis of this understanding we want them not to mimic their parents but rather to make a correct evaluation and draw the right conclusion. Does their doing this mean they’re judgemental? On the contrary, their not doing this means they’re ruined.

When our daughter Catherine was eight or nine years old she went to a party with school chums, several other girls her age. The mother of the girl hosting the party rented a video for the girls, “Rosemary’s Baby.” “Rosemary’s Baby” (I’m told) is a horror movie too horrible to describe. Catherine came home all but deranged. Maureen was up all night with her. I was ready to drive Catherine to the hospital and have her sedated with enough medicine to stun a horse. Throughout it all I was so angry at the woman who showed the video that I couldn’t even talk about it. People who aren’t critical; that is, people who aren’t able to judge, are a threat to themselves and a danger to everyone else. Let’s not pretend anything else.

The same truth applies in the realm of the Spirit. Even if the Moonies and Hare Krishnas and the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Mormons are psychologically harmless (which I doubt) we still want our youngsters to be able to judge that these groups are spiritually ruinous if only because they set aside the gospel for what isn’t the “power of God unto salvation.” Surely we want our children to be able to judge between that truth – the gospel – which Jesus engraves on the hearts of his people and the thousand-and-one distortions of it that bedevil humankind. We ought always to remember that not all the spirits are holy. We ought always to remember too that if our youngsters aren’t critical, aren’t able to judge in this domain, they can only be victimised by all such spirits.

This doesn’t mean we are encouraging them to think themselves superior in any way to those who disagree with them on religious matters. If they fancied themselves superior they’d be judgemental. And if they became chronic fault-finders they’d have shrivelled hearts. On the other hand if they lacked sound judgement they’d be suckers, suggestible, “taken in” by whatever’s blowing in the wind.

No one in this congregation knows my sister or her telephone number. She happens to live in Ontario . When the service is over I’d like you to dial her ten-digit Ontario number. (Since she lives in Ontario your chances of getting it right have improved immensely, since you can eliminate the area codes for all other provinces.) What chance do you have of getting it right? Next to none, you say? Then let me tell you something: you have a better chance mathematically of dialling her number than you have of winning the lottery. Since I don’t buy lottery tickets I’ve made a judgement here. Perhaps you have too. Does anyone think I’m narrow-minded or judgemental because I don’t sniff cocaine or ogle pornography?

 

III: — Before I conclude the sermon I should like to discuss the meaning of the word “judgement” as the word is used by our Lord himself, used by the prophets before him, and by those men and women (Deborah) who were judges in Israel earlier still and after whom one whole book of the Hebrew bible is named.

In ancient Israel judges weren’t like the men and women who preside in our courtrooms. They weren’t figures who said to one party, “You’re right” and to another party “You’re wrong.” Judges in ancient Israel were also called elders. These men and women who were called both judges and elders were also called saviours. Ultimately, then, the judge is the saviour. When the people of Israel were threatened by raiders they cried to the Lord, we are told, and the Lord “raised up judges who saved them.” In our modern era we assume that the primary function of a judge is to make unbiased pronouncements. Lurking deeper still in people’s minds, almost at an unconscious level, is the notion that the primary purpose of a judge is to condemn. But in ancient Israel the primary function of a judge was to save. Judges were elders were saviours. In other words the judge, in those long ago days, was a leader in times of conflict and ruler in times of peace. When the people were threatened, the judge mobilized them and encouraged them. When the people were cocksure and spiritually indifferent, the judge sobered them. When the people were about to meander, the judge guided them. And when the people, unguarded in their naiveness, found the “New Age” pantheism of the Canaanite neighbours attractive, as well as Canaanite immorality, not to mention a “tolerance” that accommodated everything and accommodated most eagerly precisely what was most lethal; in such a time the judge recalled the people to the truth and reality of God, as well as to the claim and command of God, as well as to the promises of God.

Jesus often spoke of himself as judge. Make no mistake: he is our judge. As such he will not be trifled with or taken for granted or traded on. You and I know better than to be presumptuous concerning him. At the same time, because we’ve been to school in Israel we know that the judge who was given to humankind when it cried out to God; the judge who was given to humankind when it was threatened with condemnation on account of its sin; this judge is our elder brother and our saviour. He will be our judge precisely because he is already our saviour. Since you and I face a coming judgement yet can only be judged by him our saviour, we are unafraid. We know that he is for us. We know that his judgement upon us will be that final corrective we have long needed and are at last going to receive. In a word, our saviour’s judgement is our blessing.

It’s in the light of all this that we must understand how and why we are commanded to judge: “Judge with right judgement.” We have been appointed to judge ourselves, judge our society, judge the church, judge our leaders, judge the world. We are to judge as we have been judged. We’ve been judged – and are also yet to be judged – by Jesus Christ. He recognises threats to us everywhere in life even before we do; he equips us to discern them ourselves; he moves us to acknowledge his rule of righteousness.

Then so far from refusing to judge we must learn to judge. We must learn to be discerning, critical, discriminating. We must learn to draw the right conclusion and then to act on it. And of course we are to learn to do all of this not in order to preen ourselves as superior in any respect; we are to learn to do this in order to magnify God’s salvage operation throughout the creation. We are to learn to do this in order to magnify the blessing that God has bestowed upon us, upon our congregation, upon our community, upon the world.

In all of this we must avoid warping ourselves into something grotesque: the sourpuss who nitpicks, is blind to her own faults, is happiest when she’s demolishing someone else – all the while buttressing such hideousness with a phoney piety as repulsive as it is remote from the spirit of Jesus. In all of this we shall continue to recognize that people do complicate their lives whether through carelessness or folly or outright perversity, only to find that life, once complicated, is exceedingly difficult to render uncomplicated. And of course our hearts must never petrify into icy, stony insensitivy. If we sin here, says Jesus, then the measure we give will be the measure we get. Or to put it more popularly, “What goes around comes around.”

At the same time we must learn to make sound judgements, knowing what is to be feared and what fostered, what to be avoided and what welcomed, what is to be shunned and what embraced.

As our immersion in the gospel equips us with sound judgement we shall reflect the judges of Israel , particularly the judge of Israel , Christ Jesus our Lord. For his judgement, like theirs, always furthers his salvage operation, always aims at correction, always issues in blessing. It is through Christ’s judgement that countless people have owned him as Saviour, exalted him as Lord, and will delight in him eternally.

                                                                                     (Victor Shepherd August 2004)

John 8:36     Ezekiel 34:11-16     Galatians 5:1

 

Everyone craves freedom. The small child asks, “Do I have to go to bed now?” The adolescent can’t wait to get clear of his uncomprehending parents. Developing nations want to shake off the economic control of the colonizer. In all of this it’s assumed that the everyday, popular notion of “freedom” is identical with that freedom of which the gospel speaks and which the gospel bestows. In fact the two notions of freedom are poles apart. The popular notion of freedom is simply the complete absence of restraint. The complete absence of restraint means the opportunity of doing anything at all, behaving in any way whatsoever. Freedom is then being able to do whatever we fancy. When people speak of the popular notion of freedom they like to think of the birds. Birds are thought to be the freest of the creatures just because the birds can go anywhere (it seems), do anything, without restraint.

A pastor sees many people who think that freedom is doing anything they fancy, the removal of every restraint. These people quickly find themselves jaded and bored. Frequently they fall prey to self-destructive habits as well. What these people label “freedom” is actually licence. Licence isn’t the same as freedom. Licence – the absence of restraint – isn’t freedom at all but is rather arbitrariness or indeterminism. Those who confuse licence and freedom find that it’s all left a bad taste in their mouth and they can’t figure out why. Still, the confusion persists. Our society as a whole thinks that freedom means doing whatever we have a yen to do. Thoughtful individuals within a society sooner or later recognize that what most others call freedom is in fact a form of enslavement, a form of bondage.

Then what about the freedom that the gospel bestows? The freedom that the Christian knows and enjoys is a reflection of God’s freedom. God is free not in the sense that he can do anything at all (such a God could never be trusted;) God is free, rather, in that nothing prevents God from acting in accord with his true nature. Nothing within God; nothing outside God; nothing inner or outer impedes God from acting in accord with his true nature.

The difference between a proper understanding of freedom and the popular confusion of freedom with licence is illustrated by everyday objects, like swimming pool filters. A swimming pool filter is designed to filter water and thereby promote safe, enjoyable swimming. Purifying water is the nature of the filter. Now imagine that the filter has become clogged, for any reason at all. We say that the filter doesn’t work. Do we mean it doesn’t hum quietly? We mean it doesn’t do what a filter is meant to do. Someone unclogs the filter. We say that the filter has been freed. If a bystander says, “Freed, did you say? Is it truly freed? Is it free to make peanut butter?” The proper response is that a filter which is perfectly free will never make peanut butter just because it isn’t a filter’s nature to make peanut butter. It’s a filter’s nature to filter water. Freedom doesn’t mean doing anything at all; freedom means acting in accord with one’s true nature. God isn’t free because there’s nothing he can’t do; God is free because he can do what it’s his nature to do.

Those who heard and heeded our Lord’s preaching; those who heard and heeded the apostle’s word; those who hear and heed the gospel in any era know and experience and enjoy a freedom they haven’t known before. “If I make you free,” Jesus promises, “then you are free indeed.” He is saying, “Genuine freedom, ultimately profound freedom, is the freedom I bestow. Such freedom can’t be found anywhere else, anyhow else.”(John 8:36) In this vein Paul writes to the congregation in Galatia , “For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm in this freedom, and never go back on it.”(Galatians 5:1)

By now everyone here understands that when a swimming pool filter is freed it is freed from something and freed for something. It is freed from whatever clogs it, impairs it, impedes its proper functioning. It is now free for filtering water, the purpose for which it has been made. The freedom that Christ bestows is both a freedom from and a freedom for.

 

I: — What is the clog-up we are freed from? What debris, clutter, even unsightly “grunge” has to be removed if we are to function in accord with our true nature? According to scripture the clog-up is massive, and it has three faces: sin, law, and death.

[a] Two weeks ago we saw that Sin is defiance of God; a defiance, a disobedience, an ignoring of him that amounts to disdain. Scripture gathers up defiance, disobedience and disdain into one word: unbelief. Sin as unbelief (in the scriptural sense of “unbelief” of the heart) is the root human problem. It is a root-level disorientation and disease. It has to be dealt with. To come to faith in Jesus Christ (he is the presence and power of God) is to be freed from this root malaise, root disorientation.

I am not pretending that the Christian no longer commits sins (little “s”, plural.) Sins are the outcropping of our fallen humanness whose hangover, whose corpse, is still with us. Nevertheless, to be bound to Christ in faith, to aspire henceforth to obey him, is to acknowledge his Lordship everywhere in our lives. To say that he is Lord is to say that Sin no longer “lords it over” us. Sin (capital “s”, singular) has been dealt with. Root unbelief has given way to reconciliation. Root indifference has given way to commitment. Root fragmentation has given way to a life now integrated just because Jesus Christ is human existence restored, human existence integrated, and by faith we are bound so intimately to him that we are now identified with him. His wholeness guarantees mine, even if the “hangover” of my pre-Christ being hangs over for a while.

[b] Another manifestation of the clog-up we are freed from is “the law.” The gospel was heard, and is heard, as good news in that the gospel announces unambiguously that in Jesus Christ, righteousness or right standing with God, right relatedness to God; this is gift, affirmed and owned in faith to be sure, but always and everywhere gift nonetheless. The good news of the gospel relieved people, released people, who had slogged laboriously for years, thinking that right standing with God had to be earned. They had thought his favour had to be curried. They had thought his kindness had to be won. Now they had profoundest assurance that right-relatedness to God isn’t the prize awarded those who pass a religious test; it isn’t the prize given those whose moral achievement is exemplary; it isn’t the profit margin given those who make the best deals with God. It is simply gift. Those whose root situation before God has been altered are those who receive in faith the free gift of right standing with God and thereafter know themselves rightly related to him.

In a word, to be freed from the law is to be freed from having to win something from God, having to outperform in any sense, having to gain promotion or pass a test or merit recognition. To be freed from the law is to be freed from anxiety concerning our relationship with our Father.

People are anxious. People are anxious concerning much. Who needs religious anxiety piled on top? Who needs religious anxiety particularly when religious anxiety seems to compound and intensify all other anxieties? The gospel was heard as good news because it freed people from a preoccupation with gaining right standing with God and left them gratefully rejoicing in a gift.

[c] The final manifestation of the clog-up we are freed from is death; not death in the sense of biological cessation; death in a different sense. For the Hebrew mind death means not praising God; not being able to praise him, not wanting to. To be alive, according to the Hebrew mind, is to praise God. To be freed from the clog-up whose manifestation is death is to be released from every impediment to praising God. What are the impediments to praising God? Not knowing him, not loving him, not delighting in him. Those who know him and love him and delight in him invariably praise him. To be freed from death, then, is to be released from every impediment to knowing, loving, enjoying and praising God. To be freed from death is to be able to praise God, to want to praise God, to find reason without end to praise God. To be freed from death is simply to live to praise God.

Do you know that the most frequently repeated command in scripture is the command to praise God? The psalms are full of the command to praise God. “Praise God morning, noon and night. Praise God with every instrument you can rattle. Praise God at all time and in all circumstances.” On the basis of what we’ve learned this morning we now know that when God commands us to praise him he is urging us to live ourselves. His command that we praise him; his gift of life to us in Christ Jesus: these are one and the same.

To be freed from death, then, is to find that we have been brought to life in Jesus Christ; we want to praise God for our resurrection; we can’t help praising him for all his goodness to us.

Jesus says, “If the Son makes you free, you are really free.” We are free indeed: from sin, from the law, from death.

 

II: — But of course we are freed “from” in order to be freed “for.” We are freed for acting, doing, being in accord with our true nature as sons and daughters of God.

[a] Specifically we are freed in the first instance for being ourselves, freed to become our “self.” We are freed to become and remain proper “selves” under God.

Many people who disdain the gospel and the community of the gospel assume that faith stifles self-expression and self-development. They tell us they want room to “be themselves.” They don’t want to be forced into a religious mould or stamped by a religious cookie-cutter. We hear all the time from people, or hear about people, who insist their marriage is stifling them; it’s cramping, confining, suffocating, and if they are going to “breathe free” then they have to get out of the marriage. It’s similarly assumed that living in the company of Jesus Christ is like “doing time” in a stifling marriage. In other words, faith stifles self-development, self-expression. Faith simply suffocates one’s self.

Jean Paul Sartre, a leader in the post-World War II philosophy known as existentialism, maintained that as terrible as it is to have another human being stifle one’s own “self” to the point of suffocation, how much worse it is to have a towering God do it too. In fact, said Sartre, the mere existence of this deity whose loftiness, density, immensity towers over us and presses down upon us; the mere existence of this deity compresses us, shrivels us, shrink-wraps us. How can a God of such vastness do anything except render me the merest pipsqueak? When the “almighty” looms over me what can his almightiness do except crush me? Sartre says that if “God” were truly God (Sartre denies that God is) then it would be impossible for any human to thrive. Isn’t this exactly what our non-Christian neighbours say about the Christian faith? Religion ruins the “self” just because religion leaves no room for the self to be itself. Sartre maintains that if the human self is to thrive then God has to be slain. We must be atheists if we are to become and remain our most authentic selves.

Sartre, however, is wrong several times over. In the first place the God who is infinitely above is isn’t merely above us. In his Son incarnate he comes among us. In the cross of his Son incarnate he renders himself wholly vulnerable for our sakes. The God who renders himself wholly vulnerable for our sakes isn’t a God who is going to stifle us. The God who renders himself wholly vulnerable isn’t on a power trip that reduces us to pipsqueaks. The God who renders himself wholly vulnerable will crush himself before he ever crushes us. Sartre, a philosopher thoroughly ignorant of Christian truth, has everything wrong at this point.

In the second place Sartre fails to understand that if in fact we are made by God for God, then so far from shrivelling up under God we shall thrive only as we turn to him and find in him our ultimate good. Sartre says that God is overwhelmingly vast. True. The ocean is overwhelmingly vast compared to the smallest fish (or even compared to the biggest fish.) Still, the smallest fish isn’t more truly “fish” for being taken out of the ocean. The smallest fish can thrive as fish only in the ocean, however vast. The ocean’s vastness doesn’t imperil the fish, but the ocean’s disappearance would. This being the case, God’s presence and purpose, God’s density and immensity; so far from rendering the self impossible, God’s presence, purpose, density and immensity – sheer vastness – will ever be the condition of our most authentic selfhood. So far from stifling me, God’s gracious, vulnerable coming to me alone will allow me to thrive as me. If humans are made for God, then Sartre’s campaign to slay God would finally profit us as much as draining the ocean would profit the fish.

We are made by God for God. Then only as we live in God are we most authentically ourselves. Since the Master frees us from every hindrance to living in God; since he thereby frees us for living in God, to be freed by the Master is to be freed to become our authentic “self.”

Popular psychology is unquestionably popular but it’s not very profound. Popular psychology urges us to be “freed up,” to cast off restraint, to get rid of our baggage, to gain perspective on our “issues,” and so on. Popular psychology, however, doesn’t understand that our most burdensome baggage isn’t our defective toilet training; it’s our sinnership. It doesn’t understand that our most haunting issue isn’t unresolved teenage conflict with our parents; it’s our unbelief. Popular psychology urges us to rid ourselves of numerous restraints, but it doesn’t understand that freedom isn’t the absence of restraint; freedom, rather, is being bound to Jesus Christ and finding in him what we are meant to be and do ourselves.

Christians know that when our Lord frees us for himself he simultaneously frees to be our “self.”

[b] We are not only freed for ourselves, however, we are also freed for our neighbour as well. Specifically we are freed for the service of our suffering neighbour. Jesus said that he came not to be served but to serve. He came not to be indulged or pampered or flattered or coddled; he came to give himself to others in their need and pain and loneliness and bewilderment.

Why is it, how is it, that we need our Lord to free us for the service of our neighbour? Since “selfism” is the curse of the Fall, and since “selfism” measures everything in the universe by what it does for me, how it affects me, how it amplifies my sense of self-importance, how it caters to my being recognized and congratulated; since this is endemic in us we need to be freed from it in order to be freed for self-forgetful service of someone whose suffering our newly-granted freedom allows us to see and our newly-granted freedom moves us to address.

The truth is, it’s relatively easy to serve the neighbour, especially the suffering neighbour (we feel good about helping those in need) until this suffering neighbour doesn’t thank us; until this suffering neighbour one day says to us, “How come it took you so long to notice me?”; until this suffering neighbour doesn’t seem to do as much to help herself as we think she should. At this point we are about to say, “She doesn’t appreciate what I’m doing for her; she has never thanked me for it; she is even taking me for granted. Forget her.” We have to be freed from all such selfist considerations if we are going to persist in assisting the fellow-sufferer God has brought before us. And we are freed from this inasmuch as Jesus Christ makes us who we are, tells us who we are, and thereafter we don’t need to be needed in order to know who we are.

 

“If the Son makes you free you are free indeed,” says Jesus. Only the Son of God can make us free. Anything else that claims to free us won’t free us, because only the Son of God restores us to our true nature as sons and daughters of God and thereby delivers us from every impediment to acting in accord with our true nature.

The distinction between freedom and license is a distinction the world-at-large can’t make. The church must always be sure that it can.

 

                                                                                             Victor Shepherd                                                                                                                 

February 2004

John 10:7-18

[1] I have already done it; I have already signed page three of my driver’s licence, “Consent Under The Human Tissue Gift Act”. Because I have consented, upon my death any one — or all — of several organs (body parts) may be removed from my corpse and used for transplant purposes in someone whose body parts don’t function as well as mine did.

 

[2] Why have I done it? Why have I decided to donate my organs to someone else? I have done it because I want someone else to enjoy the good health — and all that good health makes possible — as I have been able to enjoy it all. I know how good it feels to have a body that works well; I know how much life is eased by a body that works well; I know what good health allows us to do, where it allows us to go, how it allows us to feel, even how it allows us to think. (Who among us, after all, ever did her best thinking with so much as a migraine headache or severe back pain?) I can only imagine how frustrated people must be, how they feel stalled, how they look upon themselves as unproductive (or at least underproductive) if their health is poor. If I can do anything to help such a person, I am determined to do it. For this reason I am glad to will my organs to someone else.

I have done what I have done inasmuch as I am a Christian. Christians know that the body matters. Or at least Christians should know that the body matters. Our Hebrew foreparents, after all, knew that God willed us to be embodied creatures and pronounced our bodiliness “good”. This is not to deny that from time-to-time there have been Christians who sawed off the Hebrew limb on which they were sitting and then fell into an un-Hebraic rejection of the body; and not merely rejection of the body, outright contempt for the body. Think of those misguided hermits (or some of them), centuries ago, who thought it was God-honouring and a sign of devotion to God to sit in a hovel surrounded by filth while vermin crawled all over their body only to drop off inasmuch as there wasn’t one square inch of skin that was vermin-free and where vermin could alight. That which God created and called “good” we must never despise. The body is good; the body matters.

Not only must we not despise the body, we must even glory in it; and in glorying in our body we shall glorify God by means of it. “Glorify God in your bodies!”, the apostle Paul urges the church in Corinth. Plainly, if we are to glorify God in our body, glorify God by means of our body, then our body must have been created glorious.

The body matters. Anyone who reads the written gospels cannot fail to notice the attention Jesus gave to people’s bodies. Jesus spent much time restoring the bodies of people whose bodies weren’t functioning properly: the blind, the deaf, the mute, the lame, the curled-over, the menhorragic. The body matters.

Yet from a Christian perspective the most telling affirmation of the body arises from the simple fact of the incarnation. In Jesus Christ God himself took on our flesh and blood and bone. It isn’t merely that God used the human body of Jesus (the way God used the peculiar bush that startled Moses). God didn’t use a man; he came among us as man. Since there is no humanity that is not embodied humanity, the simple fact of the incarnation is the strongest possible endorsement of our bodiliness. The body matters.

 

[3] A minute ago I said that I had signed the consent form on my driver’s licence whereby my organs will be made available, upon my premature death, to someone else. A minute ago I said too that I was glad to have made this arrangement. Nevertheless, I haven’t done all of this without a great deal of thought; and I must tell you that having done what I have I remain haunted by numerous misgivings.

To be sure, I am glad to donate my organs, just as I am glad to donate my blood (my next visit to the Red Cross Blood Donor Clinic will be my 90th). But I’m not going to sell my blood! In the same way I don’t want to sell my right kidney. What I mean is, I don’t want my daughter to sell it from my remains after I have died, and I don’t want to sell it while I’m alive in order to finance my new car.

Yet there are many people who do sell body parts, and many more who are going to. When I was in India last January I learned that India traffics in the buying and selling of body parts. The India Institute of Medical Sciences is located in New Delhi, the capital city. A kidney specialist there, Dr. Atma Ram, himself sells the kidneys he removes from people. “We are doing a thriving business”, he enthuses.

Business isn’t thriving only in India, we should note; it thrives in North America too. In 1983 the New Jersey Times newspaper carried the following ad:

Kidney for sale.
From 32 yr. old Caucasian
female in excellent health.
Write P.O. Box….

The Los Angeles Times had already run the ad,

Eyes for sale or transplant.
$50,000 each — help someone you care for see
and in return you’ll be helping others.
Only sincere parties apply please….

Do not think that these are isolated cases. In the early 1980s a man in Georgia offered to sell a kidney for $25,000 in order to buy a fastfood restaurant. Other people in Georgia had offered to sell a kidney for as little as $5,000. Kidneys were more expensive in California, however: $16,000. An American physician, Dr. Barry Jacobs, attempted to set up an organization that would purchase kidneys from people anywhere in the world and sell them to anyone who could pay. There was an uproar in the USA over this, and in order to quell the uproar the US Congress passed the National Organ Transplant Act. Be sure to note, however, that the Act does not prohibit the sale of human organs for research purposes.

What happens in one part of the world sooner or later happens elsewhere. Right now the Russian Medical Institute is offering kidneys for sale in Germany. German patients are to pay the equivalent of $68,570 (US dollars) in German marks. Right now organs are bought and sold — scores of thousands of them — in India, Africa, Latin America and eastern Europe. The body parts sold are corneas, inner ear components, jawbone, heart, heart pericardium, heart valves, lungs, liver, kidneys, pancreas, stomach, bones, ligaments, skin, blood vessels, and bone marrow.

What do people do with the money they gain through selling their body parts? Some purchase food and shelter; some pay off old debts; some provide themselves an education. Very often what people do with the money depends on how much they acquire; how much they acquire depends on which part they sell. In India a kidney from a live donor (note: a live donor) sells for $1500; a cornea for $4000; a patch of skin for $50. In India and Pakistan people state in the newspapers what they are willing to pay for an organ; readers decide what they are willing to sell for.

If it’s medically needy people who buy, who sells? Poor people. Overwhelmingly it is poor people, desperately poor people, who sell. Poor labourers will gain more money by selling one of their two kidneys than they would ever be able to save over a lifetime. One woman, mother of two children, found herself in desperate financial straits when her husband lost his job. She sold one of her kidneys, remarking as she did so, “It was the only thing I could sell and keep my self-respect.”

One spot in the world where the business of body parts thrives extraordinarily is Bombay, on the west coast of India. Wealthy Arabs go there to receive the organs that poor Indians sell. Madras, on the east coast of India, is the city of choice for people from Thailand and Singapore who need replacement organs. In all of this the Indian government has refused repeatedly to pass any legislation prohibiting the commercial traffic in body parts.

So huge is the demand for transplantable organs that some societies don’t even wait for donors to die; such societies don’t even wait for sellers to sell; they simply kill people and remove organs. Recently the British Medical Journal exposed a scam in Argentina wherein organs were removed from patients in a state psychiatric hospital. The hospital authorities reported to relatives that the patient had died of natural causes or had escaped. From 1976 to 1991 hospital authorities maintained that 1400 had escaped and almost 1400 had died of natural causes. When relatives complained vociferously and persistently the hospital was investigated — whereupon there turned up the remains of several people who had been reported as “escaped”, including the remains of a 16-yr. old supposed escapee whose eyes were missing.

It’s easy for us to say, “Nations like Argentina and India are a long way from us in many respects. Those people think differently. What happens there could never happen here.” But it can happen here. A recent editorial in the newspaper USA Today advocated paying the families of deceased donors. The article suggested that paying families for the organs of their deceased relatives would make more body parts available. The editorial opined that a “death benefit might provide incentives that altruism could not.” In other words, people will do for money — make available the body parts of their dead relatives — what they would otherwise not do at all.

It’s plain that the commercialization of organs has landed us in a market system with respect to the human body, a market system governed by the laws of supply and demand. The demand is always increasing. What about the supply? The most elementary student in economics knows that according to the market system as more and more money is offered for organs, more and more organs will be supplied. We may cringe at the crass commercialization of the human body. Market advocates don’t cringe, however; so far from cringing, market advocates extol the market system’s effectiveness in proliferating available organs. Market advocate (and legal expert) Mr. Lloyd Cohen enthuses,

Markets are most effective at transferring goods from low-
valued uses to high-valued ones. And I can think of no good
that fits that category better than a cadaveric organ. The
difference in the value of a kidney to the dead versus a
kidney to the ill means that there is an enormous price range
over which a mutually satisfactory transfer can take place.

“There is an enormous price range over which a mutually satisfactory transfer can take place.” The meaning of this sentence is simple: when the price is high, people sell.

Ms. Lori Andrews, also an American lawyer, insists that the debate about body parts should unfold in the context of legal discussions concerning property. Body parts, in a legal context, are property. To nobody’s surprise Dr. Jack Kevorkian (better known to us these days as “Dr. Death”) states bluntly, “Body parts are property. The person owns them and has the absolute right over what will be done with them in every situation.”

Let’s pause right here. Are body parts property? Surely not. Our society (that is, the Canadian society with which I am acquainted) clearly recognizes that the human body is not property. The penalty for stealing my bicycle is nowhere near as severe as the penalty for assaulting my body. Why? Because to steal my bicycle is to deprive me of a thing; but to assault my body is to violate my person. We recognize the category-distinction between thing and person. When someone is assaulted we say, “Mr. Jonathan Johnson was assaulted”. We never say, “Johnson’s body was assaulted.” We know that Johnson himself was violated, and violated in a way he is not violated if his bicycle is pilfered. We say, “Johnson was murdered”. We never say, “Johnson’s body was rendered non-functional.”

Our society has never legalized prostitution, even though we all know that prostitution is here to stay. We haven’t legalized it for one reason: we know intuitively that to legalize prostitution is to “thingify” a woman’s body, and to “thingify” her body is to “thingify” her, “thingify” the person; in other words, to destroy the person as person.

“But it’s my body and I may do with it as I wish!” No! My body isn’t my property and I may not do with it as I wish. For instance, I am not allowed to sell my body into slavery, for to sell my body into slavery is to enslave myself. And this our society will not permit us to do. (Not only may I not sell my body into slavery, I’m not even allowed to sell my labour for a price so low that my person is deemed to be violated.)

In the USA it has been argued that if long-term prisoners give up body parts then their prison sentences should be shortened. I am outraged at this proposal. Objections to it flood me. Let me say this much: I regard this proposal as the crassest “thingification” of a human being, when the criminal justice system was designed precisely to ensure that such “thingification” doesn’t occur. What about the prisoner whose kidneys or corneas aren’t the best? What can he sell to shorten his sentence?

Needless to say, once body parts are commercialized and the market system appears, the market system will triumph; the market system will become the dominant factor in the trade, if not the only factor. What this means is that throughout the world poor people will exchange their body parts for rich people’s money.

 

[4] Perhaps you are thinking now that you shouldn’t make your organs available for transplant upon your death. If you are thinking you shouldn’t, no one is going to fault you for it.

Nonetheless, despite having said all that I have said this morning, I have not torn up the organ donor consent form that I signed and always carry with me. For when I have considered again the profoundest issues pertaining to the body and the person; when I have surveyed again the horrific abuses around the world, I still want to will my usable organs to a needy person.

I admit, we could argue that donating blood is not the same as donating a kidney (blood is replenishable, while kidneys are not), but I’m not going to develop such an argument today.

I do know that if I am killed in a motor-vehicle accident this afternoon, and if someone can be helped to see by means of my corneas, I want them used. If tomorrow my daughter or my wife develops irreversible kidney problems and someone’s kidney is available for her, I can only be grateful. And if no kidney is available, I should never hesitate to give one of mine.

Jesus said, “No one takes my life from me; I lay it down of my own accord.” While our Lord was plainly willing to lay his life down, he wasn’t willing to squander it or throw it away or fritter it. He didn’t think for a minute that he was only a helpless victim who could only submit passively to violation at the hands of others. He gave up his life. Since no one takes it from him, then when he said his body was broken for us he meant that he broke it himself for us. In saying that his blood was shed he meant that he poured it out himself for us.

Following the example of my Lord I insist on retaining a similar privilege. I insist on the privilege of doing something, however slight, that reflects my Lord’s self-giving, however slightly.

                                                                  Victor A. Shepherd
June 1996

 (Awarded “Second Best Opinion Piece”, 1997, Canadian Church Press)

John 10:24

 

Most of us enjoy suspense. We enjoy suspense, that is, as long as the suspense pertains to entertainment, but not if it pertains to life.  We enjoy the suspense of a detective story or a good novel.  We enjoy the “suspense”, as it were, of hearing the opera singer sustain a high note so very long that we can’t imagine her sustaining it longer. We enjoy the suspense of the football game when victory and defeat are decided on the last play of the game.

But where life is concerned we find suspense agonizing – like the suspense of waiting until a loved one is through high-risk surgery, or the suspense of waiting to see if we’ve been accepted into the university course that will set us on our life-work, or the suspense waiting for the jury to decide if we are going home acquitted or going to prison for ten years.  Suspense here is terrible. Suspense is agonizing where life is concerned.

This latter kind of suspense was the kind that drove some people to shout at Jesus, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” We can readily understand what drove them to shout.  All Israel had awaited the Messiah for 1400 years.  What could be more urgent than knowing whether Jesus of Nazareth was the long-awaited one or not? Throughout Israel ’s history different individuals at different times claimed to be the Messiah. In each case some enthusiastic people gathered around the claimant, only to find themselves let down. By now many were jaded. Most were sceptical. And then the Nazarene had appeared. He seemed different from most people, different even from most Messianic pretenders. At the same time, he hadn’t rid Palestine of the Roman occupation – yet. Then again, perhaps he wouldn’t rid Palestine of the Roman occupation until he had a bigger following.  So what were people to do? Join themselves to him and risk making fools (or worse) of themselves?         Or not join themselves to him and risk missing the blessings of the Messianic Age? “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.  Prove yourself to us. Convince us first, and then we’ll side with you.”         They wanted our Lord to say starkly, unambiguously, “I am the Messiah of Israel, the Saviour of the world, the One promised of old.”

I:[a] – We hear people say as much today: “I would certainly get serious about God if only he’d prove himself.”         People often say this in distressing circumstances.  I came to know a young man who stutters as you have never heard anyone stutter. He finds his stuttering a public humiliation, more hideous than the worst skin disease imaginable. In the midst of his discussion with me concerning the Christian life one day he flew into a rage and shouted he couldn’t believe in God as long as his social shame went unrelieved.

Equally heart-rending is the situation of the person with a loved one who is neurologically afflicted.  He wants to plead with the God he doesn’t quite believe in, cannot plead until he’s convinced there’s a God to plead with, and fears that if he does plead it won’t make any difference in any case.  Finally he’s left with a gaping hole in his own heart, more disappointed and bitter than he’s ever been.

“How long will you keep us in suspense?  If you are who you are said to be; if you are who you have indicated yourself to be; if you are the effectual presence and power and purpose of God, won’t you just tell us plainly?”

[b]—In our gospel story Jesus doesn’t tell the people plainly.  Why not? Not because he likes to see people play guessing games; not because he enjoys tormenting people where the most crucial matters of life and death are concerned. He doesn’t tell the people plainly for one reason: they are looking for proof of who he is and then they will abandon themselves to him — maybe. The truth is, we can’t know who he is until we abandon ourselves to him. Proof pertains to mathematics and to science.  Proof has nothing to do with persons.  The truths of mathematics are proven deductively; the truths of science are proven inductively. But where persons are concerned, no proof is possible.

From time to time two young people come to me, describe their relationship with each other, and then ask me, “Do you think we should get married?”   It’s almost as if they were saying, “We have red spots all over. Do you think we have dermatitis or measles?” Measles and dermatitis are things. Love pertains to persons. There’s no proof possible here.

There’s no way I can prove that my wife loves me. Everything she does the cynic or half-cynic can explain away.         She’s the comfort and consolation of my life?  She behaves this way because she plans to ask something huge of me two days later. She has remained faithful to me for thirty-six years?  She has an unconscious fear of venereal disease.         She listens sensitively and responds understandingly when we talk with each other? She has nothing better to talk about herself.  She’s supported me in all my ventures?  She’s fond of the prestige that goes with being married to a clergyman and a professor. If the cynic smirks “Prove that your wife loves you”, I’ll readily admit that I can’t. Still, does this mean that there is any doubt, so much as a trace, in my mind concerning her love for me? Of course not.

Some people who resisted our Lord asked him for a sign. They wanted him to do something dramatic, something persuasive, something compelling — that he was the one in whom they should believe.  Jesus refused to give any such sign.  He refused for one reason. His detractors wanted proof that he was indeed God’s visitation Incarnate – and all of this without committing themselves to him.  Once Jesus had given them the “proof” they’d asked for, they could look at one another and say, “Well then, that settles it.  He is the promised One of the Father.”  Something would occur in their heads – they now had information they had heretofore lacked – but nothing would occur in their hearts.  The “proof” they would have asked for and received would have altered nothing about their lives. The “proof” would have made no difference in their lives.

Instead of “proving” himself Jesus said, “Certainty concerning me arises only as you commit yourselves to me.   Certainty that I am God’s visitation seizes you only as follow me, trust me, obey me, and even come to love me. Those who do this find an assurance concerning me and their life in me that obliterates doubt. Those who don’t commit themselves to me remain forever unpersuaded.  I want followers who are members of my kingdom and agents of its work; I don’t want spectators who play guessing games about me and expect me to resolve the game. Life isn’t about games. Life is about the kingdom. Do you want to follow me, or do you want to stand there demanding a sign concerning that kingdom you don’t plan to enter in any case?”

[c]—Perhaps someone wants to protest, “But the miracles were signs.  Scripture says so. Since Jesus worked miracles he must have given signs, a few at least.”  They were signs of the kingdom only to those who lived in the kingdom and were therefore kingdom-sighted.  They were signs of nothing to kingdom-blind curiosity seekers.  If today a man with a tin flute made a rope stand on end, people wouldn’t exclaim, “This man has to be the Son of God and the Saviour of the world!” They would ask him, “Where did you learn to do that?  You belong on TV. With the right contacts you could make a lot of money.”  This isn’t the response Jesus wants to elicit.  The response he’s looking for is the response of Matthew, Peter, Andrew and the others who leave everything to follow.  Our Lord isn’t looking for admirers; he wants disciples.   He doesn’t want congratulation; he wants commitment.  He doesn’t want curiosity-seekers; he wants faith that remains faithful.

And those who yield Jesus Christ such commitment and trust and faithful following; all such find that he convinces them more certainly than any so-called proof ever could: he is Emmanuel, God-with-us.  Possessed of such certainty, they move more deeply into him every day at the same that his kingdom becomes ever more vivid, with the result that they seek no one else; with the result that they can’t be deflected from him; with the result that life’s adversities find them clinging even closer to him. The question of “proof” now becomes a laughable irrelevance.  At this point we don’t shout at him, “Don’t keep us in suspense. Tell us plainly.” It never occurs to us to shout “Don’t keep us in suspense” for one reason: he has surged over us in such a way as to dispel all suspense.  We don’t shout “Tell us plainly” for one reason: he has authenticated himself to us in so very many circumstances that we don’t need anything plainer than the assurance we already have.

 

II: — In the light of all that’s been said to this point I want us to examine more closely some of our Lord’s pronouncements so that their truth might be seared afresh upon us today and any lingering doubt dispelled.

[a] The first is “I am the resurrection and the life.” Usually we hear it at funeral services, and rightly so.  Yet it refers to much more than post-mortem developments.  “I am the resurrection and the life” – it means that right now, in this life, there is always a new beginning.  Every day is a fresh beginning before God.  Every day is a day in which the sin and culpable stupidity of yesterday are blotted out. Every day is the first day of the future just because “I am resurrection and life” means that our past, however discoloured, can’t negate our future. Every day is redolent with hope just because who I am is given by where I’m going rather than by where I’ve been. Every day is redolent with hope just because who I am is given by what God has promised to do for me rather than what I’ve done to myself.

If the people around us snort, “She doesn’t seem any different to me”, no matter; we have been appointed to a future more glorious than we can imagine, even as we can imagine a future in which our self-contradiction and self-destructiveness are finally no more.

If we are possessed of a smidgen of sensitivity we know that our own garbage stinks.  To be sure, everyone is aware that everyone else’s garbage stinks. Still, we must become aware that our own garbage is fetid.  Yet because Jesus Christ is resurrection and life there’s always more to us than our garbage. What more is there?  There’s the new being that our Lord is himself and promises to make ours; there’s a truth concerning us that is hidden to unbelief but known to faith; there’s a recognition that much about us needs to change, a certainty that our Lord can effect such change, and an awareness that such change is already underway.

When our Lord says “I am resurrection and life” he is awakening us to the difference he makes: our past he pardons, our present he accompanies, and our future he guarantees.

Few incidents move me more than the risen One’s encounter with Peter at least a week after Easter.  Earlier a fifteen-year old servant girl had remarked, “Your accent; it’s Galilean; the same accent as the fellow who’s going to be crucified”; and a frightened Peter, swearing like a sailor, had denied that he had ever had anything to do with the Master.  Spokesperson for all the disciples?  Now Peter didn’t appear fit to be spokesperson for the prison population. But because Jesus is resurrection and life, all considerations of who is fit and who not are beside the point. Now the risen One asks simply, “Peter, do you love me?”   Note that Jesus doesn’t ask, “Peter do you feel properly wretched? You should, you know, since you behaved worse than anyone would’ve expected you to.”  Note that Jesus doesn’t ask, “Peter, don’t you think you should be put on probation for a year or two until we all see whether or not you’re going to hold up?”

“Peter, do you love me? Then feed my sheep.” In the company of Jesus Christ our past, however, deplorable or disgraceful, is cancelled. In the company of Jesus Christ the present issue is only “Do you love me, even a little bit?” In the company of Jesus Christ our future unfolds in terms of his commission: “Keep on feeding my sheep.”

Does anyone doubt all this?  Is anyone in suspense concerning it?   Suspense disappears as morning by morning we step ahead knowing that our Lord is resurrection and life, and therefore our past and present and future are comprehended in him and his newness.

[b] The second pronouncement of our Lord that I want us to look at is “I am the vine; you are the branches.         As the branch cannot bear fruit unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me….Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit….” Plainly the fruitfulness of our life depends on our keeping company with our Lord, his abiding in us and our abiding in him.  At the same time, such mutual indwelling guarantees our fruitfulness. This point is crucial, for all of us are prone to fasten on the unfruitfulness we think we see, the unfruitfulness (apparently) for which others blame us, and, worst of all the seeming unfruitfulness for which we blame ourselves.

At all times and in all circumstances we have to know that as long as we so much as aspire to keep company with our Lord, our life isn’t going to dribble away in final uselessness and insignificance regardless of how much or how little we think we see it amounting to. In other words, we are not the measure of ourselves.

You must have noticed that the arrogant, self-important person always assumes that he is the measure of himself, and is always convinced that he has triumphed.  Having made himself the measure of his significance, he pronounces himself superior.

At the same time, the self-rejecting person assumes every bit as much that he’s the measure of himself too; he’s convinced that he has failed. Having made himself the measure of his significance, he pronounces himself inferior.

Our society tends to deploy one measuring rod above all others: salary. The expression “a good job” means only one thing: a highly paid job.  Oh yes, we do make exceptions here and there: large sums of money gained criminally don’t count as “a good job”.  Still, wealth remains the first measure of human significance.

Then we make subdivisions within this first significance: the athlete and the judge may make the same money, but the judge’s work is more important. The factory auto worker and the school teacher may make the same money, but the teacher’s work is more important.

In the church we make a further subdivision: if we are engaged in a “spiritual” occupation – minister, missionary – then our work is more significant than that of Christians who are engaged in banking or baking.

But Jesus undercuts all of this:  “Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit”.  That’s it. He doesn’t say we are going to see much fruit; he doesn’t say we’re going to be recognized for much fruit.  He simply guarantees that as long as we trust, obey and pray our lives are going to possess kingdom significance; which is to say, our lives are going to bear fruit of eternal substance and worth regardless of that value we think we or others can put upon them.

I’m convinced this point is crucial.  We pour ourselves into one of our children and she turns out as we’ve always hoped, whereupon we congratulate ourselves.  We pour ourselves equally into another who turns out differently and ask ourselves, “Where did we go wrong?”  Neither approach is correct.  All we can do is pour ourselves upon those given to us, aspire to abide in Christ as surely as he abides in us, and trust him to render our existence fruitful with that fruitfulness that he alone supplies, he alone sees, and he alone has promised to preserve.

 

Frustrated people shouted at Jesus, “Don’t keep us in suspense.  If you are the One we await, the One in whom God’s kingdom becomes operative, tell us plainly.”  But our Lord won’t, and won’t just because he refuses to satisfy the inquisitiveness of detached spectators.  Instead he says, “If you want to know who I am as much as you say you want to know, come with me; follow; and in following your suspense will evaporate and the answer you seek will be plainer than you ever imagined. And as it is with the truth that he is, so it is with the truths he pronounces.

 

                                                                                                    Victor Shepherd                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

July 2005

 

John 13:1-14  

 

No one in all of church history is as moved at Christmas as is Martin Luther. Every time Luther comes to write anything about Christmas he seems like a child, at least in some respects. He’s as excited as a five-year old who has counted the days for months.  He’s as eager as the child who has wanted something dear to her and now can’t wait to see if the gift she’s craved is finally hers.

Yet even though Luther is child-like around Christmas, he is never maudlin; never sentimental; never gushy.         Luther is always profound. Characteristically Luther is so very profound that every year, this year included, there are more books published about Luther than about any figure in history, Jesus included. Luther is so very deep that we can never get to the bottom of him, never exhaust him.  Yet as profound as Luther is, he’s customarily simple.         This shouldn’t surprise us, since the deepest matters in life are simple at the same time.

Whenever Luther speaks of Christmas, he speaks of the congregation. And therefore whenever he speaks of congregational life, he speaks with his characteristic simplicity and profundity.  In the season of Advent, 520 years after the birth of Luther, let’s listen to Luther on the three forms of church community.

I: —  Martin Luther maintained that the first level of Christian community, the first stage of our life together, is putting our time, talent and treasure at the disposal of everyone else in the congregation.  Eric McDonald fixes things, fixes anything a fixer-man can fix.  Pat McKinnon bakes shortbread.  Ralph Finch fiddles. There’s nothing extraordinary about this, because what Eric and Pat and Ralph contribute they can do with their eyes shut.         Furthermore, what any of us can do to help, we do without expecting extraordinary recognition for it.         All of us bring forward our natural gifts and abilities, as well as our money and our time, wanting only to be helpful in any way we can.         This “physical service,” as Luther called the first stage of Christian community, we offer readily and gladly.

It sounds so very ordinary, doesn’t it.  In fact it is ordinary. But 95% of life is ordinary; and therefore the ordinariness that we offer up on behalf of the community of Christ’s people is always vastly more important than many think.

When I was younger and occasionally mulled over what is meant by gifts and abilities and talents I tended to think of what we commonly call “talented people”. Their talents were dramatic, eye-catching, sensational, striking, even freakish. In my older age I esteem more and more the non-startling, non-sensational gifts that finally help us much more profoundly.

When I was in Frankfurt ( Germany ) and Stockholm ( Sweden ) with the World Council of Churches on behalf of Jewish-Christian relations I noted the gentle way and undramatic ability of Krister Stendahl, the chairman of our group.  A Swede by birth, Stendahl had taught at Harvard for twenty-five years, then had returned to Stockholm as Lutheran bishop of the city. At the WCC meetings the Americans spoke their mind (forcefully), as well as the British, the French, the Germans, the Dutch, the Africans.  As everyone continued to speak out it appeared that we were moving farther from consensus, closer to chaos, one step away from the fragmentation we seemed unable to avoid.         At such moments Stendahl would stare at the table in front of him while someone else generated more heat than light, say nothing for a minute or two, and then gently propose the idea or the statement or the motion that marvellously gathered up what we all wanted to say but didn’t have the wherewithal to formulate it and therefore could only push the meeting further towards collapse.   As Stendahl did this several times over we all forgot the pricks where we thought we had been jabbed and moved ahead together to accomplish what we had come from the four corners of the world to do.  Stendahl himself, in his genuine humility, made no more of this than he would have made of saying “hello”.   On the one occasion when Stendahl took three minutes on account of an especially thorny conundrum and someone became impatient, he dispelled even the whiff of animosity as he smiled good-naturedly and said, “You will have to excuse me; it’s been months since I thought in English” (English being his third language, after Swedish and German.)

I shall always be grateful for those whose gift is so undramatic as simply to help us see that our perspective on a matter is not the only perspective; and therefore those who disagree with us are neither incurably stupid nor wilfully vicious.  If you sit at ice-level on the side of a hockey rink, the ice-surface appears long from blue-line to goal-line, short from side to side across the ice. Actually, it’s only 60 feet from blue-line to goal-line but 85 feet across the ice. Yet at ice-level it seems 20 feet across the ice and 150 feet from blue-line to goal-line.  It’s no wonder that ice-level fans complain that the Maple Leafs skate leadenly when they bring the puck out of their own zone, while opponents look like hornets buzzing around inside the Leaf end.   As soon as we move to the end-zone seats our perspective on the game changes with the altered angle of vision.  If we move high up into the nose-bleed seats it’s a different game again.

Several people in this congregation whom the world would find undistinguished have spared me public humiliation (and worse) by gently sharing with me their capacity to see things from a different angle, all the while doing this without precipitating knee-jerk defensiveness in me.

Talents and gifts and abilities need not be the violin-playing of Pinchas Zukerman or the singing of Pavarotti or the writing of Alice Munro. The talent that most frequently assists the congregation most profoundly is much less dramatic than that. Whatever our talent, then, we must put it at the disposal of the congregation.

From time to time a meeting in any congregation unfolds and appears to go nowhere. Whether the board members be few or many, they can’t seem to agree on anything. By meeting’s end, of course, there is one thing everyone is eager to agree on: adjournment. We shake our heads and go home mumbling to ourselves, “That wasn’t much of a meeting tonight. All we did was turn back motion after motion.”  I happen to think it was a wonderful meeting.  Think of what didn’t happen. Board members didn’t fall silent before something they secretly disagreed with, pass it out of politeness so as not to hurt the feelings of the person voicing it, only to realize that now everyone was stuck with a decision that very few wanted. Think too of what didhappen.   Those at the meeting had freedom to be honest with each other.  At the end of the meeting everyone could smile about it.  For everyone knew that everyone else in the meeting had been generous for years with time, talent and treasure, generous many times over in congregational life. Because of our common generosity there was common goodwill, even if this or that motion didn’t find support from other voters.

Luther insists that the simplest, humblest gift, put at the disposal of the congregation, is the first stage of Christian community.

 

II: — According to Luther the second stage of Christian community is more intentional, more deliberate, more pointed. The second stage has to do more specifically with the strengthening of faith. Here Luther lists three matters: instruction in faith (teaching), consolation, intercession.

 

(a)           Teaching is plainly essential.  The old saying, “Faith is caught, not taught”, simply isn’t true. Those who think the saying to be true never seem to have come to terms with the fact that Jesus taught every single day of his public ministry.  The apostles taught. In the Presbyterian tradition the minister is known as the “teaching elder.” The church has always known that apart from teaching, ignorance triumphs.  And with the triumph of ignorance concerning the gospel, human depravity swells. We have to be taught.

It’s plain to any and all here that the Schomberg pulpit places massive emphasis on teaching, on instruction in faith.  But what else should we expect?   Over and over scripture insists that mind and heart must be developed in equal measure. To be sure, if the Christian mind develops in isolation from the heart we are left with abstract theological head-trips that may amuse the pseudo-intellectuals among us but finally help no one.  On the other hand, to develop the believing heart in isolation from the knowing head would leave us only with sentimentality, nostalgia and superstition. The heart believes upon him whose truth the head has been taught.  Then teach we must.

Teaching occurs in many settings besides the pulpit.  Teaching occurs in the Sunday School, in our Wednesday evening adult study groups, at the occasional men’s breakfast.  (Please note that what is learned at the men’s breakfast won’t be learned anywhere else.).

The apostle Paul writes to the younger Timothy, “Be unfailing in patience and teaching.”   We must always be teaching inasmuch as the natural state of the mind is a darkened state (in the wake of the Fall); the mind has to be enlightened. Donald Coggan, former archbishop of Canterbury and former professor at the University of Toronto ; Coggan used to say, “People are saved from the dark, not in it.”   At the same time we must always be patient in our teaching inasmuch as a Christian mind isn’t acquired overnight.

Teaching is a major ingredient in stage two, the more intentional stage, of Christian community.

 

(b)         Yet teaching isn’t the only ingredient; consolation is as well.  Faith grows through the instruction of teachers; and the faith that grows through teaching takes a beating from life.  Just because we are always taking a beating we are always in need of consolation.

The unnamed prophet who sustained God’s people during their exile in Babylon cries, “Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her, all you who love her….that you may suck and be satisfied with her consoling breasts.” The prophet is writing to people who are taking a beating in Babylon .  They are nowhere near the geographic Jerusalem .         The ” Jerusalem ” he calls them to rejoice in can’t be the city at the eastern end of the Mediterranean .  The Jerusalem whose breasts console them is the community of God’s people, the church of Israel .

The consolations of Jerusalem , the consolations of the church, are more profoundly consoling than anything else just because the consolations of the church are finally the consolations of God himself.

At the beginning of his second letter to Corinth Paul refers to but does not identify a clobbering he and others underwent in Asia .  “We were so utterly, unbearably crushed that we despaired of life itself. Why, we felt that we had received the sentence of death….”   The clobbering was indescribable.  Nonetheless at the beginning of his second letter to Corinth Paul writes as well, “…the Father of mercies and God of all comfort…comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”  Those most clobbered are most able to console, and most able to console because first most consoled by God himself.

At stage two of Christian community we are that Jerusalem whose breasts console those in our midst.  We are this just because there are always among us those who have tasted the consolation of God and therefore can now console others, even as these others will one day see the comfort given them as God’s own.

 

(c)         The third aspect of stage two community is intercession.  We are to pray for each other.

The precedent for praying for each other is as moving as it is authoritative. The precedent is our Lord himself. On the eve of his death Jesus poured out his heart before his Father on behalf of the twelve. “I do not pray that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil one….Sanctify them in the truth….And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be consecrated in truth.”

All of us in the Schomberg fellowship are to consecrate ourselves for the sake of everyone else in the fellowship.         We are to do this in order that we all alike might be consecrated in truth, confirmed in truth, cemented into truth.

I pray for you people. I know that many of you pray for me. All of us need to be maintained in truth.  The alternative to being maintained in truth is to be found languishing in error, falsehood, delusion — and ultimately, in degradation. The alternative to being sanctified in truth is to fall victim to that one, the evil one, whom Jesus pronounced a liar and a killer.  Then it’s no wonder we are urged everywhere in scripture to pray for one another.

Pray for each other with the cavalier indifference of “Now I lay me down to sleep”? No.  We are to pray for each other with an exertion that rivals the exertion of the lumberjack or the athlete.   Paul tells the three men whose kingdom-work immerses them in danger (Aristarchus, Mark, Jesus Justus) that Epaphras “prays earnestly” for them. The English text says “earnestly”.   The Greek text uses a much stronger verb: AGONIZOMAI — (from which we derive the English word “agony”.)   Agony: this is the measure of the intensity and anguish of Epaphras when he prays for the three men in danger every day.  For that matter our Lord was scarcely the picture of “Now I lay me down to sleep” when he cried out for us on Thursday evening in Gethsemane , “Keep them from the evil one; sanctify them in truth.”

When we were children and we were learning scripture through such vehicles as bible quizzes we soon learned the answer to the question, “What is the shortest verse in the bible?”  (Answer: “Jesus wept”.  John 11)

Here is another quiz-question.  What is the second shortest verse in the bible?  It’s in 2 Thessalonians 5: “Brethren, pray for us.”   Oceans are concentrated in these four words.

Intercession is an aspect of the second stage of Christian community, the more deliberate, more intentional, more pointed stage.

 

III: — Luther maintains that the first level of community (giving up time, talent and treasure for each other) is relatively easy.  Somewhat more difficult is the second level of community: the effort and learning and patience needed for teaching, the heart-wrenching empathy required for consolation, and the anguish of ardent prayer.

Difficult as the second level is, says Luther, there is one level even more difficult: bearing the weakness and sin of our fellow-Christian, fellow-parishioner, brother or sister in faith.  Writes Luther,

Now it seems to be a great work of love when we let our possessions become the servants of someone else.         But the greatest of all is when I give up my own righteousness and allow my righteousness to serve my neighbour’s sin.

 

 

If “giving up my own righteousness and allowing my righteousness to serve my neighbour’s sin”; if this most effectively, most characteristically, forms and cements Christian community, then what most thoroughly, most characteristically, fragments and destroys it?  Luther says nothing breaks down community like using our sister’s weakness and sin to fuel our self-exaltation; nothing destroys our life together like using our brother’s misstep to feed our supposed superiority. If sin overtakes our brother and we feel good about it, feel good about it for any reason at all, then — says the Wittenberger — we are simply despicable.

Have you ever pondered what it is to be hated?  Luther says we can be hated when the person hating us has no feeling of hatred toward us at all. We are most hated when the following happens.  “When I am stuck in my sins, he [my brother] should weep bloody tears and come to my help; instead he [my brother] rejoices and says, ‘I am righteous in God’s sight’.”

Let’s come back to the statement of Luther that may have startled you. “The greatest of all is when I give up my own righteousness and allow it to serve my neighbour’s sin.” What does Luther mean by this? He directs us to 2 Corinthians 5:21: “For our sake God made Jesus Christ to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” By the Father’s appointment the sinless Son became the sin-bearing one in order that we, the sin-condemned, might be pardoned before God.  What our Lord has done no one else can duplicate.  At the same time, what our Lord has done must move us to do what we can do; what he has done must fire us with the same spirit and outlook. We are to support, cherish, uphold, and bless the brother in our fellowship whom sin has overtaken. We are never to turn up our nose at our sister and thank whoever might be listening that whatever else we might be at least we aren’t like her.

This is not to say that our fellow-Christian’s sin is to be indulged. It is never to be indulged, never to be approved, never to be winked at.  Our Lord forgave sinners, after all; he never excused them or indulged them or winked at them.  In his discussion of this point Luther refers us repeatedly to Philippians 2:5: “Have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus.”

As Luther returned to the theme of bearing our fellow-Christian’s sin in the congregation he returned as well to the gospel-incident of our Lord’s washing the feet of the disciples.  We too must be willing to wash the feet of those we judge (rightly) to have sinned atrociously.  And who is able to do this? Who is able to wash his brother’s feet?  Only those who cannot deny that they have had to have their feet washed by the master himself.

 

Luther’s childlike amazement at the birth of Christ is matched by his wisdom and profundity concerning the congregation, the community of Christ’s people.

 

                                                                                                  Victor Shepherd                                                                                                                              

December 2003

 

 

 

 

 

                                  MARTIN LUTHER ON CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY

 

2 Timothy 2:4

Isaiah 66:11

2 Corinthians 2:4-9

John 17:15,17

Colossians 4:12

2 Corinthians 5:21

Philippians 2:5

John 13:3-14

 

John 14:6

 

Everyone is aware that words change meaning as they are used day-by-day and bandied about. According to the Oxford English Dictionary to be stoned is to have rocks hurled at oneself. According to street-talk, however, to be “stoned” is to be under the influence of marijuana. Only a few years ago the word “gay” meant merry or lighthearted; “gay” now has a meaning entirely unrelated to its previous meaning. What’s more, the recent meaning of “gay” is so deep in the North American psyche that the word will be a long time recovering its original meaning – if it ever does.

A similar change has befallen the word “conversion”. In scripture the word means “turning”, specifically a turning to God. Today, however, the word refers to a psychological development, an emotional experience. Biblically the word is associated with the human will. Today it’s associated primarily with feeling. Biblically “conversion” is entirely a response that God has equipped us to make and moved us to make. Today the word refers to something we initiate out of our own resources.

It’s important that we recover the biblical meaning of the word “conversion”. It’s even more important that we act upon our new understanding. This morning, then, I want us to probe together the significance of a threefold conversion.

I: — In the first place conversion is a turning toward Jesus Christ. Before I say another word about our turning toward him, let me state as strongly as I can a truth that we must always keep before us: we can turn toward him only because in him God has first turned toward us. The mere fact of the Incarnation, of God’s coming among us in Jesus Christ, demonstrates his turning toward us. Supremely in the cross God has turned toward us. Having turned toward us God will never turn away from us, never turn back from us, never turn his back on us; never abandon us, betray us or quit on us. Facing us now in Christ Jesus, God quickens in us the desire to turn and face him. More than quicken in us the desire to turn toward him, God fosters in us the capacity to turn toward him. Having given us both the desire and the capacity to turn toward him, God then invites us to do just that. There is nothing more crucial in any person’s life than that development wherein the invitation is heard and the summons is unmistakable and the fork in the road is undeniable. Everything hangs on this development. Let us make no mistake. God hasn’t turned toward us in Christ Jesus inasmuch as he has nothing better to do. He has turned toward us precisely in order to have us turn toward him. There is no more critical juncture than this.

Our Lord himself says, without hesitation, qualification, “I am Way, Truth, and Life. I alone am this.”

“Way” bespeaks road, pilgrimage, venture; it also bespeaks destination gained, arrival enjoyed, fulfillment guaranteed. Plainly our Lord insists that his invitation rejected means meandering, staggering, stumbling, groping, everything we associate with losing one’s way.

“Truth” (capital “T”) in scripture means reality. To face Jesus Christ is to know reality. To keep company with him, to be soaked in the Spirit that he pours forth, to live in that relationship with his Father to which he admits us: this is reality. It’s obvious that his invitation rejected means to forfeit reality and be left with illusion.

“Life” bespeaks responsiveness, responsiveness not only to him but also (as we shall see in a minute) responsiveness to others who have turned to face him, as well as responsiveness to those haven’t yet turned. It’s obvious that his invitation rejected leaves us with life spurned, life renounced, death.

In view of the fact that everything that issues from our turning toward Jesus Christ in response to God’s having turned toward us in Christ; in view of the fact that everything that issues from this is blessing, pure blessing, then how did “conversion” come to have such a bad press? How did many thoughtful people come to associate it only with something negative?

The word comes to have a negative connotation when the church loses confidence in Christ’s ability to turn people to himself, when the church feels that it has to do Christ’s work for him and create a point of contact for him in others. The traditional point of contact has been guilt. Undeniably there is a guilt that is proper before God; that is, there is that for which people should feel guilty because they are guilty. And to be sure our Lord knows what to do here and never fails to do it. Far removed from this situation, however, is artificial guilt that is worked up by assorted means of manipulation. Nothing has done more to discredit Christian proclamation than the psychological manipulation of people through inducing artificial guilt. Such manipulation doesn’t render the gospel credible. It may render a psychiatrist necessary, but it doesn’t render the gospel credible. We should cheerfully acknowledge right here that Jesus Christ alone can render his truth credible. And if he couldn’t, our slick machinations wouldn’t help. Let’s admit for once and for all that to believe in Jesus Christ is to trust him to render compelling the truth that he himself is. Our emotional schemes may amuse or distress other people; in no way do they render our Lord credible.

The second reason “conversion” has a negative connotation is that it has been hijacked by those who want to capture it exclusively for a coming-to-faith that is as sudden as it is dramatic. People who “saw the light in an instant”; people for whom it “all fell into place at once”; these people have tended to say that unless discipleship begins as theirs began it hasn’t begun at all.

This is not true. There are as many ways of coming to faith as there are ways of coming to be in love. To be sure, a few people, very few, fall in love “at first sight.” Far more people – most, in fact – take much longer to conclude that they are in love. Most people come to be in love through a protracted process replete with hesitation, doubts, misgivings, as well as enthusiasms, ardour and anguish. Nevertheless, one day they are overtaken by the awareness that they are indeed in love. Anyone who told them that they couldn’t be in love since they didn’t fall into love instantly would be dismissed with the wave-off he deserves.

I have never doubted that some people – a few – come to faith suddenly and dramatically. I have only one request to make of these people: that they stop casting aspersion on those whose coming to faith has stolen over them as quietly, yet as surely, as the dawn steals over a still-dark world. How long it takes to come to be in love isn’t important. How we come to be disciples isn’t important. Only one thing matters: that we begin to turn toward him who has already turned wholly toward us, that we set out (however tentatively at first) on the road of discipleship.

II: — In the second place conversion is a turning toward the church. Many people have difficulty grasping this point. They don’t see any connexion at all between Jesus Christ and the church. But of course they see no connexion in that they misunderstand the nature of the church. The church isn’t a club, albeit a club that is “a force for good.” The church – and the church alone – is the body of Christ. To turn toward Jesus Christ is always to turn toward all of him, head and body together. When we turn toward our Lord we aren’t turning toward a severed head; neither are we turning toward a headless torso. In other words, to be related to Jesus Christ is to be related to all of him, body as well as head. To abide in Christ, then, is to abide in his community. To cherish him is to cherish his people. To love him is to love his people, however disfigured they are.

Yet how reluctant many people are to endorse this! Think of the attitude aided and abetted by television programming. TV religious broadcasting was intended originally for sick and shut-in people who couldn’t attend public worship. Now, however, it is shamelessly put forward as a substitute for public worship. You sit at home and click the channel-changer. You don’t worship; rather, you allow yourself to be entertained. After all, the channel-changer allows you to move from basketball to a talk-show to a soap opera (whose principal theme is always adultery) to a newscast (whose principal theme is usually house-fires and car crashes) – to religion. You don’t assume responsibility in the local congregation; instead, you look on your hero with coiffed hair from afar. It’s much easier to admire the TV star than it is to endure the local pastor. If scandal beclouds the TV presentation, such scandal is incomparably easier to withstand than the anti-gospel currents and divagations of the local congregation.

Yet in the midst of all this there remains a truth we dare not forget: Jesus Christ isn’t divided. His head isn’t severed from his body. If we are going to face him and embrace him, then we are going to embrace all of him, head and body. Why is embracing all of him so very difficult? It’s difficult because of the jarring discrepancy between head and body. The head is fair to behold while the body is often ugly. The head is handsome while the body is frequently disfigured. The head is resplendent while the body is blemished. What we often forget, however, is this: every last person who is possessed of any faith at all in Jesus Christ came to such faith only through the body, the church. You and I are not the first Christians. Who preserved the truth of Christ for us? Church fathers in Egypt did, even as the church of that era was riddled with political intrigues that make politics anywhere today appear virtuous. Who preserved the truth of Christ for us? Mediaeval thinkers did, including those thinkers whose thinking often obscured the gospel as much as it honoured the gospel. Who preserved the truth of Christ for us? The Protestant Reformers did, even though they remained inexcusably blind to those overseas mission-fields for the sake of which Roman Catholic Jesuits bled to death or were burned at the stake. Who preserved the truth of Christ for us? John Wesley did, even though he was laughably eccentric and lacking in self-perception, as his failed marriage attests, Wesley being as upset at his wife’s departure as I am upset when a Jehovah’s Witness finally departs my house. More recently, who handed on the truth of Christ to me? Ministers did who couldn’t discuss philosophy with me; Sunday School teachers did whose sincerity didn’t quite hide their prejudices; my parents did even though they frustrated me with their failure to understand where I hurt and why. Yes, the body is frequently disfigured, always dishevelled, sometimes disgraced. Still, it is only by means of the body of Christ that anyone ever comes to know the master himself.

While we are dwelling on the fact that Jesus Christ isn’t a severed head but rather can be loved only as his body is cherished, we should review some scriptural truths that we are prone to forget. We should recall that God wills a people for himself, a people. To come to faith in Jesus Christ and to be added to the people of God, to the body of Christ, are two inseparable aspects of a single event. We should recall that innermost private faith in Jesus Christ and outermost public confession of him are always fused in scripture. Where there is no public confession (one dimension of which is public worship) there simply is no faith. We should recall that however weighty an individual’s gift or talent is, it’s useless unless it’s added to the talents of others in the congregation. A solitary piccolo player sitting by himself on a darkened stage in an unheated Roy Thomson Hall is useless.

That conversion which is a genuine turning toward Jesus Christ is always also a turning toward the church. To endorse our Lord in faith is always to endorse his people in love.

III: — In the third place conversion is a turning toward the world. I’m aware that someone is going to remind me immediately of what the apostle James has to say: friendship with the world means enmity with God. I’m aware of what James says, and I agree with him without hesitation: there is an attitude to the world that is an uncritical admiration of the world, an unwitting appropriation of a fallen world, a naïve fascination with the world’s folly and a senseless seduction through the world’s corruption. James is correct. Uncritical friendship with the world is spiritually fatal.

The point is, however, that the Christian is no more to be uncritical of the world than his Lord is uncritical of the world, even as the Christian loves the world as his Lord loves it. God never allows his people to turn their back on the world for one unarguable reason: God himself never turns his back on it. It’s plain, then, that two attitudes to the world are forbidden the Christian. One attitude is a Pollyanna view that pretends everything is rosy or near-rosy or soon-to-be-rosy, newspaper-writers being no more than doomsayers who take perverse delight in exaggerating human foibles. The other attitude forbidden the Christian is despair of the world. God doesn’t permit his people to despair of the world, for God himself has appointed the world to a destiny more glorious than anything the world can imagine about itself: namely, a creation healed, the kingdom of God .

Few books in scripture grip me as much as the book of Revelation. I’m startled every time I peer into the book and come upon the two sharpest contrasts anyone could imagine. On the one hand, the people for whom John writes are suffering atrociously at the hands of the world, and John speaks of the world in the strongest terms: “dragon”, “whore”, “beast”, “blood-drinker”, “saint-slayer”. On the other hand, the very people who have suffered so much at the hands of the world’s conscienceless cruelty are forbidden to abandon the world. In the first chapter of Revelation John insists that Christians have been made “priests”. The function of priests, biblically, is to intercede. Christians are to intercede tirelessly on behalf of the world. Their priestly service, their intercession, certainly includes prayer but isn’t restricted to it. They are to intercede on behalf of the world in any way they can, intervene in the world in any way they can, however much that world disdains them and abuses them. In the Hebrew bible priests have another function: they offer up sacrifices. What’s the sacrifice John’s readers are to offer up? Themselves! Christians are priests who offer up themselves for the sake of the world. John can make this point, however, only because of a truth he has acknowledged in the preceding verse: Jesus Christ is “the ruler of kings on earth.” (Rev. 1:5-6) Our Lord rules the world, ultimately. No one else does. The Roman Emperor Domitian didn’t rule it when John was writing the book of Revelation, even though Domitian thought he did. Jesus Christ is “the ruler of kings on earth.” Then of course Christians have a priestly ministry, an intercessory ministry, to exercise on behalf of the world: because Christ rules the earth’s rulers ultimately, our priestly service to the world can never be fruitless finally.

 

It’s time we reclaimed the word “conversion”. Conversion is a turning toward the one who has already turned toward us. To turn toward him, however, is also to turn toward and never forsake all that he has pledged himself to; namely, the church and the world. The church, of course, is God’s demonstration project, the first installment, of what he intends to do for the world; namely, recover a rebellious creation and render it that kingdom wherein the king’s will is done without exception even as the king himself is loved without end.

 

                                                                                               Victor Shepherd  

June 2005

 John 14:1-9       Genesis 17:1-8       Hebrews 11:1-3; 8-12       Mark 1:14 -15

 

It happened at the corner of Simcoe Street and Rossland. It was a collision. A crowd gathered quickly, as crowds always do. But the crowd was no help once police officers and insurance adjusters and lawyers wanted to know what happened. These people weren’t interested in hearing from the crowd; they wanted to hear from witnesses.

When the handful of witnesses (witnesses are always fewer than crowds) began to testify, their testimony had much in common. It couldn’t be doubted they were all speaking of the same collision. At the same time, no two witnesses said exactly the same thing. Each testimony differed slightly according to the witness’s angle of vision on the event.

No one thought of saying that only one witness could be right and therefore all others were wrong. Precisely because different witnesses bring forward slightly differing testimonies we know that their story is authentic. We know that they haven’t conspired secretly to “cook up” something artificial.

In the days of his earthly ministry Jesus Christ collided with many persons and many institutions. The “collision” which he was invariably drew a crowd. But the crowd he drew can’t help us to understand what happened when our Lord acted then and what continues to happen when he acts among us now. For this we need the testimony of witnesses. Their testimony is indispensable in our coming to grasp who Jesus Christ is and what faith in him entails.

As we receive their testimony we shall find that these witnesses agree in essence concerning Jesus Christ. Nevertheless we shall find too that different witnesses highlight different insights. This fact only reassures us that their testimony is authentic and therefore can be trusted.

In the course of the many collisions he occasioned Jesus summoned men and women to join him. He summoned them to faith in him. He promised to sustain and strengthen their faith. He summons, sustains and strengthens today as well. Then there’s one, crucial issue for us to sort out: What does faith in Jesus Christ mean? What does it entail? In order to answer this question we must receive the testimony of four witnesses: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Today, however, we are going to listen to them in reverse order: John, Luke, Mark and Matthew.

I: — First, John. Faith, says the apostle John, is the conviction that Jesus Christ is the mirror-image of God the Father, the conviction that Jesus Christ is the living presence of God embodied in our flesh and blood. Faith is also confidence in the mission and message of this Emmanuel, “God-with-us.” Faith is also confession of loyalty to him. According to John faith always entails conviction, confidence, confession.

Phillip is a disciple, a follower, who happens to be tossed around by the turbulence that always surrounds Jesus. After months of being jostled and jarred, months of being thrown off-balance just when he thought he had everything figured out, Phillip hungers for one, conclusive disclosure of God. “Just show us the Father and that will be enough,” he cries to Jesus. “Phillip,” replies the Master, “to see me is to see the one you want. I am the disclosure you crave.”

It’s odd, isn’t it: the answer that satisfied Phillip irks people today. “To see me is to see the Father,” says Jesus, and this annoys people today. “How narrow,” they complain, “how insufferably narrow.”

I admit it is narrow. If John had said that the living Word of God, God’s self-utterance and self-giving – if John had said that this Word became words, human speech, speeches, no one would object. But John never says that the Word became words, speeches, chatter. John insists that the Word has become flesh. One man; one man only. From Nazareth at that, a one-horse town. (Nazareth was to Jerusalem, in terms of sophistication and glamour, what ‘Podunksville’ today is to Paris.) What’s more, “flesh” for John refers not only to human existence; “flesh” also means concrete human existence under the conditions of sin. Then is John telling us that the Word became flesh, that God has identified himself wholly with a hayseed from Nazareth who in turn has identified himself with sinners? Yes, John is saying exactly this. God is to be found definitively in a one-horse town in the person of an ordinary Jew who is also “numbered among the transgressors.” In this one man God has drawn so very near to us that he couldn’t draw any nearer.

If you are irked by the supposed narrowness of John’s conviction and confession and you are starting to fidget, please note what is not said.

1: It is not said that God has neglected or forsaken people who are non-Christians. Nevertheless it is in Jesus Christ that we learn that God neither neglects nor forsakes anyone.

2: It is not said that God isn’t free to disclose himself as he wishes. Nevertheless, the witnesses we are hearing and heeding today were convinced that in Jesus Christ God can always be found for sure.

3: It is not said that while God may be present with all peoples, God is active only in the history of Israel, the one people that gave us Jesus. As a matter of fact Amos tells us that just as God was active in Israel’s history, bringing the Israelites up out of Egypt, so God has been active, no less active, in the history of the Philistines and the Syrians. Nevertheless, in Jesus Christ we can identify what God is doing in human history among diverse peoples.

4: It is not said that God has been sensed only in Jesus of Nazareth. Nevertheless, in the man from Nazareth God has seized us with a clarity and cogency that constrains us to speak of him and forbids us to remain silent.

Faith, says John, is the conviction that Jesus Christ is the living address of the God who has come among us in our own humanness and identified himself with us in our sinfulness. Faith is also confidence in this man’s mission and message. In addition faith is public confession of our loyalty to him.

II: — Luke. For Luke Jesus is all that Jesus is for John, together with Luke’s particular angle of vision; namely, for Luke Jesus is especially the friend of those whom the world laughs at, or laughs off, or overlooks, or conveniently prefers to forget. For Luke Jesus is the friend of the least, the lonely, the last and the lost. As a witness Luke has noticed that Jesus consistently stands up for and stands with anyone who is trampled or rejected or simply defenceless.

Women for instance. In Luke’s day women were often regarded as little more than an item of their husband’s property. A divorcee or a widow was extraordinarily vulnerable. Not only was she brushed aside as a “no-account,” she was financially strapped as well. In his testimony to Jesus Luke mentions thirteen women who are not mentioned in any other written gospel. Perceptively Luke noticed that Jesus honoured women and elevated them.

Luke’s heart is as big as a house when he thinks of those whom life has ground down or when he thinks of the struggle, relentless struggle, that renders life ceaselessly difficult for some people. Yet Luke’s heart is as big as a house only because he has first found his Lord’s heart even bigger. He has witnessed Christ’s concern for social outcasts – such as the swindler who fleeces people and turns the entire community against himself (Zacchaeus,) or the dying terrorist (concerning whom people mutter, “Good riddance,”) or the hooker from the red light district. Not to mention the poor. Luke testifies most movingly of Christ’s care for the poor and his esteem for those people.

There is something else. More than any other witness Luke speaks of joy, rejoicing, laughter, merriment, partying. He knows that Christ’s concern for the overwhelmed and underfed, the “loser” and the outcast, the defenceless and the diseased; he knows our Lord’s championing of these people is never shrill, never grim. There’s neither the grimness of the steely do-gooder nor the nastiness of those who want to bring down the privileged. There’s only irrepressible joy that these people, the marginalized, have a place in God’s Kingdom. Jesus laughs and jokes and parties with them all. Everything he does for those sunk in misery he does so very cheerfully as to render them cheerful ever after.

When Maureen and I first visited the Iona Community of the Church of Scotland (located in the Hebridean Islands) we met several people who go there for much-needed restoration just because their work unfolds every day among the seemingly hopeless, the impoverished, of Britain’s slums. One middle-aged woman we met works among the “squatters,” as they are called in the shabbiest parts of London. As residents move out of subsidized housing for any reason at all, workmen are hired to refurbish the newly-vacated apartment. Before the workmen can follow on the heels of the outgoing residents, however, squatters move in and take over. Any attempt at ousting them precipitates ugly confrontations with the squatters themselves; with sympathetic neighbours; with unsympathetic housing authorities and with beleaguered police officers. Housing authorities, weary of endless trouble, have capitulated. The woman we met works among these squatters (whose building is now called “the squats”) on behalf of the London Housing Authority. Her male colleague has already been beaten up. She hasn’t been assaulted, even though she finds herself in the most fearsome situations.

We mustn’t paint the picture any less bleak than it is. The “squatters” are chiefly unemployed, even unemployable. They avoid homelessness by occupying homes to which they have no legal right. Their material future is dismal beyond telling. They have nothing to lose, and therefore are quick to become violent. It takes no little courage to work among them. Yet it takes more than courage; it takes a special sort of huge-hearted humanness that silently gains the trust of desperate people.

This particular woman says she loves her work. She senses in it the surge of God’s Kingdom. As she spoke of it to Maureen and me she glowed. And she does it all with a radiance that her people see in few others. Her joy in the midst of them is a manifestation of that Kingdom which knows no misery.

Faith, according to the apostle Luke, entails living in the company of Jesus Christ as he moves among the loneliest and the least and the last.

III: — Mark’s angle of vision is slightly different again, therein acquainting us with his particular insight and emphasis. Mark testifies that faith means holding up Christ’s victory anywhere there seems to be human defeat. Mark has observed that Jesus is the conquering one. Mark sees Jesus taking on hostile power after hostile power: sin, sickness, sorrow, suffering, the demonic. These hostile powers are really errand-boys, “go-fors”, flunkies, who do the bidding of Mr. Big, the comprehensive hostile power, death. Mr. Big, death, has many errand-boys or flunkies. These lesser powers molest you and me and others. Not content with molesting us, they torment us. Sin torments all of us. Sickness torments and teases the ill. Sorrow continues to torment the bereaved long after they expected sorrow to leave them alone. Death’s errand-boys wear us down. They crumble our resistance to Mr. Big, who gets every one of us at the last.

However, Mark announces, Jesus Christ is Conqueror. Death overtook him only to find him overtaking it. Death frustrated him only to be frustrated itself as he was raised from the dead.

Faith in Jesus Christ, Mark testifies, is a matter of holding up Christ’s victory wherever anyone is molested and tormented by Mr. Big’s flunkies who soften us up for Mr. Big himself. As you and I are possessed of faith we soak ourselves in Christ’s victory; we are steeped in such assurance of his triumph that our assurance fortifies the assurance of those who are harassed at this moment.

A pastor, everyone knows, is expected to attend the dying. But not because the pastor has a pre-recorded bedside message he can flip on. A pastor attends the dying for one reason: he has Christ’s victory so deep in his bloodstream that he radiates it; it oozes out of him, even if he says nothing.

It’s the same with all Christ’s people. We sit with our friend who is ill. We sit with our friend whose husband, aged forty-seven, has just been carried off with a heart attack. We visit someone whose elderly parent has deteriorated mentally and is all but unrecognizable, yet manages to arouse sadness and shame and anger and guilt in his family all at once. We sit, and we say little. We are possessed of such assurance of our Lord’s victory that our assurance, as deep as our DNA, spills over onto our friend and finds its way past her tears.

Faith, says Mark, is being drawn into Christ’s triumph, being forever altered by it, and thereafter flaunting that triumph in the face of everything that wants to deny it.

IV: — For Matthew faith is all that it is for all witnesses alike: public acknowledgement that Jesus is the Son of God Incarnate, the Word become flesh, the Messiah of Israel and the Saviour of the World. All witnesses agree in this matter. Yet Matthew too has his particular angle of vision; namely, faith is hearing and heeding and obeying the chief rabbi. Matthew’s gospel, 28 chapters long, is divided into five blocks of teaching. The five blocks of teaching correspond to the five books of Moses. Jesus is clearly Moses enlarged. When Jesus begins teaching the Sermon on the Mount he sits to teach. Rabbis always sat to teach. To be sure, Jesus is more than a rabbi, Matthew would insist, but he’s a rabbi at least, greater in authority than Moses; Jesus is the rabbi above all other rabbis. Therefore we must hear him and heed him and obey him.

Admittedly, it’s relatively easy to support our suffering brothers and sisters as we surround them with our assurance of Christ’s victory. (In fact, we feel good about doing this.) It’s easy to agree that Jesus cherished the poor and the maimed and the trampled, and therefore we should support them too. It’s easy to assent to the truth that Jesus is the Word made flesh. Yet it’s always possible to do all of this while remaining indifferent to our own concrete, specific obedience. Matthew insists that to have faith in Jesus means we are going to obey him, do it.

Jesus tells us, for instance, that if we write off another human being, or merely speak contemptuously of her, we are in danger of ultimate loss ourselves. If we act compassionately only toward those whom we think to deserve our compassion, then we haven’t a clue about the nature of God. If we think that God is going to forgive us at the same as we harden our heart against those who have wounded us, then we are pathetically mistaken. If we come to worship on Sunday without having attempted to repair the breach with another congregant, we are wasting our time. We mustn’t evade the road we’ve been appointed to walk, even if the road is narrow and the way hard and those who persist in it few. Of course the road we’re appointed to walk is challenging at all times and difficult at some times. Were it anything else we’d be meandering or shuffling or sashaying or even strolling, merely strolling. Matthew says the Christian life isn’t a stroll; it’s a resolute walking of that way which Jesus says identifies us as his people, since he walks the same road with us. This road ever remains the road we must walk if we are going to remain in the company of Jesus, for he is the companion of those who walk this road and he pledges himself nowhere else.

I began today by reminding us that our Lord collided with all sorts of individuals and institutions in the days of his earthly ministry. The collision that he was attracted crowds, as collisions always attract crowds. Crowds, however, are mere onlookers. Witnesses, on the other hand, are part of the event. The witnesses we call ‘apostles’ testify to Jesus Christ, even as they testify to him from their own perspective.

The testimony of John – faith in Jesus is conviction that he is Emmanuel, God-with-us, confidence in his mission, and confession of the truth concerning him – John’s testimony is bedrock for the other three.

On top of this Luke testifies that Jesus is the friend of the lowly and the despised; Mark, that Jesus is the conqueror of everything that threatens to separate us from God, death pre-eminently; Matthew, that Jesus is the chief rabbi whom we haven’t truly heard unless we’ve aspired to obey.

Jesus tells us that even the person of the strongest faith, apparently, is actually weak in faith. For this reason, he insists, we are to pray for increased faith, strengthened faith. Then may you and I cry to God, “Increase our faith,” knowing that he wants this for us even more than we want it for ourselves.

 

            Victor Shepherd            First Baptist Church,Oshawa 

22 February 2015

                       John 14:26     John 16:8-11     Acts 2:29 -42

 

If today were Christmas Sunday or Easter everyone would know it was Christmas Sunday or Easter and the turnout would be large.

Today is Pentecost Sunday. Few are aware of it. The turnout isn’t larger than usual. This should surprise us, since Christmas (the incarnation) and Easter (God’s vindication of the cross); Christmas and Easter exist for the sake of Pentecost. Pentecost, after all, was the occasion when there was fulfilled everything that Jesus had promised his followers concerning the Spirit, everything Jesus had promised concerning the Spirit’s application of Christ’s earthly achievement.

 

[1]  In anticipation of Pentecost Jesus told his disciples, “The Spirit will convict/convince (the one Greek word means both ‘convict’ and ‘convince’) the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgement: concerning sin, because they don’t believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father…; concerning judgement, because the ruler of this world is judged.” (John 16:8)

We must be sure to understand something crucial here: only the Spirit can genuinely convince people of the truth of God.         Which is to say, only the Spirit can genuinely convict people of sin, convict them of the nature of sin and the scope of sin and the depth of sin. Left to themselves, people never get it right.  If they are moralists at heart they will always equate sin with immorality. They never grasp the profundity of the apostle Paul when he declares that Jesus died for the ungodly, not the immoral.  They never grasp the profundity of Jesus when he insists that harlots and tax-collectors (moral failures who are also indifferent to their moral failure) enter the kingdom God ahead of the morally faultless.

Left to themselves, people never get it right.   If they are not moralists but socialists they will equate sin with rich people’s economic exploitation of the non-rich.  They never hear Jesus when he exclaims, “It’s from within, from the heart of every individual, that there come evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, deceit, slander, pride.  All these come from within, and these defile.” (Mark 7:22-23)

Left to themselves, people never get it right.   If they are not socialists but social conservatives they will equate sin with the self-victimization of the weak, the lazy, the loser; and then equate sin again with the tyranny with which weak, lazy losers tyrannize everyone else in the society. Alas, they seem never to hear what Jesus says about the deadly power of wealth, the callousness of the wealthy and the brutality of the powerful.

Only the Spirit can bring home the truth that sin is what Jesus says it is, what all of scripture says it is: unbelief.         Unbelief, we must note, isn’t a matter of lacking the right beliefs, even the right religious beliefs.  Unbelief isn’t ideational insufficiency of any kind.  Unbelief, everywhere in scripture, pertains not to so much to the head as to the heart. It’s hardness of heart; it’s defiance of God, disobedience to God, disdain for God. It all ends in estrangement from God, estrangement from humankind’s ultimate good; in short, it ends in estrangement from God, loss of intimacy with God, and depravity or corruption within. Do I exaggerate? Argue not with me but with Jesus. “From within, from the heart, come ….”   Only the Spirit can convince us of the truth about ourselves in the course of convicting us of our violation of the truth of God.

 

In anticipation of Pentecost Jesus told his followers that the Spirit would convict and convince the world of righteousness.   Now we all think we don’t have to be told what righteousness is. Righteousness is rectitude, rectitude of some sort. The most righteous people are those who possess rectitude of all sorts.

But righteousness can’t be rectitude, since Jesus insists that people will be convinced of the nature of righteousness only as Jesus himself “goes to the Father.” Only as he goes to the Father? What do our Lord’s resurrection and ascension have to do with convincing the world of righteousness?

Throughout his earthly ministry, and particularly in the last week of it, Jesus was savaged again and again by people who thought they knew what righteousness was. And that’s precisely why they executed him.  Pilate thought he knew; so did Herod; so did the crowd that hailed him one week and howled for him the next.  Let’s be honest: his mother thought she knew too.  That’s why she had pleaded with her son months earlier to stop embarrassing the family and come home quietly.

“When the Spirit comes (Jesus had said), he will convince the world of righteousness because I go to the Father.”         Our Lord knew that his resurrection and ascension would vindicate him and vindicate the cross specifically.         His resurrection and ascension would vindicate that righteousness which is unique to the cross.

Everyone “just knew” that execution by means of a cross meant shame before God, even rejection by him.         More than rejection, it meant God’s curse pronounced upon the crucified one himself. Everyone “just knew” it. To be sure, “everyone” had one thing right: a cross did mean shame and rejection and condemnation.  What nobody knew, however, and would never know apart from the Spirit, was that in the Son of God whom the world didn’t recognize God had taken upon himself that very shame and rejection and condemnation, therein bridging the gap between himself, holy God and just judge, and a world that could otherwise only perish.  Righteousness is God’s righting of a capsized humankind that can otherwise only drown. First it’s the self-sacrificing of the Father in the cross whereby people who are deservedly barred from his presence are graciously granted access. Secondly, righteousness is the righted relationship that individuals enter upon and enjoy as they renounce their unbelief and cast themselves upon the clemency of their creator.

The Spirit, only the Spirit, convinces us of the nature of righteousness and thereby convicts us of our unrighteousness.         And the Spirit can do this only because our Lord’s sin-bearing cross is vindicated as he is raised from the dead and ascends to his Father.

 

Our Lord has something more to say.  The Spirit, God’s power to convict and persuade, will also convince the world of judgement; specifically, the Spirit will convince the world that God’s judgement is operative now. “The Spirit will convince the world of judgement”, says Jesus, “because the ruler of this world has been judged.” Plainly the evil one had been exposed in the cross of Jesus and defeated in the resurrection of Jesus. Exposed and defeated, the evil one still prowled around in search of victims, but his destruction was inevitable; defeated, he was destined to be destroyed. Judgement had been rendered.

Our Lord’s point is this: because the evil one has been defeated and is now destined to destruction, judgement is plainly operative now.  Because judgement is operative now, God is sifting men and women at this moment. Because judgement is operative now, it’s ridiculous to think that judgement can be postponed, let alone evaded.

But who believes this? Doesn’t the world continue to unfold as it always has?  Don’t some people even maintain that “the world is unfolding as it should”? Then who is going to believe that judgement is operative now, that the verdict has been rendered, that the outcome is inevitable?   Only those will believe it whom the Spirit has convinced.

 

[2]         On the day of Pentecost Peter preached a sermon that was boring by anyone’s standards. The sermon had no illustrations, and no “catchy” title.  It had no big words wherewith to impress the wordsmiths.  It didn’t even have especially small words wherewith to please the anti-wordsmiths. Boring? Half of Peter’s sermon was a lengthy quotation from the older testament.  When Peter had finished quoting a book already hundreds of years old he began accusing his hearers. Accusing people antagonizes them, makes them resentful and angry.  Therefore the only reaction Peter’s sermon could ever generate was sleepy-eyed boredom followed by resentful anger.

But this wasn’t how hearers reacted to Peter. Instead they were “cut to the heart”, we are told, and cried out, “What are we going to do?” They certainly weren’t bored; neither were they angry.  They were defenseless and desperate at the same time.  How did they come to be defenseless and desperate?  The Spirit had precipitated a response within them so very different from a merely human reaction.  Their Spirit-quickened response demonstrated that they knew the judgement of God to be operative; the resurrection and ascension of Jesus had convinced them of his cross-wrought righteousness; their unbelief – both the source and the outcome of their deep-dyed sinnership – now confronted them undeniably.

They were “cut to the heart.”   Were they terrified of God’s judgement?   Yes. Were they terrified only?   No. They were also horrified at their heart-condition, horrified that they had dabbled for decades in the pseudo-comfort of the ghastliest self-delusion.  As the Spirit surged over them they knew they were a disgrace before God, a shame to themselves, and more self-deluded than the most naïve child.

“What are we going to do?” they cried in their helplessness and horror. Peter told them what they should do. They should repent, believe, and be baptized as a public declaration of their repentance and faith.

But of ourselves we can’t repent; of ourselves we can’t make a “U-turn” in life; of ourselves we can only wear even deeper the grooves we’ve worn for years and now can’t escape.  That’s why repentance and faith are depicted everywhere in the book of Acts as possible only by means of the Holy Spirit.

Consider Cornelius. Cornelius was a Gentile, an officer in the Roman army.  He first heard the gospel when Jewish Christians preached in the synagogue that Cornelius frequented but had never joined, preferring to remain on the fringe. As the Spirit surged over Cornelius he moved from a fringe hanger-on at the synagogue to the most intimate companion of Israel ’s greater son; for the Spirit had granted him that repentance and faith which he could now exercise for himself.

It’s the same story over and over in the book of Acts.  Everywhere in the early church it was known that people can repent and believe only as the Spirit first grants them repentance and faith. There were people in Corinth who thought frenzy, unrestrained frenzy, to be the pre-eminent manifestation of the Spirit. They jumped and jabbered and spouted ejaculations that were not only ridiculous but even blasphemous. Paul told them they were dead wrong. He told them the manifestation of the Spirit is that someone is constrained to confess from the bottom of her heart that Jesus is Lord.  It’s our sincerest faith in Christ that attests the Spirit’s possession of us.

“They were cut to the heart and cried, ‘What are we going to do?’” Peter told them what they had to do. They had to make the farthest-reaching “U-turn” in their lives (i.e., repent); they had to embrace Jesus Christ from the bottom of their hearts (i.e., exercise faith); and they had to make a public declaration of all this.

 

[3] On the day of Pentecost Peter told his hearers that as they did as instructed they would receive the Spirit; that is, receive the Spirit fully.  To be sure, the Spirit had already convinced them, convicted them, and converted them.   One aspect of all this, however, was that the Spirit would not only inform them and move them; the Spirit would also saturate them.  What does the Spirit’s saturation involve?  Elsewhere in the New Testament the Spirit’s activity within believers has to do with fruit and gifts.

(i)         The fruit of the Spirit is the effect of the Spirit upon the believer’s character. The fruit of the Spirit, say the apostles, is love, joy, peace, patience, faithfulness, self-control, and so on.  The fruit of the Spirit is the fruitfulness of the presence and power of God. To be sure, some people are more patient than others by nature, more patient than others simply by genetic coding.  Some people are cheerier than others, or more self-controlled than others, simply by nature. But regardless of what we are by nature, there is a transformation wrought by the Spirit that transcends natural endowment.

The apostle Paul contrasts the fruit of the Spirit with the works of the flesh (“flesh” being human life lived without reference to God.) The works of the flesh are fornication, idolatry, jealousy, selfishness, bickering, etc. (Galatians 5:19-22) The works of the flesh, of life lived without reference to God, are the spontaneous outcroppings of fallen human nature; they are what fallen human nature, left alone, invariably yields.  The fruit of the Spirit, however, is precisely what God alone can effect in us.  The fruit of the Spirit is the fruitfulness of that Spirit now rooted ever so deep in us and suffusing us throughout.

 

(ii)         The gifts of the Spirit, on the other hand, have to do not with the formation of Christian character but with the ministry or service that we render to the congregation or to the world. Fruit has to do with character; gifts have to do with service.

The service we are to render is whatever talent or ability we have, now made available to others for the edification of others.  What’s different now isn’t the talent or ability itself, whether the talent is music-making, public speaking, care-giving, accounting, cooking, concrete-pouring or painting.  What’s different is our motivation: the desire to honour God and exalt the kingdom. What’s different is our aim: the edification of others in congregation or wider world. Paul insists that gifts of the Spirit are given “for the common good.” (1 Corinthians 12:7) Peter insists that gifts are to be deployed “for one another.” (1 Pet. 4:10)

Fruit and gifts are the result of the Spirit’s saturation of the man or woman whom the Spirit first convicted and convinced and brought to repentance and faith.

 

Today is Pentecost Sunday. On the day of Pentecost two millennia ago our Lord’s promise concerning the Spirit was fulfilled: “The Spirit will convince, convict, the world of sin and righteousness and judgement.”  On the day of Pentecost itself Peter preached a sermon boring in the first half and antagonistic in the second.  Many hearers, however, were neither bored nor antagonized.  They were terrified and horrified in equal measure.  They found relief as they embraced the risen Jesus Christ who in turn poured his Spirit upon them. And thereafter they were blessed with the fruit of the Spirit and were made a blessing to others through the gifts of the Spirit.

 

Pentecost is plainly every bit as important as Christmas and Easter. Indeed, Christmas and Easter, incarnation and vindication of the cross, exist for the sake of Pentecost. Then why aren’t the Christmas and Easter crowds here today?

 

                                                                                                  Victor Shepherd

May2007                                                                                                                                                     

 

 

John 15:1-16       2^nd John 12        Proverbs 18:24

 

 

[1]         Not so long ago a woman asked me what I have been doing for the 37 years of my ministry or what I have aimed at doing.  I told her I have wanted, above all else, to probe intimacy for myself and to foster intimacy in others; that is, intimacy with God as well as intimacy with other people. This isn’t to say I’ve spent 37 years in “touchy-feely” mindlessness.   But it is to say that however cerebral I may appear, the purpose of my cerebralism is never to leave hearers behind, let alone show off.   My purpose is always to enlarge understanding so as to increase intimacy. The more God is understood, the more he can be loved; the more he is loved, the more he can be understood – whereupon understanding and intimacy interpenetrate each other and spiral up together, always taking us deeper into the heart of God. As much can be said for our life with each other.

All my life I’ve craved intimacy.   But I haven’t craved it in vain, for I’ve never lacked it.  To say I’ve never lacked it, however, doesn’t preclude my craving it still, for when our desire for intimacy is met we are satisfied, to be sure, yet never satiated.   We are profoundly satisfied, but never surfeited.  Years ago my old friend, Ronald Ward (Anglican clergyman, superb Greek scholar, and a man whose godliness is both my despair and my hope) pointed out to me that the apostle Paul longed for even greater intimacy with his Lord just because his life in Christ was already indescribably rich.

 

[2]         Shortly before his death our Lord took his closest followers aside and told them, “No longer do I call you servants, for servants don’t know what their master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.” (John 15:15) The customary Greek word for “servant” is diakonos.         In the text just quoted, however, the word is doulos.   Strictly speaking it means “slave.”   “No longer do I call you servant-slaves, for slaves are never taken into their owner’s confidence.”   Slaves, we know, merely do what they are told to do, without knowing why they have to do it or to what end.   A servant-slave is merely a witless tool.

Not so with a friend. Our friend (as opposed to mere acquaintance) is someone with whom we share mind and heart. In the upper room, on the eve of his death, Jesus made known to the disciples what he knew of his Father. Earlier in his ministry he had cried out, “No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal the Father.   Come to me, all who labour and are heavy-laden…and I will give you rest, restoration.” In the upper room the disciples, however labouring and heavy-laden to date, were shortly going to know a much greater labouring and load.   And in the upper room Jesus rendered them his friends. Their new level of intimacy with him admitted them to a new knowledge of and engagement with the Father. This, of course, would sustain them in the difficult days ahead, and more than sustain them; it would be the occasion of their restoration.

 

[3]         Since Jesus Christ is God incarnate, to be his friend is to be “friend of God.”   In the older testament there are two men who are specifically named “friend of God”, Abraham and Moses.

[a]         Abraham is the foreparent of all believers, the foreparent of all who put their trust in God. Their trust? How much trust?   At the call of God Abraham left old securities and familiarities behind and ventured forth to the land to which God had appointed him.  Abraham ventured everything on God, living in what could only strike onlookers as utmost insecurity, insecurity so utterly radical as to be utterly ridiculous. At the call of God Abraham went forth knowing nothing of his future except that his future held the God who had called him, had made a promise to him and had insisted that he would be Abraham’s unfailing friend as Abraham was now his.

Was Abraham’s trust tested?    Many times, but never tested as it was the day the voice said to him, “Take your son, your only son….” You know the rest of the story, my favourite in the entire Hebrew bible.  At the end, Abraham’s trust in God remained iron-fast even when the ground of that trust seemed to have disappeared.         Abraham’s trust remained iron-fast even when the reason for his trust was undiscernible. Abraham’s trust remained iron-fast even when his obedience to the command of God (to sacrifice Isaac) undercut the promise of God (Isaac’s descendants would be as numberless as the sands of the seashore).   Abraham’s trust remained iron-fast when, from a human perspective, there was no resolution of the contradiction. Abraham’s trust got him through anguish and incomprehension, got him through to the exclamation, only days later but no doubt aeons later to him, “Yahweh Yireh”, “the Lord will provide.”

[b]           Moses too is named “friend of God.”   Moses is the transmitter of the Torah, that “way” which gives shape and structure, integrity and identity to the obedience of God’s people. While shallow Christians misunderstand Torah as promoting legalism, the truth is that obedience rendered Torah is obedience the believer renders the person of the living God through the vehicle of the Torah.  We must always remember that when Jesus tells his disciples in the upper room that they are henceforth his friends, he adds, “if you do what I command you.” (John 15:14)

Just as shallow Christians misunderstand Torah as promoting legalism when in fact it promotes righteousness, so they misunderstand Torah as promoting servitude when it promotes freedom.   In fact, just because Torah claims Israel ’s obedience, it yields freedom. The mediaeval rabbis used to say, “When Torah entered the world, freedom entered the world.” Of course. To obey God is to be spared the servitude of sin; to obey God is to be freed to live in accord with our true nature; namely, as children of God. Didn’t Jesus, Torah Incarnate, say, “Those whom the Son sets free are free indeed”? (John 8:36)

 

[4]         Like Abraham and Moses of old, like the disciples of Jesus in the days of his earthly ministry, we too are summoned to be “friend of God.” As soon as people in the era of our Lord’s public ministry heard “friend” three vivid pictures flashed in their imagination.

[a]         The first had to do with “friend of the king.”   In the courts of oriental kings “friends of the king” had access to the king at all times. “Friends of the king” were admitted to the king’s bedroom even at daybreak.  In other words the king spoke with his “friends” before he began the day’s work, before he probed the day’s perplexities, before he troubled himself with all the trying things that trouble any ruler. The king gave his friends access to him before he spoke with generals about military campaigns, or spoke with statesmen about domestic strife, or spoke with ambassadors about foreign nations.

When Christ the king told his disciples that henceforth he would deem them “friends”, he was telling them that from this moment they would be granted an access to him and would know an intimacy with him that most profoundly identified their relationship with him before they went out to contend in his name with problems and perplexities, principalities and powers. To be Christ’s friend doesn’t mean merely that he makes us privy to the reason for the work he wants us to do (the slave, remember, doesn’t know the reason for anything); to be Christ’s friend means he grants us access to him and intimacy with him before we are conscripted to do anything. Intimacy with a friend, after all, is an end in itself.  It’s not a means to getting something done.  The fusion of two friends and their unimpeded interpenetration of each other is so very glorious as to need no justification beyond itself.

[b]           “Friend” had yet another meaning in the ancient world.  “Friends of Caesar” were soldiers who had proven themselves undeflectably loyal. And how had they proven themselves loyal? They had remained steadfast throughout assaults, hardship, suffering.  They hadn’t deserted or revolted or sought another leader or even complained when battle campaigns with Caesar had found them afflicted, had even found them in such pain that only the danger they were in could distract them. The “friends” of Caesar counted it such an honour to soldier with Caesar that no campaign was too arduous and no adversity too wearing.

However put off church people may be today by military images, the fact is there are many references to them in scripture, including Paul’s advice to Timothy, “Put up with your share of hardship in Christ’s army.” (2 Timothy 2: 3) (JBP)

[c]           In Jewish circles “friend” had a third meaning.  A man’s “friend” was the best man at his wedding.  Plainly the best man is intimate with the groom.   But not intimate only; the best man assists the groom and is a witness on the groom’s behalf.

Now here the imagery borrowed from weddings becomes somewhat complicated. Scripture speaks of the church as the bride of Christ.  We must understand, of course, that it’s the church collectively that is “bride of Christ.”         Individual Christians, on the other hand, are declared to be Christ’s “friend” or his “best man”.   Collectively, all Christians of both genders constitute Christ’s bride; individually, all Christians of either gender are his “best man.” Each one of us is invited and appointed to assist him in his work and bear witness to him in his truth.

Does our Lord need our assistance?   Either his friends do what he insists needs to be done on earth or it doesn’t get done at all. (Remember Augustine: “Without him we cannot; without us he will not.”)  As for bearing witness to the truth, we should all be aware by now that the vocation of witness looms so very large in scripture just because, at the end of the day, we can and ever must bear witness to the truth when we have long been unable to argue people into the truth.

 

[5]         At the beginning of the sermon I said that for 37 years I have been concerned with fostering intimacy with God and intimacy with our fellows as well. I’m convinced that intimacy with our fellows is as rare as intimacy with God. What passes too often for human friendship is unreal. What passes for friendship is a compound of superficial camaraderie and companionship of convenience, plus subtle exploitation of usefulness.  What passes for friendship should be but too often isn’t a meeting with another person so deep that all attempts at controlling are foresworn and all attempts at profiting are renounced.

Genuine friendship is meeting someone where the person (not merely the appearance or the usefulness) of the other becomes known. And what is it to know another person? Here I must mention once more the Jewish thinker I’ve mentioned many times from this pulpit, Martin Buber. Reflecting the logic of scripture Buber correctly expounds, “What we know of another person is the difference that person has made to us, the alteration which that person has effected in us.”   What I know of my friend is simply the change that has occurred in me in the course of the relationship. [What I know of you is the difference that meeting you has made in me. What you know of me is the difference that meeting me has made in you.]

With respect to our human friendships I’ve long recognised the need for physical proximity. I’ve long been moved at the conclusion of two of the shortest books of the bible, John’s 2^nd and 3^rd epistles. He says, “Though I have much to write you, I would rather not use paper and ink, but I hope to come to see you and talk with you face to face, so that our joy may be complete.” There is simply no substitute for seeing others face to face.  No paper trail, no fax, no telephone call, no e-mail comes close to seeing each other face to face.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer first drew my attention to the concluding verses of 2^nd and 3^rd John.  In his book, Life Together, Bonhoeffer pointed out that Christians find immense joy in each other’s physical presence.  Bonhoeffer wrote Life Together during his time as leader in an underground seminary in Finkenwalde. The Nazis were in power throughout Germany . The gospel had been sabotaged in the national church, the state church. There were 18,000 pastors in the national church; there were only a few score in the confessing church. The confessing church was struggling to find pastors whom it could trust to announce the gospel of Jesus Christ instead of a religionised version of the ascendant ideology. The confessing church became smaller every day as the penalties for supporting it increased. He prepared pastors for the confessing church when those pastors knew they faced betrayal and arrest and horrors they couldn’t imagine.  And in this context Bonhoeffer insisted that the physical presence of fellow-Christians brings a joy that can’t be brought any other way.

Nothing in my life comes close to the trials of a pastor in the confessing church in Nazi Germany. Nonetheless there have been developments in my life, including my life as a minister of the church, when I have needed to see a friend face to face as I needed nothing else. And in the providence of God, such a friend has been available.

When I say I have spent years probing intimacy I wouldn’t want anyone to think it’s risk free. To be sure, it’s risk free with respect to God, but not with respect to the human “other.” Yes, I have been blessed beyond telling in my friends.  I have also had friends with whom I had been so deep and had forged such a bond that I assumed the friendship would remain as resilient as spring steel; I have had such friends disappear on me in a way that I can’t understand yet and now know that I never shall.  Painful as it is, and no less painful for being ununderstandable, I’m not crushed by it. For he who does all things well has not only never left me without his comfort and consolation; he has also never left me without that human comfort and consolation whose arms are the vehicle of the everlasting arms. (Deuteronomy 33:27) In it all I have never wavered in my conviction: Martin Buber was both correct and profound when he wrote fifty years ago, “All real living is meeting.”

 

Let’s gather together all that I’ve attempted to say this morning: By God’s grace and the faith his grace has wrought in us:

We’ve been admitted to the innermost mind and heart of our Lord Jesus Christ himself.

We are one with Abraham in that we venture all on God; one with Moses in that we rejoice to obey him who has redeemed us.

We have access to the king of kings at all times and in all circumstances.

We aspire to be found undeflectably loyal.

Our Lord has honoured us by naming us “best man” (“woman”) as he calls us to assist him in
his work and bear witness to him in his truth.

It all adds up to joy in the master and love for each other.  (John 15:1-16) For while we are

blessed with friends and aspire to be friends, he is that friend who will ever stick closer than one’s nearest kin. (Proverbs 18:24)

 

                                                                                           Victor Shepherd                                                                                                                                    

 July 2007

 

 

John 16:14

 

Few people are more obnoxious than those who keep talking about themselves. Regardless of what is being discussed, the self-advertising “blowers” insert themselves. They have out-travelled even the tour-guide, out-achieved the genuinely accomplished, out-lived the most vivacious. Their attraction-grabbing neuroticism is as incessant as it is offensive.

Not so the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is that person of the Trinity who is the opposite of all this. Jesus maintained that the Spirit would glorify him. (John 16:14) Scripture insists that the Father sends the Spirit in the name of the Son, never in the Spirit’s own name. In other words, the Spirit is a floodlight. Floodlights are positioned in such a way that one does not see the floodlight itself, only that which it lights up and to which it therefore directs attention. The Holy Spirit is the power of God within us and among us, turning our attention to Jesus Christ at the same time as it binds our hearts to his. (Any “spirit” which draws attention to itself is plainly not the Holy Spirit.)

Early-day Christians knew that the Spirit cemented their relationship with their Lord and invigorated them for a discipleship which was always rigorous and frequently dangerous. They could continue in their crossbearing — never mind thrive in it — only as the Spirit in them proved stronger than the pressure of the forces arrayed against them.

And whereas the world always thinks that effectiveness is the result of strong-arm coercion, Christians know that effectiveness in matters of the kingdom occurs as the Spirit honours the self-forgetful servanthood found first in the Vulnerable One himself. When even the religious world is shouting or suggesting that God’s strength is made perfect in the strength of his people, Christians know that God’s strength is made perfect in their weakness.(2 Corinthians 12:9) For this reason the apostle glories in his weakness (the world always boasts of its strength), for it is weakness only which God can use. (What, after all, is weaker than a humiliated representative of that people which the world has always despised dying the death of a felon, abandoned together with the city’s refuse?)

Whenever the church has forgotten the unique ministry of the Spirit, the church has ceased to serve and begun to tyrannize, even persecute. The church’s responsibility is always and only, in word and deed, to bear witness to Jesus Christ. It is the Holy Spirit’s responsibility (i.e., God’s responsibility) to honour and empower such testimony in bringing people to faith in and obedience to the Incarnate One himself. In a word, witness is the church’s responsibility while conversion is the Spirit’s. Whenever the church loses sight of this and thinks that it is the church’s responsibility to convert, the church advertises its unbelief as it loses patience with God and bludgeons those who resist its message. To believe in the Spirit is to believe that God keeps the promises he makes concerning the effectiveness he will ultimately lend our witness.

Since Christians inhabit the same world that proved hostile to their Lord, it is the Spirit — and only the Spirit — who can render Christians joyful in the midst of circumstances which foster misery. “You received the word in much affliction, with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit”, says the apostle to those whose joy in the midst of distress was the Spirit’s “secret”.(1 Thessalonians 1:6) But of course in the midst of the “brainwashing” of a pagan environment the Christians in Thessalonica had found the gospel credible — even self-authenticating as the truth — only because the Spirit had surged over them and disarmed the rebel citadel of their Christless hearts. “For our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction.”(1 Thessalonians 1:5)

Those who become sons and daughters of God by adoption (only Jesus is son by nature) are granted access to all the resources of their new parent. One of the ever-needed riches is assurance that they are a child of God whom the Father will cherish eternally. And just as a happy person can’t help smiling nor a perplexed person frowning nor an excited person trembling, so the new heir to the Father’s riches can’t help crying out, “Abba! Father!” Assurance is pressed upon her that she is now and will ever be that daughter whose place in the family of God is secured. The cry welling up out of her heart, says Paul, is “the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God…”.(Romans 8:15)

Everywhere in scripture the Holy Spirit is evidently associated with Christian experience. Early-day Christians knew that life in the company of the living, ascended One was more than intellectual apprehension (the onesidedness of those who magnify doctrine above all else), and more than lifeless legalism (the pitfall of those who magnify duty above all else). It was “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”(Romans 14:17) There was a stomach-grabbing immediacy to their life in Christ which is the common experience of those who cling to the same Lord. When the Christians in Galatia were in danger of giving up a discipleship which was gospel-fired and Spirit- infused for a dreary, self-justifying moralism, Paul needed to put but one question to them: “Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?”(Galatians 3:2) His reference to the Spirit called their attention to an aspect of their experience so vivid, so horizon-filling, so unmistakable as to be undeniable. It’s as though he had said, “That raging headache you have: Did you get it through too much coffee or through a blow to the head?” No one with a raging headache can pretend — or wants to pretend — that he doesn’t have a headache. No one possessed of the Spirit can pretend — or wants to pretend — that she isn’t possessed of a throbbing reality which became hers (she knows) only as she heard the gospel with faith.

Needless to say, it is the Holy Spirit’s penetration of us now which quickens our hunger for the final, full flowering of God’s work in us on the Great Day. Since the primary fruit of the Spirit is love, the Spirit-birthed love which seeps out of us now longs for that Day when love and nothing but love will pour out of us in self-forgetful self-giving. Since the same Spirit which floodlights Jesus Christ also floodlights our adoration of him, we find ourselves longing for that Day when we are finally and fully “lost in wonder, love and praise.” Since the Spirit is so intimately associated with gifts for ministry, we eagerly anticipate the day when the church, that “royal priesthood”, will serve God without self-consideration.

The New Testament speaks of the Spirit as an “arrabon”, a pledge. In modern Greek “arrabon” is a woman’s engagement ring. Delighted as she is now, she knows that something better, something to be consummated, awaits her. The Christian, moved by God’s Spirit now, knows that the Spirit is but the promise and pledge of something so grand as to leave God’s people filled so as never more to hunger.

O “floodlight” the Lord with me,

and let us exalt his name together.

Psalm 34:3

Victor Shepherd

John 16:33               Romans 12:8

 

Cheerfulness. Is it an emotional high like excitement, frenzy? Or is it an act of the will like determination, resolve? Emotional highs we may have from time to time but we shouldn’t expect to have them most of the time. After all, no one can live at a constant, emotional high. On the other hand, if being cheerful is an act of the will, an intensified act of the will (like determination), then we may have it from time to time but we shouldn’t expect to have it most of the time. After all, no one can live at a constant intensity of will. The truth is, cheerfulness is neither an unusual emotional high nor an unusual intensity of will. Cheerfulness is a settled disposition. Cheerfulness is a settled outlook on life and settled input into life. Of course we have bad days, and will continue to have them. Nonetheless, it’s the settled disposition that counts. It’s the backdrop against which our life is lived. Cheerfulness is the atmosphere we live out of ourselves and the atmosphere we breathe out on other people.

Cheerfulness is crucial. We have to be cheerful if we are going to be life-affirming. Mental health experts tell us that the major symptom of low-grade depression isn’t feeling sad. (Many depressed people don’t feel sad.) The major symptom of low-grade depression is what psychiatrists call “psycho-motor retardation”, or what we’d more commonly “dragginess”. Someone tells us he doesn’t have any energy, can’t seem to get going, can’t seem to get interested, is always weary — because he had the ‘flu five times last winter. But nobody gets the ‘flu five times per winter. He’s not ‘flu-ridden; he’s depressed. Without cheerfulness we can’t be life-affirming.

You must have noticed that cheerless people are an emotional dead weight. They strike us as being dead but somehow unable to fall over. Not only are they emotionally inert themselves, they are an emotional drain on others. If we are around cheerless people for any time at all we feel our own vitality being bled away. Soon everyone is left feeling anaemic. The cheerless person debilitates. Then plainly cheerfulness is important. Scripture mentions it again and again. It’s obviously part and parcel of the Christian life.

 

I: — But why would anyone be cheerful, then or now? We read the newspaper, contemplate world-occurrence, ponder our own struggles — and we aren’t moved to much cheerfulness. The truth is, no apostle ever pretended that we are made cheerful by looking around us. When the apostles looked out around them they saw an army of occupation. They saw grinding poverty. They saw betrayal at the hands of political leaders and religious leaders alike. They saw unfairness, disease, suffering, and untimely death.

Martin Luther maintained that when the Christian looks out upon the world what she sees contradicts the gospel, contradicts the truth that God loves each one of us more than he loves himself. (Didn’t he give up his Son for us?) Yet Luther was anything but cheerless. Luther, you see, distinguished carefully between eye and ear. What we all see with the eye contradicts what “hear” with the “ear” (i.e., hear with the ear of the heart.) What we hear – the gospel – persuades us of God’s truth: we are loved in a way that world-occurrence can never confirm but can only deny.

Luther then, and the apostles first, insist that all disciples of Jesus Christ may and must be cheerful. They insist as well that such cheerfulness isn’t rooted in what’s going on around them; rather it is rooted in the call they have heard, in the response they have made to that call, and in the reception their response has been accorded.

(i) Call   Blind Bartimaeus isn’t merely one blind man. Blind Bartimaeus is included in the gospel story because he’s every man and every woman. One day Bartimaeus is sitting around in his customary semi-depressed dragginess – perfectly understandable, in view of the fact that he’s blind — when a neighbour says, “Be of good cheer. Jesus is calling you”.

(ii) Response   A woman who has suffered from an embarrassing complaint lasting twelve years one day finds herself adjacent to Jesus. She responds to his tacit invitation by reaching out and touching him. As she responds he says to her, “Daughter, be of good cheer. Your faith has made you well”.

(iii) Reception   A son comes home to his waiting father, Jesus tell us in that parable which everyone knows, and the reception the son receives is a reception he never expected. His father doesn’t listlessly pussyfoot around, “Well, son, we had better wait and see. For now, you’re on probation”. Instead the father exclaims four times over in a few verses, “Let’s make merry.”

The ground of our cheerfulness is never what’s going on around us. The ground of our cheerfulness is something else. It’s the call — to live in the company of Jesus Christ. It’s the response his call has freed us to make. It’s the reception our response has been accorded. This is where our cheerfulness is rooted. His call has quickened our response; and our response has met with a reception characterized by merriment. Now we know why and how we can be cheerful.

 

II — But cheerfulness doesn’t mean much when we are hassle-free or relaxing in the bathtub.   Cheerfulness does mean a great deal, however, when we are being harassed. Knowing this, Jesus said something profound when he looked his followers in the eye and said, “In the world you will have tribulation. But be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”

It’s easy to believe the first half of our Lord’s pronouncement: “In the world you will have tribulation.” Tribulation? Difficulty? Affliction? We can’t get away from it. When I was very young and my mother was feeling overwhelmed she would sigh heavily and remark, “There’s always something.” Yes there is. And the fact that there is “always something” puts the acid test to our cheerfulness. It’s easy to believe the first half of Christ’s pronouncement “in the world you will have tribulation”. What does the world offer besides tribulation?

Our Lord found it easy to believe this concerning himself. His parents didn’t understand him. His mother found him to be an embarrassment. His brothers and sisters thought him deranged. His disciples disappointed him. (One betrayed him, while the others forsook him.) Church authorities molested him. The crowds turned on him. The shadow of the cross fell upon him, as John Calvin reminds, throughout his life, at all times and in all circumstances.

Like him, you and I meet with resistance; we meet with a resistance which afflicts us as soon as we attempt to accomplish anything worthwhile, to do anything of real human help and healing. We feel like a hockey player who is trying to score: the closer he gets to the goal, the greater the resistance he meets. The closer he gets to the goal, the greater the hammering he takes from opponents. The hockey player who parks himself in front of the goal where he can deflect the puck for a sure score takes a terrific beating. (Look for it the next time you see a game “live”.) When he’s a hundred feet from the goal nobody’s bothering him. But where he is likely to score he is hammered incessantly.

In life we shall be harassed very little as long as we have a “don’t care” attitude, as long as we “go with the flow”, not caring where we drift. But as soon as we take a stand; as soon as we aspire after something worthwhile and pursue it; as soon as we attempt to move towards a goal we meet resistance. If you exercise any leadership or responsibility at work, at church, in a school, a service club, an organization of any sort, you will survive longest, and survive longest scar-free, by doing nothing, planning nothing, saying nothing, being nothing — just drifting. But as soon as you recognize the goal and begin moving yourself and others toward it, the hammering starts. Now you have to contend with the dead weight of the lethargic ones; as well as with the jealousy of those who envy your leadership; as well as with the hostility of those who resent your visibility. As soon as you attempt to do anything of genuine kingdom significance you learn a great deal about tribulation. If Jesus had merely sawn a few boards and patted a few children on the back of the head he too would have been hassle-free. But instead he says and does what he knows he must be about. At the same time as he asks as much from you and me he states, “In the world you are going to have tribulation”. Does he need to remind us?

Certainly he needs to remind us of the second half: Nevertheless, be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world”. Even as we are resisted and harassed we can be cheerful, and we must be — for our Lord has overcome everything which harasses us, and he now shares his triumph with us.

“Be of good cheer.” Is it a pipedream? Romantic exaggeration? Or is he pressing something genuine upon us, something which will be hidden from most people but known to us in our innermost heart and confirmed in our day-to-day experience? There is only one way to find out. We have to immerse ourselves in those situations where we are hassled. In looking to him there, and stepping forward with him there, we shall be surprised by our very good cheer, for he does include us in his overcoming of our world.

During the last war military fliers were instructed in the technical details of their parachute. No doubt the flier understood adequately the words which described how parachutes function. But one day he would find himself in the midst of a “tribulation” when he had to move beyond understanding the instructions and step out into thin air, seemingly. The test was upon him; namely, was he going to trust that his parachute was as effective as the manufacturer had said it was — or was he going to perish?

“Be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world.”, says our Lord. When we are harassed the test is upon us. Now we have to step out, step forward, entrusting ourselves to him whose promise we have understood up to this point, but whose promise we now have occasion to prove. And like the flier, we shall find that we are gently saved. We shall find ourselves marvelling at the good cheer which has stolen upon us. We shall confirm our Lord’s promise in our own experience: he has overcome the world, and we can be of good cheer. Therefore we shall persist in doing what we know we should be doing.

 

II:(ii) — Cheerfulness is necessary for a second reason. Cheerfulness is necessary if that kingdom-good we endeavour to do is going to be life-giving, profoundly life-imparting, life-enhancing, humanly upbuilding. Imagine someone standing at your door one evening. He has a face as long as a horse’s. He tells you, miserably, that he is collecting on behalf of the Canadian Diabetic Association, or the Heart and Stroke Foundation. It’s obvious that he would rather be doing something else. But he has “virtuously” given up an evening to go out and “do good”. One look at his horse-length face and you would say, “Brother, the diabetics don’t need you ”. Of course the fellow can pick up a few dollars in the short run. But in the long run what real, human helpfulness and healing is going to come out of a cheerless do-goodism? Now you understand why Paul writes to the Roman Christians, “If you are doing acts of mercy, be sure to do them cheerfully.” A cheerless act of mercy may appear merciful, but the very cheerlessness of it contradicts the appearance and makes it — an “act of mercy” — an act of cruelty.

In his letter to the church in Corinth Paul writes, “God loves a cheerful giver”. Shouldn’t God be pleased with having us givers, whether cheerful or not? But the apostle is correct in insisting that where the giver isn’t cheerful there’s no gift given at all., The “gift”, so-called, is then merely a compulsiveness arising from a psychological quirk or social conformity arising from social embarrassment. Insofar as the “gift” is generated by psychological quirk or social embarrassment it isn’t properly gift at all. How many times have we received — or watched others receive — something that was given grudgingly? The grudging spirit turned the gift (so-called) into a millstone; it turned the occasion of helpfulness into an occasion of torment and humiliation. We’d all rather be left alone — whatever our need – than be “helped” grudgingly. Cheerfulness saves help from being a humiliation even as it saves comfort from being cruelty-in-disguise.

When Paul writes, “God loves a cheerful giver” the Greek word he uses for cheerful is HILAROS. It means a joyful readiness that is eager and prompt to do something. The Greek word HILAROS gives us the English word “hilarity” and “hilarity” suggests a party atmosphere. Cheerfulness is necessary if what we do is really going to contribute to the healing of minds and spirits. Without cheerfulness we have only a do-goodism that is humanly demeaning and is resented by those who are supposed to benefit from it. But with cheerfulness we have an act of mercy that can raise the dead.

 

We began today by noting that the cheerless person leaves us all feeling drained. We noted too that the cheerfulness of Christians isn’t rooted in our surroundings but is rooted rather in Christ’s winsome call to us, our self-abandoning response to him, and the joyous reception he accords our response.   Rooted in this cheerfulness we shall find our Lord’s word confirmed in us as he tells us again and again to be of good cheer just because he has overcome our turbulent world. And we shall know with the apostle that what is offered to God and given to our neighbour our hilarious cheerfulness renders a life-bestowing act of mercy.

 

                                                                                                     Victor Shepherd                                                                                                                                                        

July 2005

 

John 17:3   

Every three or four years a city somewhere in the world hosts an international conference on pain: pain-management, pain-control, pain-alleviation. Plainly there are many experts at these conferences who know ever so much about pain, about neural mechanisms, about analgesics.  Nevertheless, the experts who read the learned papers are plainly not in pain themselves; not in pain so severe that they can’t concentrate or eat or sleep. While they know ever so much about pain, then, in a profounder sense they don’t know pain. To know in this profounder sense is qualitatively different from gathering up all the information available; to know in this profounder sense is to be personally acquainted, intimately acquainted, with pain itself.When scripture speaks of knowing hunger it doesn’t mean that someone is an expert on malnutrition; it means that someone is herself intimately acquainted with hunger.  To know grief isn’t to take a course in the psychology of bereavement; it’s to be grief-stricken oneself.When prophet and apostle speak of knowing God, then, they are speaking of intimate acquaintance with the living God. Such engagement is what the bible means by “faith”.  Faith, in scripture, isn’t something we exercise in the absence of knowing; faith isn’t an alternative to knowing. Faith is knowledge; faith is that knowing which corresponds to faith’s author and object, God. Encounter with God, engagement with God, the interpenetration of God’s life and our life; all of this adds up to the knowledge of God.

 

Today we are going to look at four aspects of our knowledge of God: gratitude, love, trust and obedience.

 

I: — First, gratitude. Oblivious to anyone else, a woman stumbles up to Jesus, pours over his feet a bottle of perfume whose price amounted to a year’s wages, wipes his feet with her hair and kisses them repeatedly.  The disciples are bug-eyed: the cost of the perfume.  They remark that there has to be a better use for this much money. I think too that the disciples are startled for another reason: what the woman is doing is in appallingly bad taste. A friend of mine who is a psychiatrist (a Christian too), casually remarked to me one day that what the woman did was highly erotic. The disciples had to know it was.  They lived in a culture where a man didn’t so much as speak to a woman in public, not even to his wife.  And here is this tasteless woman pouring out what advertising industry always associates with eroticism at the same time as she does what is unquestionably erotic. And, as my psychiatrist-friend pointed out to me, Jesus let’s her do it.

The disciples object. Jesus replies, “You fellows can’t understand; your arid hearts have never swelled to bursting with the gratitude that has burst this woman’s heart.”

Through meeting the master the woman has found someone who has pardoned her, set her on her feet, sent her on her way with a new vision and a new hope and a new song. She has a new future (in fact she now has the only “future” worthy of the name — venture with Jesus Christ); and of course she has a new friend. However wasteful her poured-out perfume might appear; however erotic her foot-kissing/wiping might seem; what matters above all is that gratitude spills out of her and expresses itself in whatever ways it can find expression regardless of the incomprehension of the heart-shrivelled.

If you or I were convicted of a capital offence and sentenced to death; and if by the mercy of the judge we were pardoned, our first response would not be a diligent study of the penal system; our first response would not be a psychological analysis of the judge who has just pardoned us. Our uncontrived, spontaneous response would be gratitude.  And if we stumbled up to the judge’s desk and slobbered all over it as we couldn’t find words for what our hearts wanted to cry out, we wouldn’t care if spectators sitting at the back of the courtroom smirked at our loss of emotional control.

Isn’t this our situation before God?  The event that fills the horizon of all biblical thought is the event of the cross. The apostle Paul declares that he has but one sermon in his filing cabinet: Jesus Christ crucified. The cross embodies two unalterable truths: God’s judgement and God’s mercy. In the light of the cross we are brought up short to know we have to do with the just judge who has secured a conviction against us — even as we are brought up short to find ourselves pardoned. The woman with the perfume knew what nobody around her appeared to know.

We live in an age that is shallow in many respects.  Our age has no grasp of the holiness of God and the sinfulness of the human heart; no grasp of God’s righteous wrath and his uncompromisable condemnation; and therefore our age has little wonder at the provision God has made for us who deserve anything but mercy.  Our age is shallow in yet another respect: we have forgotten what it is to be grateful. We expect so much; we think we have a right to so much; we claim so much; we presume so much; we have such an enormous sense of entitlement.  Nothing surprises us as gift; and therefore nothing impels us to gratitude.

It wasn’t always thus. Some of our foreparents knew better, such as our foreparents in faith who cherished the Heidelberg Catechism.         You have often heard me say that the Heidelberg Catechism (written in 1563) is the crown jewel of the shorter Reformation writings. Part I of the HC is titled, “the Misery of Humankind”; Part II, “The Redemption of Humankind”; Part III (by far the largest part), “Thankfulness”. That’s all: “Thankfulness”. Part III of the HC discusses the whole of the Christian life; all of it.  Our discipleship in its entirety is rooted in gratitude and motivated by gratitude and directed by gratitude.

You and I have no claim on God’s mercy.  Yet so crucial is this mercy that the Apostles’ Creed gathers up the totality of our blessing at God’s hand in one brief expression, “I believe in the forgiveness of sins.”  Gratitude will always remain a vital aspect of our knowledge of God.

 

II: — Another aspect is love. Enduring love for God. Gratitude will remain gratitude only if love fuels it; otherwise gratitude, however large-looming at the moment, will gradually evaporate until gratitude is little more than a word and a memory.  However grateful we might be to the person who gets our car going on the highway after it has stopped we don’t maintain any relationship at all with our benefactor; we thank him – genuinely — and wave him good-bye. Just because God isn’t to be thanked and then waved away, gratitude must always be supplemented by love.

This is not to say that we are supposed to “work up” love for God; we aren’t supposed to fish around inside ourselves until we have generated a peculiar affect. But it is to say that we shall love God as we are overtaken again, and overwhelmed yet again, at the love wherewith God loves us. The apostle John writes, “Herein is love, not that we loved him, but that he first loved us.” The emphasis is on “first”. Our love can only be second; it can only be a response; it can only be an answering love. But it must be this.

Few things are more pathetic than the sight of someone trying to generate love for someone else who doesn’t love her.         At first she feels she doesn’t have to generate love for someone else; she simply loves him spontaneously.  Sooner or later, however, it’s an effort, as secret doubts and unspoken misgivings and sheer fatigue all take their toll.  Eventually she admits she doesn’t have it in her to work up love for someone who is affectively inert.  At this point her marriage is dead, she knows it, and the rest is commentary.

Because God loves us ceaselessly his love quickens in us an answering love for him. Yes, the command to love God is a command, and people who say, “But that’s impossible, since love can’t be commanded”; people who speak like this speak too soon, for they haven’t understood that love can be commanded in the sense that we are to set our hearts only on him who has set his heart on us eternally.  And what’s more, God commands us to love him only as his love for us ignites our love for him.

As part of the Easter event the risen Jesus confronted Peter in front of the other disciples and asked, “Peter, do you love me?”         We had better not pretend that the question wasn’t “loaded”; it was. Earlier Peter had insisted that he would never deny his master; only the spiritually feeble would do such a thing. Besides, Peter had declared still earlier in the earthly ministry of Jesus that he had left everything to follow him.   And then all it took was a fifteen-year-old girl saying in front of street-wise loiterers, “Your accent is odd; you come from Galilee too; you must be one of his followers.”  Peter spews vulgarity after vulgarity as he lies through his teeth that he has never so much as seen the Nazarene before.  Then the question three times over, once for each courtyard denial, “Do you love me?” — and the answer three times over, barely croaked out in view of Peter’s distress, “You know that I love you”. Distress?  Yes. It’s always distressing to be loved still by the very person we have failed and betrayed. Yet the love that distresses us in such circumstances; this love alone can quicken and maintain the profoundest answering love in us.

We are Christ-deniers. Every day, in a dozen different ways, we deny the One who is life to us and to whom we have professed loyalty. And all our Lord does in the midst of our denying him is to laser his love into our treacherous hearts so that we can find ourselves saying honestly, however distressingly, “You know that I love you.”

 

III: — The third aspect of our knowledge of God is trust: trust in the midst of darkness, of pain, of confusion, of sheer incomprehension.  A few centuries ago Christians used to speak of “the dark night of the soul.” By this expression they were not referring to that spiritual “chill” which comes upon us when we sin and persist in sin and disguise our sin and excuse our sin. There is nothing incomprehensible about spiritual chill arising from spiritual self-destruction. “The dark night of the soul” refers rather to those periods in any Christian’s life when we feel so bereft of God, so God-forsaken, we couldn’t feel more orphaned. Medieval Christians distinguished such “desolation” from depression.  Depression is a psychological condition; desolation, a spiritual condition.

In addition to spiritual desolation where we unaccountably feel ourselves “orphaned”, as it were, for protracted periods, there are also those periods when God seems eclipsed by the crushing misfortune that falls on some people.

Paul was familiar with the latter.  At the beginning of his second Corinthian letter he writes, “Brothers, we don’t want you to be ignorant of the affliction we experienced in Asia . We were so utterly, unbearably crushed that we despaired of life itself.         Why, we felt we had received the sentence of death.”

What are we going to do when either crushing misfortune or spiritual desolation overtakes us? We are going to trust; we are going to trust that the love we cannot feel is yet a love that has never been revoked; we are going to trust that the providence which is currently opaque will one day be made gloriously translucent. Paul tells us that as a result of the crushing affliction in Asia (we are never told what it was) he could only trust the God who raises the dead. Yes. The God we are to trust has already proven himself trustworthy by keeping his promise to us in the resurrection of his son. Since we know him to have borne his son through the son’s affliction, we can trust him to bear us through ours as well.

IV: — The final aspect of our knowledge of God is obedience.  John writes in his first epistle, “We may be sure that we know him if we keep his commandments.”

To speak of obedience is not to suggest that God is like a prison-camp commandant, whip in hand, with everything in his heart except benevolence for us, insisting that we conform “or else.”  On the contrary, since God wills only our good there can be genuine obedience to him only if our obedience is glad, eager, willing, joyful. Having told us that to know God, and to know that we know God, is to obey him (“keep his commandments”), John adds, “and his commandments are not burdensome.” (I John 5:3)

Jesus said it all when he told his hearers, “Take my yoke upon you.” Yoke, the collar by which oxen pulled a load, is the everyday Hebrew metaphor for obedience.  “Take obedience of me upon you”, Jesus means, and then adds, “My yoke is easy; my burden is light.”

Several things need to be said here.  Christ’s yoke is easy; his burden is light. Other burdens — the “baggage” we saddle ourselves with as a result of our folly and our sin — other burdens are heavy.  Other yokes — the false gods and foolish causes to which we harness ourselves — these yokes only chafe and irritate until we are rubbed raw and infected as well.

But Christ’s yoke is easy.  Since our Lord apprenticed in a carpenter shop he made ox-yokes every day. He knew that if the yoke fit well, the ox could pull the heaviest load with maximum efficiency and minimum discomfort; but if the yoke fit badly, at best the animal suffered, and at worst it strangled.

There are two truths we must preserve about Christ’s yoke.  One, his yoke is easy; two it is a yoke. Obedience ever remains an essential aspect of faith; keeping the commandments of God in the spirit of obeying the living person of God; this ever remains an ingredient in our knowledge of God.  To know God, then, is to honour the shape, the direction, the orientation that God ordains for human existence.  To know God is to relish the discipline of discipleship, certain that anything else issues ultimately in spiritual suffocation.

          As I moved through the requirements of my doctoral program I was sent to Professor Jakob Jocz ( University of Toronto ) for an oral examination. Jakob Jocz was a third-generation Hebrew Christian. He was a delightful man, wise, profound, spiritually alert.  Jocz had suffered much in his life.  Decades earlier he and his wife had gone from Poland to England where he had delivered a set of lectures in a British university while his wife had delivered a baby in a British hospital.  While the Joczs were in England Germany invaded Poland . Since Jocz was Jewish by birth, he never returned. He and his wife walked away from everything they owned.         As my oral examination with him drew to a close I knew that I had triumphed; I didn’t need to wait for his evaluation; I knew I had “nailed” the thing magnificently.  He dismissed me and sent me on my way.  Then he called me back. I think he had discerned a hint (more than a hint) of smugness and arrogance and triumphalism in me. He called me back and said very soberly, “Mr. Shepherd, you have done well in the examination. But remember: theology, important as it is, remains an abstraction. What really counts is the shape of a man’s life.”  I have remembered: what really counts is the shape of a person’s life.

          To be sure, our Lord’s yoke is easy; easy as it is, however, it is still a yoke we must put on. For not to obey God is simply not to know him at all.

 

The prophet Hosea lamented that his people were destroyed for lack of knowledge of God. There is no need for this. God invites us at all times and in all circumstances to that knowledge of him which is life. To know him is to thank him, love him, trust him, obey him.

John had it right when he wrote that eternal life is nothing more, nothing less, nothing else, than knowing “…thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” (John 17:3)

 

                                                                                 Victor Shepherd                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

January 2006

 

 

John 3:16;   15:18;   16:33;   17:251   John 5:19;   4:1;   3:1;   4:9;   2:15;   3:14;   5:4-5

 

 

1] How would you people react if I announced publicly that I had syphilis or gonorrhoea? Would you say to each other, “What a wonderfully honest pastor we have!”? Would you go even farther and say, “This man is a social hero! He has demonstrated extraordinary bravery!” I trust you would say nothing of the sort.

Several months ago Magic Johnson, a basketball star with the Los Angeles Lakers, called a press conference and told everyone he could that he had tested positive for the AIDS virus. Immediately he was acclaimed a hero. His physician, present at the televised press conference, insisted that Mr. Johnson had performed a feat of unusual bravery.

Next day the Johnson story eclipsed all other sports news in the Toronto newspapers. The newspapers extolled Johnson’s courage as though he had singlehandedly rescued a dozen sleeping children from a burning orphanage. One writer turned the entire episode into a melodramatic discussion of God’s inscrutable way of dealing with life. “There is one question which haunts all of us in this matter”, he intoned solemnly, “one question which urges itself upon us, a question to which there is likely no answer: WHY? WHY MAGIC?” I almost laughed. The writer was plainly of the opinion that Magic Johnson had been singled out unfairly, an arbitrary victim of the cosmic fates. But while I almost laughed I didn’t laugh, for the simple reason that the sportswriter’s mindset — ridiculous and silly and childish, I thought — the world at large regarded as sensible, reasonable, fair and just. Something that I have known in my heart for decades was confirmed once more: the way my mind works and the way the world’s mind works have virtually nothing in common.

As this development was written up day after day I noticed that nowhere was there even a hint that what Magic Johnson had been up to was wrong. On the contrary, it was everywhere suggested that he was an innocent victim of extraordinary bad luck. Because there was no suggestion of anything wrong neither was there any suggestion that repentance might be in order. By now the Johnson event had become for me a living illustration of what scripture means by “the world”; how the world thinks, what it espouses, what it pursues, how it reacts — a living illustration too of how everything about the world contradicts the truth of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God.

Next, right after the press conference, professional basketball games began with an athlete or coach leading 16,000 fans in prayer. I thought this odd; after all, 16,000 basketball fans don’t bow their heads before a game on account of a floorful of infants dying in the leukaemia ward of a children’s hospital. Actually, I found it more than odd; I found it blasphemous to invoke God in this situation. Don’t these people know that to invoke God is always to invoke the Judge? Not the Judge only, but the Judge certainly. Don’t these people know that to invoke God is to invoke One who is not deflected by gospel-less sentimentality ? Don’t they know that to invoke God is to invoke the holy One himself, all of him, his truth, his claim, his resistance to our disobedience? Don’t they know that to wave off that way, truth and life which add up to God’s blessing is to guarantee curse? Through the prophet Isaiah God declares, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.” We ought never to invoke God on the assumption that our thoughts are his thoughts and his ways our ways.

While all the crocodile tears were being shed for Magic (let me say right now that tears should be shed for Magic; after all, Jesus wept over impenitent people who were headed for irretrievable loss); while tears were being shed for Magic not one mention was made of the countless women whom Mr. Johnson as undoubtedly infected with the AIDS virus. Not that these women are guiltless themselves; nevertheless, the silence concerning them suggests that Mr. Johnson is not guilty at all. And then to invoke God on the piled up sin and treachery at the same time that all of this is applauded and the chief perpetrator adulated? When Jesus says that the world lies in the grip of the evil one he cannot be thought to be exaggerating.

One feature of the entire episode which leapt out at me was the absence of shame. No one connected with the incident, and no one commenting on it, suggested for a minute that shame was in order. Myself, I have long pitied the person with no sense of shame, since the person with no sense of shame at all is a psychopath and will have to be locked up in order to protect society from him. But when the society appears unshamable, where are we? Who or what is going to protect such a society from itself? When the apostle John writes, “We know that…the whole world is in the power of the evil one”, he is plainly telling the truth.

 

2] So far today we have used the expression “the world” a dozen times. What is “the world”, anyway? In one or two places only the word “world” means “the entire creation”. For instance, when John tells us in the introduction to his written gospel that the entire world was made by the Word of God he means that God “spoke” the entire creation into being. Remember, however, that it is only in one or two places that the word “world” has this meaning. Everywhere else “world” has a narrower focus and a negative meaning as well. The world is the sum total of men and women who do not know God; men and women who, in the words of John, are not “born of God”; men and women who are unknowing servants of the one whom John calls “the prince of this world”.

A few days after the Magic Johnson expose there was a newspaper write-up of two new textbooks on Canadian history for use in Canadian universities. Both books were written by Canadians about Canadians. Both books managed to make no mention of World War II — even though 30,000 Canadians perished in that conflict. In the first place this kind of historical revisionism is out-and-out falsification. In the second place, to slip over the evil which Hitler and his henchmen were, to slip over the suffering they visited upon millions outside Germany and inside Germany as well; this is to advertise one’s inability to apprehend the actuality of the world. We must not think that these professors and their books are so bizarre as not to be taken seriously. One book has been published by a major American publisher, the other by Oxford University Press. Both are intended to shape the thinking of Canadian university students. These students; what grasp of radical evil — its subtlety, its power, its intransigence — what grasp of this can we expect our students to have, especially since the students will have to pass an examination set by these professor-authors? John cannot be doubted when he writes, “We know that…the whole world is in the power of the evil one.”

You see, John insists that the earth seethes with spiritual conflict. In this conflict the evil one is “prince”. Needless to say, John knows that while the evil one is prince Jesus Christ is King. To be sure, in several places John does speak of the evil one as “the ruler of this world”; but “world”, remember, doesn’t mean the entire cosmos; “world” means the sum total of men and women who have not yet recognized and honoured and owned Christ as king and lord over all.

John has a great deal to say about the world. For instance, false prophets are found everywhere in it. These false prophets may be explicitly religious spokespersons who mislead people sadly. They may be cult figures whose cults mislead the unwary. More frequently they are people without any religious identification, yet people of more than a little influence whose opinions are not harmless, especially where pliable people can be readily bent. When I was in high school an athletic assembly was held each year at which the athletic awards were presented. Graduates of Riverdale Collegiate who had made their mark in professional sport were brought back to their old school to address the assembly. One year the speaker was a football player who had gone on to have a standout career with Queen’s University and the Ottawa Roughriders. (He is now a lawyer in Ottawa.) With an assembly-hall of students hanging on his every word this fellow said in complete seriousness, “I know how nerve-wracking examinations can be in high school, but I found a way of getting through them: cheat!” No one commented on his deplorable remark. No teacher or school official even humorously corrected the worldling, goodnaturedly proposing something better.

The false prophet is anyone at all, whether socially prominent or virtually anonymous, who confirms the world in its falsity. If Jesus Christ is king, then the false prophet is anyone at all who suggests, explicitly or implicitly, that the ultimate ruler of the earth is something else.

Surely so very many of our social customs confirm John’s insight concerning the world and its lying in the hands of the nefarious prince. Think about the courtroom procedure of having witnesses swear on a bible to tell the truth. Plainly it is assumed that apart from a special oath to tell the truth people regularly do not tell the truth and apart from the special oath are not expected to tell the truth.

It is obvious that the “world”, in John’s sense of the term, collides head-on with Jesus Christ and therefore with Christ’s people. The head-on collision is nasty and cannot be anything else. Bluntly Jesus tells his disciples, “The world hates you; if you fellows were of the world, the world would love you; but it hates you. And remember this: the world hated me before it hated you.” Kingdom of God and world are irreconcilable.

For a long time I have felt that the world’s three biggest preoccupations are success, status, and superiority. These are the blandishments which the world offers, blandishments which “hook” people who, having been hooked, now lend enormous force and power to the blandishments themselves. Success, status, superiority.

Success? Anyone who reads the gospel stories knows that Jesus is pure failure. Born into a despised people, raised in the boondocks, misunderstood by his family, betrayed and deserted by friends, executed in the company of criminals at the city garbage dump. Whenever you think of Jesus be sure to spell “Loser” with a capital “L”. Success? Jesus promises us cross-bearing! To be his follower is to dog the footsteps of someone whose failure is compounded by suffering.

Then what about status? When two of his disciples ask him for places of honour in his kingdom Jesus tells them (and their mother) that they are asking him for something he does not traffic in. Status? Humility is what he presses upon his followers.

As for superiority or domination, pre-eminence or privilege, Jesus summons his people to servanthood. He himself is the servant of God of whom the Hebrew prophet spoke centuries earlier. Surely his people would never think that while their Lord is a servant they themselves are going to be lords!

In his first epistle John tells us that while Jesus knows the world inside out, the world does not know him at all. Which is to say, Christ’s people, schooled by their Lord, certainly understand the nature of the world, while the world doesn’t have a clue as to the real nature of a faithful church.

 

4] Question: since the world is blind to God and hostile to the Son of God, what does God do about the world? He does precisely what no one would expect: he loves it until he could not love it any more. Blind, defiant, hateful as the world is, God loves it to the point of giving for it everything that he has to give: his Son. Does this startle you as much as it startles me? Surely the world’s disdainful dismissal of God’s love; surely its continuing contempt for his self-outpouring is like rubbing salt in the wound of his sacrifice. Nevertheless love is poured out upon the world, and continues to be poured out without letup, until the world is saturated in God’s love; so soaked in it that the world’s icy indifference renders the world inexcusable even as it renders the kindness of God incomprehensible.

A dear friend of mine has fallen on hard times. Several months ago his wife told him that she no longer loved him. Her heart has been given away to a fellow with whom she works. My friend’s worsening distress took him to a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist urged him to withstand his distress for as long as he could, not close the book on his marriage, in the hope that his wife would finish scratching whatever itch she thought she needed to scratch and return to her husband while he was still there for her. At the same time the psychiatrist told my friend that he might get to the point that he could not withstand the distress any longer and would have to close the book on his marriage. My friend endured the distress for months. Then a few weeks ago he told the psychiatrist that he could bear the pain no longer. The book has been closed. I do not fault my friend for this at all. Neither does anyone else. As I watched him arrive at the outermost limit of his endurance I marvelled again at the endurance of God. For God’s book has not been closed on the world. The pain of frustrated love doesn’t increase until God has to move away from the world in order to survive himself. The pain which God’s love brings upon God himself he endures without limit just because he is love; his nature is love. He loves without limit, without condition, without qualification.

Why does he bother? Why does he persist in such love? John tells us in his first epistle: “…he sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.”

 

4] Then what are Christ’s people to do? Plainly we are to keep our eyes wide open. John tells us that the world hates the truth, hates the light, and prefers the falsehoods of the false prophets and the murky deeds of the night. In the same vein John tells us we are “not to love the world or the things of the world”.

Now when John insists that we not love the world or the things of the world he means that we are not to be enticed into the world’s agenda; we are not to be seduced by the world’s blandishments. We are not to love the world inasmuch as the world is filled up with “the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.” “Lust of the flesh” is a preoccupation with the materialistic trinkets which appeal to the person of no spiritual depth. “Lust of the eyes” is mesmerization through glitz and showiness and surface appearances. “The pride of life” is empty pretence, groundless boasting, phoney image-making. No wonder Christ’s people are not to love the world or the things of the world!

And yet there is a sense, a much different sense, in which Christ’s people must love the world. After all, our Lord himself loves it, doesn’t he? Then as long as we keep company with him we must love it too. John insists that as surely as hatred is characteristic of the world, love is characteristic of the Christian. What’s more, the love which characterizes the Christian is the kind of love which our Lord exemplified: he so loved as to give himself without qualification, without regret, without bitterness. Lest we think anything else John reminds the Christians to whom he is writing, and reminds them rather starkly, “Whoever does not abide in love abides in death.”

As often as all of this surges over me I am quietly corrected, enormously stimulated, and sent on my way with a lighter heart. Whenever I am tempted to magnify the difficult time I think I am having in the midst of the world I call to mind other Christians who have had a much more difficult time and still have continued to love the world with a light-hearted buoyancy. Then I am buoyed up for days as well.

I have a pastor-friend who spent ten years as a prison chaplain; can you imagine any endeavour more bleak, more frustrating, less promising? Yet he did it without rancour, trusting the ten-year investment to the One who so loved the world. Christian schoolteachers who are not deceived for a minute by the sub-Christian ideology of much educational philosophy; such teachers, recognizing pagan naiveness and narcissism for what it is, continue with their task, knowing that there are youngsters in front of them every day whose need for love is inestimable. Employees of huge corporations, corporations so vast as to appear heartless to the point of hateful; yet the employee goes to work every day knowing that before week’s end the real business set before her is not automobiles or refrigerators but rather an aching human being for whom she will have the face of an angel.

The last thing we should note about the Christian’s involvement with the world is this: not every day will the universe unfold as it should. There will be days when the world makes no attempt to disguise its ugliness, days when the Christian feels crunched and no one suggests he is paranoid. What then? On those days Jesus will repeat to us what he said to the first generation of his disciples: “In the world you are going to have tribulation; but be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world.” He has overcome it? Yes, he has. Wonderful news, to be sure. Yet the news would be better if his victory were made over to me. The truth is, it is made over to us through our faith. “This is the victory which overcomes the world, our faith”, John shouts. On darker days you and I shall remind each other that our faith does grant us to share in our Lord’s victory. Knowing this, we shall be able to love the people of the world while not being seduced by the things of the world. As did the self-giving One before us. As have done his people at all times and in all circumstances.

 

                                                                                                Victor A. Shepherd
April 1992

 

 John 18:34 

 

I: — Gossip and hearsay are not the same.  Gossip is unfounded whispering, unfounded whispering that tarnishes someone else’s name, weakens her reputation, even destroys her. Gossip is both untrue and harmful.

Hearsay, on the other hand, isn’t necessarily untrue or harmful. In fact, hearsay is often true and helpful.         Hearsay, after all, is how we acquire most of our knowledge about the world. I have been told on good account that the sun is 90-plus million miles from the earth.  But I have never measured or calculated the distance of the sun from the earth. I have taken someone else’s word for it. I heard it said, and I believed it.

As with our knowledge of science, so with our knowledge of history. Napoleon besieged Moscow in 1812, sacrificing thousands of French soldiers in a dreadful military blunder. Did it actually happen? I have to take someone else’s word for it. Plainly what I affirm is hearsay. And there’s nothing wrong with accepting such hearsay.

Yet there is a setting where hearsay isn’t accepted at all: a courtroom. No courtroom judge puts any stock in the testimony of someone who says, “I never actually saw Mrs. Brown shoot her husband, but when I was at the grocery store, or maybe it was the barber shop, I heard it said that she shot him.” Hearsay isn’t enough when testimony has to be rendered in a court of law.

 

II: — Already you can see where hearsay is acceptable and where not. It is acceptable with respect to acquiring information; but it isn’t acceptable with respect to testimony concerning persons.  As we move from information about things to acquaintance with persons hearsay has no place. If you were to ask me what it is to love a woman and be loved by a woman, my answer might sound somewhat self-conscious and rather awkward.  Still, I profoundly know, unshakeably know, in my heart what it is to love and be loved by a woman.  However awkwardly I might convey this to you, neither of us would be helped by consulting a textbook on gynaecology.  Information of any kind, however sophisticated, is never a substitute for intimate acquaintance with a person.

Words always become less adequate, less helpful, as we move deeper and deeper into what is profoundly human.         In fact words can never finally do justice to human intimacy.  There is a level of experience that others can apprehend only if they come to share the experience themselves.  They will never apprehend the experience by having it described in words.

Think of Hannah’s anguish over her childlessness. Hannah is heartsick and can’t eat. Her husband, Elkanah, helpless here himself, asks her, “Why do you weep? Am I not more to you than ten sons?”  Elkanah simply hasn’t apprehended the horror that has seized Hannah’s heart. How could any man understand what it is for a woman to be barren?

After my mother had been a widow for several years I came upon C.S. Lewis’ fine book, A Grief Observed, which book he wrote following the death of his wife.  The book begins very powerfully: “No one ever told me that grief was so much like being mildly concussed or being mildly drunk….” I decided to give it to my mother. A few weeks later she thanked me for the book, told me it was very good, and added, “But what would you know about it?”         Her point was valid. I have never lost the one human being who is the earthly comfort and consolation of my life; I have never lost the one human being to whom I’ve been grafted, the loss of whom, therefore, is nothing less than dismemberment.

It is firsthand acquaintance with the Word of the Lord that makes the prophet a prophet. The prophet is the immediate recipient of that unmistakable address from the mouth of the living God. The prophet speaks only because someone has first spoken to him.  Once God has spoken to him, however, the prophet must speak himself. “The Word of the Lord is a fire in my mouth,” cries Jeremiah, “If I don’t open my mouth and let it out I’ll be scorched.”  The false prophet, on the other hand, is under no such compulsion just because the false prophet has no firsthand acquaintance.  The false prophet merely babbles and blabbers.

I am convinced that the spiritually sensitive among us can distinguish between the preacher who speaks because he’s first been spoken to and the preacher who simply blathers Sunday by Sunday. Discerning people simply aren’t fooled.

 

III: — The matter of discernment surfaced with Pilate. Some religious leaders hauled Jesus before Pilate and said, “This man’s an evildoer. Fix him!”   These leaders were hostile to Jesus while Pilate was not.  On the other hand, Pilate could enact the death the sentence while they could not; hence their request that Pilate “fix” Jesus. Now Pilate has on his hands someone whom he doesn’t dislike, yet also someone around whom an uprising might develop, thus ruining Pilate’s career in the civil service.   Wearily Pilate asks Jesus, “Are you king of the Jews?”   And as Jesus does so often when he’s asked a question, he doesn’t answer. Instead he asks his own question: “Am I king of the Jews?  Do you say this on your own, of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?” In other words, “Do you have firsthand acquaintance with me, with the truth that I am, or are you merely parroting hearsay?”   “Am I a Jew?”, Pilate retorts, “How on earth do you expect me to know?”

“My kingdom isn’t of this world,” Jesus comes back. “Ah, so you are a king,” says Pilate.  “Do you say this of your own accord or did others say it to you about me?   You say that I am king,” continues Jesus, “…I have come to bear witness to the truth.” Then, in a voice steeped in weariness and frustration and vexation and cynicism Pilate mutters, “What is truth, anyway?”

“Truth,” in John’s gospel, always the force of “reality.” “What is real, anyway?” This is what Pilate is asking, and is asking just because he doesn’t know.

Pilate doesn’t know who Jesus Christ is.  He has heard lots said about our Lord, but he has had no firsthand acquaintance with our Lord, born of journeying with him. Oddly, such firsthand acquaintance with Jesus is the common possession of apostles whose names the world will never forget as well as of countless ordinary Christians whose names the world has never remembered; and such firsthand acquaintance with Jesus is utterly foreign to Pilate.  Because it is foreign to Pilate, cruel compromise comes easy to him. So what if Jesus has to be sacrificed to keep religious leaders happy, an unruly crowd at bay, and Pilate’s own career intact. What is one more ragged Jewish victim of Imperial Rome’s political expedience?

Let’s be fair to Pilate.  Who Jesus Christ is also escapes the religious leaders.  They insist he’s an “enemy of the people.”   It isn’t true. Jesus isn’t an enemy of Israel ; he’s the fulfilment of Israel . The religious leaders are blind. Pilate is spineless.  Meanwhile one question continues to reverberate: “Do you say this (who or what I am) on your own, or did others say it to you about me?” In other words, “Do you have firsthand acquaintance with me, or are you merely repeating hearsay?”

The question that reverberated then reverberates still. It has to be dealt with today. “Do you sing hymns and repeat confessions of faith and say ‘Amen’ to the prayers of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?”  “Do your hymns and prayers and creeds and eucharists and session meetings; does all of this come from your intimate acquaintance with me or are you merely repeating hearsay that you picked up from who knows where?” The question is still asked, and still it must be answered.

 

IV: — As you and I move away from picking up mere hearsay about Jesus to our own intimate acquaintance with him, what difference is it going to make to us?

 i]         First of all it will give us assurance of our faith in Jesus Christ, assurance of his hold on us, assurance that we are his younger brothers and sisters and citizens of his Father’s kingdom, assurance that we are being used of God now and are destined to see our Lord face-to-face.  Our foreparents, both Presbyterian and Methodist, spoke much of assurance. Calvin said quite starkly, “Where there is no assurance of faith there is no faith at all.” I think his assertion was too strong. Wesley said (at least at one point), “Assurance is the privilege of every believer.” I think his assertion was too weak. In scripture it is simply taken for granted that those who genuinely know Jesus and love him also know that they know, know that they are loved of their Lord and are bound to him. The first epistle of John, for instance, is one of the shortest books in scripture (five very brief chapters), yet the confident, firm, emphatic expression, “We know”, is used in it fifteen times.  “We know that we have passed from death to life; we know that God abides in us.”

I admit that there is the “we know” of the know-it-all: insufferable pomposity.  There’s also the “we know” of prejudice: “we just know that immigrants are corrupt and they take away ‘our’ jobs.” There’s even the “we know” of outright ignorance where nothing is known. Nevertheless, when all this is taken into account and dealt with we are left with the conviction, spirit and word of the apostle John and countless Christians after him: “He who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself.”

Decades ago when I was studying for the ministry we had to preach to our classmates in our homiletics courses.         One of my classmates, entirely unawares, preached a sermon in which he said many times over, no doubt out of habit, “I suppose….” When he had finished, the homiletics instructor, an older Church of Scotland minister who was as deep as a well, stared at the student and said, “You suppose? You suppose?   Young man, when you mount the pulpit steps either you know or you don’t say anything. No one is going to have her faith strengthened by a preacher who merely supposes.”

“He who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself,” says the apostle John.  Faith born of intimate acquaintance with our Lord brings with it that assurance which confirms us every day in the truth of faith.

ii]         In the second place, as we move from acquaintance to hearsay we shall magnify the credibility of the gospel itself.  We shall render more believable for others the fact that Jesus Christ is truth and life and way; that there is forgiveness and freedom for any repentant person at all; there is comfort and strength and healing and a forever new beginning for anyone who may know little or much about Jesus but above all clings to him and wants only to cling more closely. As we ourselves move from hearsay to acquaintance we shall be the magnifying glass that causes the truth and substance of the gospel to loom so large as to be both unmistakable and unavoidable.  You and I, possessed by the gospel, will always be the most effective advertisement for the gospel.  As we radiate not an arrogant cocksureness but rather the simple assurance of those who know that living in the company of Jesus Christ is better than any alternative; as we radiate this, discipleship will become ever more attractive to people whose life-needs, like ours, cry out for the gospel yet who have not found the Christian way attractive to date.

iii]         Lastly, as we move from hearsay about our Lord to acquaintance with him we shall see him whole.  There’s always a tendency to see Jesus Christ fragmented, bits and pieces of him here and there. People latch onto a piece of him, a partial truth, one aspect of him, and then assume that this one piece or aspect or partial truth is all there is.

For instance, people hear what he said about the danger of riches (no doubt he said it and meant it) and then they assume that he supports any ill-conceived program of social disruption resulting in social dismantling. Or they hear what he said about rising early to pray and seeking his Father’s face in private, only to think he supports a pietistic escapism that turns its back on the human distress around us, distress that we can address and should. Or they see him elevate women (unquestionably he did) and then tell us that the gospel supports every last plank in the shrillest feminist platform, even where that shrillness denies the gospel.

The only way we avoid reducing our Lord to one aspect of him; which is to say, the only way we avoid shredding him grotesquely is to encounter and cherish all of him.  This isn’t difficult. Genuinely to meet someone anywhere in life is always to meet that person in her totality. The whole Master is what God has given us. Then why should we settle for less? What’s more, since the whole Master has been given to us, we must have him whole or we shan’t have him at all.  It is as we move from hearsay about him to acquaintance with him that we embrace the whole of him who has been given to us, only to learn that he has always longed to possess us wholly.

 

“Do you say this on your own, of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?” Jesus put this question to Pilate. Pilate fumbled and stumbled and faltered, for he knew what he was meant to say he couldn’t say truthfully, and what he could say truthfully he wasn’t meant to say.

The same question is put to us.  “Do you say this on your own, or did others say it to you about me?” Our Lord means, “Do you have firsthand, intimate acquaintance with me, or are you merely mouthing whatever you’ve absorbed unknowingly from your environment?” He expects you and me to reply, “Of our own, on our own accord;” and having rendered this reply once to render it again and again as we seize him afresh and follow him forever.

 

                                                                                                      Dr Victor Shepherd                                                                                                                                           

February 2003

 

John 20:1-10

 

[1] “What do you think happened back then?”, I am often asked concerning the story in John’s gospel of the raising of Lazarus from the dead, or concerning other stories like it. Frankly more often than not the questioner puts the question to me in such a manner as to suggest that the questioner himself is not seeking enlightenment. More often than not the question is put to me as though I were somehow on trial before the questioner. “Do you believe the story exactly as written? Yes or no!” If I say “yes” the questioner concludes that I am an anti-intellectual, anti-scientific, fundamentalist, obscurantist bible-thumper as gullible as the child who believes in Jack and the Beanstalk. If, on the other hand, I say “no” I am accused of unbelief, of doubting the power of God, of impugning the authority of scripture, of prejudging what God can or cannot do, will or will not do. Nowadays whenever I am asked the question I always question the questioner, “Where are you coming from? what is your agenda? what do you plan to do with my reply?” I have immense sympathy for any of you today who have felt yourself set upon in this way, as though you were on trial before religious inquisitors. I have immense sympathy too for any who are simply puzzled as to what to make of the story.

Let us be sure to understand something that most people overlook: the resuscitation of Lazarus (that is, a corpse reanimated) is not the same as the resurrection of Jesus. The resuscitation of Lazarus (the mere reanimation of his remains) is a sign, but only a sign, of the truth that Jesus Christ has rendered Lazarus alive unto God eternally.

I trust that this talk about resuscitation (or reanimation) versus resurrection has not confused you. If it has, however, please bear with me a while longer. We must always remember that the one thing John, like the other gospel-writers, does not want to do is portray Jesus as a mere wonder-worker, a magician, a tricky circus-performer. Wonder-workers abounded in the ancient world. Each religious group had stories to tell of its larger-than-life figures who performed wonders. Each group thrust its own forward: “Come and see our wonder-worker, since ours is better than yours, and therefore our cult or group or conventicle is more important, more worthy than yours”. P.T. Barnum, the turn-of-the-century circus magnate, made millions bringing people into the big tent to see oddities, freaks, bizarre occurrences, and outright bamboozlers.

Let us not lump Jesus in with such stuff. Let us also remember that tricksterism was the very thing Jesus resisted in his wilderness temptations just because he knew that tricksterism is evil; it is deceitful entertainment followed by heartbreak; it brings no one at all to faith in the Son of God. Let us also remember that Jesus capped his mighty deeds with the stern command, “Don’t tell anyone about it. Don’t utter so much as a peep” — for the last thing Jesus wants is a crowd of shallow sideshow gawkers clamouring for yet more trickster entertainment. The one thing our Lord himself will not permit us to make of the story of the raising of Lazarus is that the event is a sensational spectacle which draws a crowd and makes people more gullible for what Jesus is going to say later.

As a matter of fact the crown of the Lazarus incident, the interpretative key to the incident, is not the resuscitation of Lazarus; it is the truth that Jesus Christ himself is resurrection and life. He, the Son of God, lifts up the spiritually dead before the Father so that they come alive unto God. Declares the master himself, “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.” The last nine words sum up the message of John’s gospel: “whoever lives and believes in me shall never die”. Never die? Literally never die? Of course not. “Never die” means never be lost to God, never be dead unto God, never be inert before God, never become a spiritual casualty. “Never die” here means to live eternally before God through that liveliness which God lends us out of his own eternal liveliness. While the resuscitation of Lazarus is certainly miracle, it isn’t the miracle of the entire incident. The miracle is that mighty deed of Jesus Christ whereby he vivifies the spiritually moribund and animates the spiritually inert and invigorates the spiritually flaccid. The resuscitation of Lazarus is the sign of this greater miracle.

Think of John’s story of the man born blind. The ultimate point of the story isn’t that a man is rendered able to see trees and hedges and cats and dogs with his new-seeing eyes; the ultimate point is that at the touch of Jesus the man “saw”; that is, discerned, recognized, acknowledged that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God and followed him as an enthusiastic disciple. The granting of physical sight is a subordinate miracle which is the sign of the greater miracle, the ultimate miracle; namely, spiritual sight or conviction or discernment which commits someone to following Jesus on the road of discipleship.

With respect to Lazarus the subordinate deed is that his physical decomposition is undone; this is the sign of the final point in the episode: the Word of God incarnate brings the spiritually dead to life in Christ. The point that John is at such pains to make isn’t that Jesus is a more dazzling wonder-worker than other wonder-workers; it’s that Jesus Christ is the one source and giver of true life, abundant life, eternal life, just because he is one with the Father and Father one with him.

The development in the eleventh chapter of John’s gospel which we are probing today was anticipated in the fifth chapter of John’s gospel. There Jesus had said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.”

A Christian is nothing more than, nothing less than, nothing other than someone who, spiritually dead like all humankind in the wake of the fall, has while yet dead paradoxically heard the voice of the Son of God; and in hearing this Word has found herself quickened, rendered alive unto God.

Let us be clear on something crucial. It takes a miracle to bring anyone to faith in Jesus Christ, nothing less than a miracle. Why should we assume that spiritual restoration is any less difficult to effect than physical restoration? Then think of all the inducements to unbelief. Think of the countless pressures, some subtle and some frontal, which bend people into the deformity of unbelief. Think of the sheer difficulty and discouragement with which life unfolds for many. Think of stresses and distresses, distractions and disasters, large and small, known and unknown, individual and corporate, which add up to a weight so suffocating that faith is going to remain forever stifled. Forever stifled, that is, if faith is something we are left having to generate for ourselves. Faith is never humanly possible; yet faith arises and thrives just because — and only because — Jesus Christ himself still speaks to you and me as he spoke to Lazarus. And in the mysterious working of God’s grace even the dead are enabled to hear and believe, arise and follow. It takes a miracle to bring anyone to faith in Jesus Christ, in any era. It is the voice of the Son of God himself which unleashes the miracle as the dead come forth, praise God for their life in him, and leap to follow ever after.

 

[2] I find the story of Lazarus fascinating and endlessly challenging. One aspect of it which always fascinates and challenges me is compressed into four words which Jesus speaks: “Take away the stone”. Jesus addresses these words to his disciples who have accompanied him to the village of Bethany and the home of Lazarus and his sisters. “Take away the stone”, says Jesus to those who are already disciples themselves. In view of the miracle which Jesus is going to work in the next minute or two he easily could have removed the tombstone himself. Instead he asked his followers to remove that stone which would permit the newly-raised Lazarus to step forth.

I have said many times today that since a miracle is needed for anyone to come to faith the unique power of God is needed. In other words Jesus Christ alone can quicken confidence in him. Nevertheless, there is something the Christian fellowship must do if the Christ-quickened person is to step forth, emerge from the realm of the dead, and be seen to be the beneficiary of the life-giving Word. There is something the Christian fellowship must do. What is it that we must do? What must our congregation do if those whom our Lord summons to life in him are to emerge in our midst? Help me! We need to put our heads and hearts together and help each other, help each other to take away the stone!

And then there is another aspect of the Lazarus story which fascinates and challenges me. This aspect is compressed into six words which Jesus speaks: “Unbind him, and let him go”. He who has just brought the dead to life could free Lazarus from his graveclothes in an instant. But he doesn’t. Instead he directs his disciples, those who are followers already and have accompanied him to Bethany, “Unbind him, and let him go; turn him loose”. Once again it is plain there is something the Christian fellowship must do if the Christ-quickened person is to give expression to his newly-granted life. In other words, there is something the Christian fellowship must do in assisting newer disciples to be salt and light and leaven amidst a world which is corrupt and dark and deflated. What is it the congregation must provide in order to help believers give concrete expression, concrete embodiment to their faith?

Let me say it again. Only our Lord himself can raise the dead; only our Lord can move anyone out of spiritual inertia and render that person alive unto God. The congregation does not do this because it cannot. Nonetheless, the congregation does have a two-fold responsibility in its service of that work which is always Christ’s alone: the congregation must take away the stone, thus permitting enlivened people to step forth, at the same time as the congregation must turn these people loose for service in church and world.

All of which brings me to my next point. There isn’t a precise distinction between which sort of activity is taking away the stone and which sort of activity is turning people loose, unbinding them and letting them go. There isn’t a precise distinction between what permits faith to emerge and what gives concrete expression to faith. Think for a minute of the two, six-week Sunday morning bible studies we held here a year and a half ago. When I planned the first one I thought that ten people would get up early for it. Ten would have pleased me, and I should certainly have operated the class for five. We averaged thirty-five! Plainly there was a hunger for it. Now which sort of activity is the bible study? Is it taking away the stone or is it removing graveclothes? That is, does it help people come to faith in Jesus Christ or is it a vehicle for the expression of their faith? I think it is likely both, depending on where we are in our faith-venture.

Consider something as simple as hospitality. I think hospitality is both taking away the stone and turning people loose, depending on where we are. For hospitality-givers hospitality is a concrete expression of their discipleship; it is something people do as they are turned loose. For hospitality-receivers, however, it is likely more akin to taking away the stone. After all, it is in the context of hospitality that people who are looking for faith come to share the faith of those who are believers already as they come to share the food of those who are believers already.

I regard few things more important in church life than hospitality and visiting. (Hospitality and visiting are so close to each other that I regard them as two sides of the same coin.) I don’t mean that hospitality/visiting are important for the sake of keeping the institution solvent and the grass cut; I mean important for the sake of the faith of individuals and the health of the entire congregation.

In 1786 John Wesley was travelling from northwest England to northeast Scotland. As he moved into northeast Scotland he passed through Edinburgh, Dundee, Arbroath (a delightful town on the east coast of Scotland constantly freshened by invigorating North Sea winds) and on to Aberdeen (where Maureen and Catherine and I lived for part of my graduate studies). Wesley was now eighty-three years old. As an itinerant preacher he had travelled hundreds of thousands of miles, speaking everywhere throughout the British Isles. Yet the always-on-the-move evangelist had the heart of a pastor; he never ceased probing what would help people come to faith and what would help them give expression to the faith they had come to. In May, 1786, he wrote his tract, “On Visiting the Sick”. By “sick” Wesley included “all such as are in a state of affliction, whether of mind or body; and that whether they are good or bad, whether they fear God or not”. (Plainly all of us are “sick” in some respect, according to Wesley’s definition, since all of us are in some affliction, of either body or mind.) Then Wesley said something shocking for an Anglican: he said that visiting (or hospitality) is a means of grace. No tradition-steeped Anglican should have said such a thing. After all, holy communion and baptism and scripture-reading are means of grace, means whereby God gives himself to us and strengthens our faith. Hospitality or visiting are but good deeds. But the eighty-three year old would not budge: insofar as we visit someone else our life in Christ is strengthened and matured and rendered more useful. What about Christians who don’t visit or extend hospitality? Wesley spoke of these people as believers “who were once strong in faith [and] are now weak and feeble-minded”. They don’t know how their faith came to be weak and their Christian understanding feeble; after all they worship, pray, read, attend holy communion, don’t they? The old man insisted that when our hearts and hands and homes are not open to others, believers or not, our own faith is going to shrivel. In fact Wesley insisted there are four curses attached to ignoring this “means of grace”: our own faith shrivels, our empathy with suffering people is diminished, opportunities for doing good are choked off, and the community-at-large is weakened.

Wesley startled the Anglicans of his day by insisting that hospitality/visitation was a means of grace for those who did it. He also insisted that it was a means of grace for those who received it. “In administering to them the grace of God you give them more than all this world is worth… and while you minister to others, how many blessings may redound into your own bosom.”

Let’s think about other aspects of church-life. The Sunday School, for instance. We have one of the largest Sunday Schools in the entire denomination. We have superb leadership in our superintendent, Pat Major. The ability and mood and morale of the teachers are wonderful. The Sunday School teachers of this congregation cherish and support and encourage each other in a way I have seen nowhere else. Several times per year they have a party. I go to them all, since these parties are among the best I get to. We must never undervalue what happens in Sunday School. Precisely what happens at the confluence of teacher and youngster and Holy Spirit we cannot calculate or control. Yet it cannot be doubted that something happens. It was while in Sunday School that I became aware of the provision God had made for me in the cross; while in Sunday School that the seeds of my vocation to the ministry were sown.

Pastoral Care, Outreach, Property: the work of every last one of these committees is both the means of taking away the stone and removing the graveclothes; both an activity which fosters faith and an activity which expresses our faith on behalf of the wider world.

 

[3] My last point. Next Saturday we are gathering in Auditorium “B” in honour of Lazarus. (The name “Lazarus” is a shortened version of the name “Eleazar”, “God is my helper”.) God is our helper, the helper of all of us. He is going to help us grasp what we need to do in congregational life to take away the stone and what we need to do to turn people loose. You must come — all of you must come — and tell us of your dream or vision or aspiration or inspiration. You must not think it silly or simpleminded or impractical or anything else. What matters is that it is yours, you have held it close to your mind and heart for a long time, and now it is going to be taken seriously.

What would you like to see in worship? How do you feel about adult Christian Education? What would you like to see done to the building and grounds? How should pastoral care be exercised? You must come along next Saturday, for you and I are among the disciples who accompany Jesus to Bethany, who witness the miracle of the birth of faith as our Lord himself does what only he can do. But like the disciples of old we are more than mere witnesses of the miracle; we are part of the miracle itself — because we, and only we, can take away the stone and remove the graveclothes. Next Saturday we want to share with each other how we might be of even greater service to the master as he continues to call forth from the dead those who will follow him for the rest of their lives.

F I N I S

                                                                    Victor A. Shepherd
October, 1993

     John 20:19-23         Judges 6:19 -24

            John tells us that on Easter Sunday evening the disciples were huddled together in a room, having locked the door “for fear of the Jews”. Apparently the disciples feared THE JEWS. Feared all of them? Every last Jew in Palestine ? Every last Jew in the world? It’s preposterous to think that every last Jew had ganged up on Jesus a few days earlier. It was the leaders of Jewish institutions, leaders of the Jerusalem temple, who had conspired against him and killed him.           It was religious officials who had felt themselves threatened and who had decided to end the threat.           In the written gospels we are told that the common people – who were Jews themselves – had heard Jesus gladly throughout his earthly ministry. And of course the disciples in the room on Easter evening were all Jews too.

We shouldn’t be surprised that the religious leaders in Palestine “cozied up” to the political authorities and became little more than the religious legitimation of political power and social ascendancy and religious self-interest.           It happened then. It happens now. It’s always happened.

When John Strachan was Anglican bishop of Toronto in the 1800s he insisted that only the sons and daughters of the Anglican elite had the right to the best education.           Bishop John Strachan also provided the religious buttress for the “Family Compact”, that handful of well-to-do people of superior social standing and extraordinary wealth who controlled everything in the province of Ontario .

We shouldn’t be surprised that religious officials in Palestine struck a “deal” with political officials on the eve of our Lord’s death. On the eve of World War II the pope signed the infamous “Concordat” with Hitler: as long as Hitler left the Roman Catholic Church unmolested, the pope would remain silent concerning Hitler.

 

Religious officials have always lined up with the echelons of power and money and social ascendancy.         Therefore it’s no surprise that Jewish officials acted as they did concerning Jesus.

But it’s grossly unfair — and worse than unfair, murderous, as history has shown — to think that every last Jew was (and is) a “Christ-killer”. And yet this is the slander that has been visited on the Jewish people.         The most notorious antisemites have regularly quoted the New Testament, quoted especially the passage we are examining today, “for fear of THE JEWS”. The conclusion antisemites have drawn is chilling: Jews (all of them, without exception) hated Jesus. Having killed Jesus Christ, Jews must think as little of Christ’s followers as they thought of the master himself.         Therefore THE JEWS are always to be suspected.         Therefore any severity visited upon THE JEWS is deserved, even necessary if we Christians are going to protect ourselves against the subtle, sneaky evil of THE JEWS. For this reason the most murderous antisemitism in history has been churchly antisemitism.

Do I exaggerate? Let’s look more closely at the Middle Ages.         Jewish people were tormented relentlessly throughout the Middle Ages. In the modern era Jewish people have regarded the USA as the next thing to the Promised Land for one reason: the USA has never known a mediaeval period, which period, for the Jewish people, was one, long night.

Jews could be set upon and beaten at any time of the year throughout the Middle Ages. They were always set upon with renewed ferocity during Lent, and especially during the week preceding Easter. Since Holy Week reached a climax on Easter Sunday, Easter — the church’s festival of Christ’s resurrection — became the occasion of climactic savagery inflicted upon the defenceless. THE JEWS had killed Christ, hadn’t they? And Christ in turn had overturned their victimization, hadn’t he?         Then it was time for the victimizers to be victimized themselves, wasn’t it?

I am not exaggerating. Bernard of Clairvaux, whose hymns we love to sing (“Jesus, thou joy of loving hearts…”, for instance); Bernard of Clairvaux wrote vitriolic slander about the Jewish people. John Chrysostom of the Eastern Church (“Chrysostom” means “golden-mouthed”, and the man was given this name inasmuch as he was the finest preacher of his era — the fourth century — and one of its gentlest spirits); John Chrysostom said that Jews were no better than pigs and goats (the goat being the mediaeval symbol of rampant lust); Jewish people deserved whatever murderous treatment was meted out to them. Martin Luther said Jews should be hounded out of the country and their synagogues torched.         On and on it went without letup.

When I purchase milk and bread at the corner variety store, I don’t shout at the Greek storekeeper, “You killed Socrates.”         And when I speak to someone of Italian descent I don’t shout, “You tortured Galileo.” Yet large areas of the church think it permissible and reasonable to say of Jews in any era, “You killed Christ.”

I am particularly sensitive about this issue for two reasons.         One, I am an expert in the centuries-long history of churchly antisemitism; two, I am aware that Jewish people maintain the New Testament itself to be inherently antisemitic.

I can’t do anything about the history.         But I will maintain that I don’t believe the New Testament to be inherently antisemitic. I will admit, however, that there are many passages in it which have been distorted inasmuch as Christians haven’t been careful enough in reading the text.

“The disciples were huddled together for fear of THE JEWS.”         Not for fear of the Jews who had heard Jesus gladly.         But certainly for fear of a handful of religious officials.         The same handful of religious officials has been party to power-brokering in every era. Let’s be sure we understand this and then expunge from our misreading of the gospel every last vestige of antisemitism, which nastiness isn’t in the gospel in any case but may yet lurk in our hearts.

 

                                                                      Part Two

I: — It is while the disciples huddle in fear, afraid of the abuse and torment and untimely death that they have seen Jesus himself suffer; it is while they are immobilized by their fear that the one who has conquered what they still fear steals upon them. They can’t explain how the risen Lord has penetrated their hideout.         Our Lord always reveals himself when and where he wills, in a manner beyond our comprehending. To this day we can’t explain how the risen one looms before any of us; not being able to explain it, however, doesn’t prevent us from knowing it and glorying in it. We can’t comprehend it (in the sense of mastering the logic of it), but we can certainly apprehend it as the risen one apprehends us, seizes us, and we seize him in turn.

As our Lord apprehended the fearful disciples he said, “Peace be with you.” It was the everyday Hebrew greeting. It had the same force as our present-day “Good morning.”

Having greeted the disciples Jesus showed them his hands and side. He did this to establish his identity. The risen one was the crucified one, and the crucified one was the risen one. The risen one hadn’t replaced the crucified one. The risen one wasn’t a ghostly substitute for the crucified one.         The one whom they were mourning was now among them alive.         Whereupon, John tells us, “…the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.”

Of course they rejoiced. To see him was to know that they weren’t bereft of him. To see him was to know that he hadn’t perished finally.         To see him was to know that he hadn’t abandoned them. To see him was to know that since death hadn’t been able to deprive them of him, nothing would ever deprive them of him. As soon as Jesus identified himself to them they rejoiced, for the one in whose company they had ventured for three years they now knew they hadn’t lost.

Whereupon the risen one spoke a second time to them, “Peace be with you.” Why the second time? A minute ago I said that you and I regularly greet each other with “Good morning.”         Do you know the origin of “Good morning?”         “Good morning” originally meant “God’s morning.” When people greeted each other with “God’s morning to you” they were confirming one another in a new day, a new creation, fresh from God’s hand and surrounded by God’s providence and suffused with God’s promises. “God’s morning to you” originally wasn’t the equivalent of “Hi there.” Originally it was an affirmation of the truth and triumph of God in the face of everything in the day ahead that would appear to contradict God’s truth and triumph.

When the risen one said “Peace be with you” the second time he wasn’t saying, “Hi there, fellows.”         He was saying “shalom”, with all that “shalom” meant for the godly Israelite.

What did it mean? “Shalom” means “peace”; but not peace in the minimalist sense of the absence of war; and not peace merely in the privatized sense of inner contentment. Shalom, peace, is salvation.

Centuries before Jesus, Gideon built an altar to remind his people of their deliverance at God’s hand. Gideon named the altar, “The Lord is peace”. Two hundred years later the psalmist wrote (Psalm 27), “The Lord is…my salvation.” What’s the difference between the two statements?         There is no difference. “Peace” (shalom) and “salvation” are synonyms in Hebrew.

At its narrowest salvation was the individual’s deliverance from God’s judgement and her re-creation at God’s hand; at its widest salvation was the restoration of the entire cosmos to what it was before evil invaded it and sin defaced it. Plainly, then, salvation, peace, is the same as the kingdom of God . All three terms mean the same.

When the risen one loomed before his befuddled disciples with “Peace be with you” he was saying, “Fellows, my crucifixion isn’t the negation of the kingdom as you have thought for the last few days; my crucifixion is the foundation-stone of the kingdom.         Because of it, because of what it altered in the commerce between earth and heaven, the kingdom can come fully.         A new day has dawned. God’s morning is now operative. Raised from the dead, I am the pledge and guarantee and cornerstone of that new creation, the reality in which you stand now.”

All of this is gathered up in our Lord’s second utterance of “Peace be with you”. The disciples (who are the first Christian congregation) rejoice to know that shalom, salvation, is present in the master who himself is present.

 

II: — Next our Lord does three things, all three of which arise from the truth and reality of that kingdom which he, the king, guarantees.

(i)         First the risen Jesus commissions the disciples: “As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.”         Just because peace, God’s salvation, is now the operative reality, the disciples can no longer huddle self-protectively.         They have to “body forth” this truth, just as their Lord did before them, and must “body forth” this truth for the same reason that their Lord did: they, like him, have been sent.

(ii)         Secondly, our Lord equips them for the mission on which they have been sent.         “Receive the Holy Spirit.”         The Holy Spirit is the presence and power of God equipping men and women for the work to which God has appointed them.         Because the disciples are now Spirit-suffused they don’t have to generate the power or the effectiveness or the results of their mission. Because they are now Spirit-suffused they don’t have to worry about its outcome. All they have to concern themselves with is their own obedience.         Having been sent, they must go; having been commissioned, they must do.

(iii)         Thirdly, our Lord charges them most solemnly: “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

“Just a minute”, someone objects, “only God can forgive sin, since sin is a violation of God by definition.         Didn’t the psalmist write, “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned”?

It’s all true. Since God is uniquely victimized in our sin only God can forgive us our sin.         Then what does Jesus mean when he charges the disciples, “Those whose sin you forgive is forgiven, and those whose sin you retain is retained”? He means that where and when the disciples obediently declare in word and deed the gospel of the crucified and risen saviour, the Spirit empowers their proclamation; and wherever the Spirit empowers gospel-proclamation, hearers are confronted with the risen one himself; and whenever they are confronted with Jesus Christ they can cast themselves on him and know peace, salvation, life in the kingdom of God.         On the other hand, if the disciples fail to announce the gospel, then Jesus Christ isn’t known, isn’t clung to, isn’t cherished as saviour — all of which means that men and women are left in their sinnership. And since the disciples are the first Christian congregation, whatever is said of them is said of all congregations. If through the gospel-witness of the congregation of Schomberg Presbyterian Church people find themselves alive unto God because forgiven, they are forgiven and alive indeed; and if through the congregation’s non-witness people are spiritually inert, they remain inert.

“Surely not”, someone objects again.         “Surely there isn’t this much depending on the disciples’ honouring their commission and Spirit-empowerment and charge. Surely the most that the text can mean is that through the ministry of the congregation people are brought to an awareness of God’s forgiveness; and if the congregation falls down in its proclamation then people aren’t brought to any such awareness.”         But this isn’t what the text says, and this isn’t what our Lord means. He means exactly what he says: where and when the congregation fulfils the mandate it received on Easter morning from the hand of the crucified one himself; where and when the congregation fulfils its mandate people are admitted to the salvation God has wrought for them; and where the congregation fumbles its mandate, people are not.         In other words, the congregation has an indispensable role in God’s economy. And because we have an indispensable role in the economy of salvation, we have an unavoidable responsibility.

Our foreparents in faith knew this.         Our contemporaries frequently do not.         For this reason we continue to hear that the church “has had its day”. Tell me, how can the church’s “day” have passed as long as people sin and God is the just judge and the day of repentance hasn’t been foreclosed?

I was ordained in 1970. On the morning of the evening’s ordination service a group of ministers sitting in a coffee shop invited me to join them, since I was only hours from being admitted to their club. These clergymen joked blasphemously with each other as to who believed the least concerning the substance of the historic Christian faith.         My own pastor, assuming an all-knowing air, opined that the church’s day was indeed over. The reason the church was obsolete? The rise of the social sciences and the welfare state.         The sociologist, the psychotherapist, the social worker, the parole officer, even the welfare clerk had together rendered the church obsolete. A few months ago a dental specialist who had my mouth wedged open for an hour and half (thus rendering me incapable of replying) told me repeatedly that he used to “support” the church (whatever that means) but did no longer because society had matured beyond the church.         Any society has matured beyond the gospel?         It’s preposterous to say that spiritually destitute people have matured beyond their need of the mercy of Jesus Christ; it’s sheer ignorance (and a mark of spiritual obtuseness) to think therefore that the congregation is without indispensable role and unavoidable responsibility.

Let me say it again. Where and when the church falters in its declaration of the gospel, in word and deed, then Jesus Christ isn’t known. Where he isn’t known he can’t be apprehended. Where he isn’t apprehended the salvation which he is is slighted, he himself isn’t obeyed, and false gods continue to be pursued.

 

III: — What does all of this add up to for us today?

(i)         We must be sure we understand that while the peace, shalom, salvation, which our risen Lord is is ultimately cosmic in scope, it becomes operative in individuals individually.         Therefore we must each surrender ourselves to our Lord or consecrate ourselves to him anew. Anything else is but to trifle with him.

(ii)         We must ever own the congregation’s vocation concerning the gospel: the congregation has an indispensable role in God’s economy, and because it has an indispensable role it also has an unavoidable responsibility. The congregation’s mission is charged with eternal significance for those who are the beneficiaries of the congregation’s work and witness.

(iii)         We must put behind us forever all foolish, frivolous and faithless talk as to whether or not the church is now obsolete or currently irrelevant or senescently insignificant.         We must put all such faithless talk behind us, since men and women are sinners, since God is both undeflectable judge and merciful saviour, since God’s patience isn’t exhausted and the day of repentance isn’t foreclosed. Nothing has greater relevance, significance and efficacy than the church on account of the gospel entrusted to it.

(iv)         We must search our own hearts.         What are we about, ultimately?         What thrills us profoundly? What saddens us? disgusts us? What forms and informs our commitments, our moods, our aspirations?         What calls forth our sacrifice?         What are we about finally?

(v)         Lastly, we must assess all that we do in church life, from Board of Managers to Sunday School to Session.         Does it all honour God by magnifying that Son whom he gave up to death and raised for us? Does it all honour God by magnifying that Son who has commissioned and equipped and charged this congregation as surely as he did the disciples, the first congregation?

When the fearful disciples discerned the risen Lord in their midst, their fear evaporated and their hearts rejoiced.         For myself, and for you as well, I want always to discern the selfsame Lord, know the same release, and manifest the same joy.

                                                                                               Victor Shepherd                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 March 2008

 

        John 20:24-28      Isaiah 49:13-16         

 

I: — “That food chemist certainly knows peanuts.” When we say that a food chemist knows peanuts we mean that he has investigated the chemical properties of the peanut. And having ascertained its chemical properties, he can now do many different things with the peanut. He can produce peanut oil for cooking, or a fine lubricant for delicate engines, or petfood, or plant fertilizer. To know a thing is to be able to manipulate that thing, program different uses of that thing, control that thing; ultimately, to change that thing.

“Maureen (my wife) certainly knows Victor.” When someone says that surely the speaker means more, much more, than “Maureen is aware that Victor is fond of books, listens to all kinds of music, prefers vegetables to meat, and rides his bicycle absent-mindedly.” Surely the speaker means more than “Maureen is more aware of Victor’s peculiarities than most others are.” Surely the speaker means…. What exactly does the speaker mean?

In 1923 Martin Buber, a superb Jewish thinker, wrote a brief but pregnant book, I And Thou. In the book Buber distinguished two kinds of relating, “I-it” and I-thou”.

 

(i) “I-it” refers to a subject investigating an object. These three words are crucial: “subject”, “investigating”, “object”. (For “investigating” we could substitute “experiencing”, “probing”, “analyzing”, “controlling”.)

George Washington Carver is esteemed as the researcher whose scientific investigations of the peanut exposed the “inner workings” of the peanut, with the result that scores of uses were found for the peanut beyond eating it out of the shell at a baseball game. As George Washington Carver unlocked the secrets of the peanut, scores of industries developed around the manufacture of peanut products.

Make no mistake: “I-it” relationships are important. Without them there would be no science (since science is “subject investigating object”), no industry, no commerce, no civilization.

Let’s pause here for a moment and note several features of “I-it” relationships:

“I-it” entails investigating something that is below us in the
created order; i.e., investigating something that is non-person.

“I-it” aims at mastering something, mastering it so thoroughly
that it yields its “secrets”.

“I-it” attempts to harness the “secrets” it has pried out, harness
them so as to use them and ultimately profit from them.

“I-it” entails de-mystification. As the secrets of something are
pried out of it, that object becomes less-and-less mysterious (in
the everyday sense of “mysterious”.

“I-it” has to do with the question, “What is it?”

Think of electricity. For primitive people electricity (lightning was the only form of it they were aware of) was simply terrifying. Then as electricity was investigated its secrets were pried out, it was harnessed so as to be used for both refrigeration and cooking, for communications broadcasting and for navigation. As electricity was mastered, harnessed, used and rendered profitable, it was de-mystified.

 

(ii) Martin Buber also spoke of “I-thou” relationships. “I-thou” is never subject-investigating-object; “I-thou” is always subject-meeting-subject, subject-encountering-subject.

Let’s pause for a moment and note several features of “I-thou” relationships:

“I-thou” has to do not with operating on something that is below
us in the created order, but rather has to do with encountering
someone who, is on our level of the created order (person, spirit)
or even above us in the created order (Spirit).

“I-thou” does not aim at mastery, domestication, control, harnessing;
above all, “I-thou” does not profit from the relationship, does not exploit it.

“I-thou”, so far from becoming less mysterious, becomes
more mysterious. Whereas the more we understand the properties
of a peanut the less mysterious it becomes, the more we “know” a
person, the more mysterious she becomes.

At the level of “I-it” I possess information about neurology and brain chemistry; at the level of “I-thou” I meet a person whose mind (“heart”) can never be reduced to his brain or to anything about him quantifiable by the life-sciences or social sciences.

At the level of “I-it” I possess information about hormones and body chemistry; at the level of “I-thou” I encounter a person whose mystery is magnified by the immeasurable depths of sexual fusion.

At the level of “I-it” I study theology and accumulate much information about God. At the level of “I-thou” I meet him of whom theology speaks. Even if information about God (doctrine) is essential to our meeting God himself, “information about” and “meeting” are categorically distinct.

I said a minute ago that at the level of “I-it” we are always asking the question, “What is it?”. At the level of “I-thou”, however we don’t ask a different question; rather, we don’t ask any question at all. We simply recognize; we acknowledge. “I recognize you; I know you; I have met you.”

If ever we try to control that person, manipulate her, use her, profit from her, we turn her into an “it”, an object. The worst form of this, of course, is slavery. Slavery reduces a person to a tool to be exploited and experimented with. To be free, on the other hand, is to be a person, a spirit, a subject in dialogue with other human spirits, able to recognize and be recognized. Ultimate freedom is to be a subject in dialogue with the Subject, the Spirit, God himself.

Martin Buber gathered it all up in one pithy statement: “All real living is meeting”.

 

(iii) We must say more about the difference between “I-it” and “I-thou”. The kind of knowing that pertains to “I-it” is subject-transforming-object. To know electricity is to turn it into air-conditioning or house-heating or radio-broadcasting. The kind of knowing that pertains to “I-thou”, by contrast, is subject-being-transformed. To know my wife is to be transformed by my wife.

This point is crucial. If someone were to ask me, “Do you know your wife?”, and I were to reply, “Sure, I know her; she is an able schoolteacher who wishes she were taller, enjoys music and gardening and leaves dishwater in the sink” — if that’s all I said then I shouldn’t know her at all, according to Buber, because what I have said is mere information about my wife as object. According to Buber the measure of how well I know my wife is the change I have undergone through years of meeting her. My knowledge of my wife is the alteration she has effected in me. My knowledge of my wife is the difference she has made in me. If after thirty years of meeting my wife I am no different, then I’ve never known her, regardless of how much information I’ve gained about her.

This point is crucial in that it’s the exact opposite of what our society thinks. Our society thinks that to know another person, really get to know him, is to be able to change him. Buber says that to know another person — profoundly to know someone else as person — is to be changed ourselves.

How did Buber come up with this? Through reading the bible. Buber was a biblical thinker pre-eminently. To be sure, he acquired a reputation as a philosopher, but he used to say, with a twinkle in his eye, “I’m only a philosopher as much as I need to be, when I need to be. I’m a biblical thinker characteristically.”

Buber took seriously God’s cry to Jeremiah, “My people don’t know me; they have uncircumcised hearts!” In other words, if Israel genuinely knew God, Israel herself would be different. If Israel genuinely knew God, Israel would have a heart that has been so changed as to throb with the heart of God.

Over and over in the Hebrew bible God weeps before the prophets, “This people doesn’t know me!” God doesn’t mean that Israel lacks information about him. Why, Israel is the world’s best theologian! (Can even talk to God in his native language!) “These people doesn’t know me” means “These people are no different themselves.”

I know my wife precisely to the extent that meeting her as person has altered me profoundly.

 

II: — It’s plain that such knowledge is linked to intimacy; and intimacy is born of vulnerability.

I’m not suggesting for a minute that we should now decided to “become vulnerable” for the sake of intimacy. Caution is always in order here. Anyone who suddenly decides to become “intimate” has a psychological problem with impulsivity. At the same time, anyone so craves intimacy as to be driven to look for it everywhere has a psychological problem with compulsivity. Intimacy shouldn’t be sought impulsively or compulsively.

In fact it shouldn’t be sought at all. It should happen only as we are able to trust someone else. To the extent that we trust that person we dare to risk ourselves with him. As we risk ourselves with that person (and he with us) intimacy is forged. Whereupon we find we can trust this person even more, risk ourselves in even greater vulnerability, and find even greater intimacy. Finally the day comes when we trust someone unreservedly, risk ourselves unconditionally, and are intimate inexpressibly. If someone then asks us to explain not the process I have just described but the reality of “meeting”, the reality of encounter, we shall stammer out a few inept expressions and quickly admit that the reality of “meeting” can’t be so much as explained, let alone explained away.

The cross is the climax of God’s action and God’s self-disclosure. The cross of our Lord Jesus Christ means so much that its significance can never be exhausted. Yet it always means this much at least: there is no limit to God’s vulnerability. The cross means that God exposes his own heart, risks himself defencelessly. There is simply no limit to God’s vulnerability.

If the cross of Jesus means no limit to vulnerability, then what does the resurrection of Jesus mean? According to the scripture it means there is no limit to the effectiveness of such vulnerability.

This is a most important truth that the church always manages to get wrong. Customarily the church has said that Jesus was wholly vulnerable on Good Friday; come Easter Sunday, however, it was all put behind him. On Easter he put his cross, his suffering, behind him, and he has never looked back. Oh yes, he had a bad day one Friday, but he got over it. His resurrection means he has transcended his crucifixion, gone beyond it, and triumphed gloriously in the sense of having forgotten it.

This is wrong. According to the apostles Easter doesn’t mean that the cross is left behind; it means that the cross is made victorious. Easter doesn’t mean that our Lord’s suffering is a closed chapter of his life; it means that his on-going suffering is victorious. How can we overlook the fact that Jesus is raised wounded? The church reads right past John’s gospel where we are told that our Lord is raised with his wounds still visible. The church assumes that Jesus is raised healed. No! He’s raised wounded! Which is to say, he is raised suffering still. Think of Paul on the road to Damascus. He’s been persecuting Christ’s people. Yet when the risen One accosts him, he isn’t asked, “Why are you persecuting those people?”, nor even, “Why are you persecuting my people”? The risen One asks him, “Why are you persecuting me?” Christ’s resurrection means that his wounds rendered effective; his wounds gain us admission to his Father’s heart; his wounds, rendered effective by the resurrection, are what arrests Paul. It is the ongoing vulnerability of Jesus Christ, the ongoing vulnerability of Son and Father alike, that is now the leading edge of God’s victory in the world in the face of the world’s resistance.

If Easter ever meant that God’s vulnerability was now behind him, never again to be found in him, Easter could only mean that you and I should also put our vulnerability behind us, as we now built fort after fort around ourselves. But to shun vulnerability is to render intimacy impossible. On the other hand, to believe in the resurrection of Jesus is to be sure that vulnerability, and the intimacy born of it, will never finally be fruitless.

 

IV: — I am frequently asked, “Is intimacy easier to find in friendships than in marriage?” I always say, “No”. Surely it’s easier to find intimacy in marriage for two reasons. One, two people who are married to each other are in each other’s company much more of the time than are even the best of friends. Two, the intimacy of marriage cannot be misinterpreted the way the intimacy of a friendship could be misinterpreted, the way the intimacy of friendship could find itself crossing lines that ought not to be crossed. Therefore genuine, untroubled intimacy is easier to find in marriage than in friendship; at least in principle.

Yes, at least in principle! When we move from principle to actuality, however, the sad truth is that there are countless people whose marriages are relatively impoverished while their friendships are rich. If someone’s marriage is out-and-out terrible, any friendship is going to involve greater intimacy than the non-intimacy of a wholly dysfunctional marriage.

In this regard I often think of David and his wife Michal as compared to David and his friend Jonathan. David and Michal did not get along. She looked upon him as a buffoon; he found her to be a shrill stick-in-the-mud. (Michal wasn’t David’s only wife, to be sure, but still, she was his wife, for the purposes of our discussion.) On the other hand we are told, in 1^st Samuel, that “the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul”, then in 2^nd Samuel, “David loved Jonathan as he loved his own soul”. It’s plain that David found in his friendship with Jonathan what he never found in his marriage with Michal.

The question frequently put to me is, “Is intimacy easier to find in friendships than in marriage?” In principle, no; in practice, often yes, given the poverty of some marriages and the richness of some friendships.

But whether in marriage or in friendship, there is no intimacy without vulnerability. Resurrection never means that vulnerability has been left behind; resurrection means that vulnerability will never be fruitless finally.

IV: — If “all real living is meeting”, as Buber said, then what happens when people no longer meet? Where are we when relationships break down and vulnerability seems little more than an open wound?

 

We are devastated. We are devastated most when relationships break down because of betrayal. Nothing hurts like betrayal of trust. (Not only that, while we may forgive and should forgive the person who has betrayed us, whether we should ever trust her again is another question. Forgiveness and trust are not the same issue; many people whom we forgive we shall never be able to trust. We should trust only the trustworthy.)

Even where there is no betrayal the breakdown of a relationship is painful. And relationships do break down where there is no treachery, simply where two people grow farther and farther apart until they are no longer in each other’s orbits.

We all live in a particular orbit. My orbit and Maureen’s overlap very largely. At the same time, my orbit does not include the Peel Board of Education; her orbit does not include late mediaeval, early 16^th century, and 18^th century scholarship. If our orbits overlapped completely we’d bore each other; yet if our orbits didn’t overlap significantly we’d no longer be part of each other’s lives. Intimacy thrives in the area of overlap. As people involve themselves in the world their orbits change. Sometimes their orbits change so much that husband and wife, or friend and friend, wake up one day and discover that their lives no longer overlap at all. Frequently it’s found that lives no longer overlap on account of sin: sin flirted with, sin protracted, sin seared on heart and life, sin deadening what used to be alive. Try as people might, in many cases, the relationship can’t be reinvigorated. It appears dead. What then?

I am not an infallible guide as to when a relationship is dead; not limping, not sick, but dead. At the same time, I am aware that some relationships do die.

If a relationship is indeed dead, then the only sensible thing to do is to bury it. There is no virtue in staring at a corpse indefinitely. The only thing to do with a corpse is bury it; bury it, and await the resurrection of the dead.

Then we must cling all the more tightly to him who will never fail us, forsake us, or forget us. Of all the bonds that are forged in life there are few stronger, if any stronger, than the bond between mother and newborn, nursing infant. It seems so strong as to be unbreakable — almost; for there have been desperate, tragic situations where the bond between mother and nursing infant was sundered and mother “forgot” infant. The prophet Jeremiah came upon some people who wailed that God had forgotten them. Through the prophet God asked them, “Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have graven you on the palms of my hands.”

When relationships break down we must cling to him who never “forgets” us. As we cling to him we shall find that someone is brought into the orbit of our life where once again orbits overlap, vulnerability gives rise to intimacy, and “meeting” each other is cherished.

Martin Buber had it right: all real living is meeting.

Of all God’s good gifts the most precious is God’s gift of himself in Christ Jesus his son. Him we have been invited to know. To know him, however, is to say that our meeting our Lord has altered us and will continue to alter until that day when the arrears of sin are no longer found in us and we are found before him without spot or blemish.

 

                                                                                                   Victor Shepherd
March 2000

John 21:1-19

I: — What do people do when they are let down terribly?  What do people do when they suffer enormous loss and are bereaved beyond telling? They can do several things.

They can deny their loss; i.e., consciously deny the significance of their loss or unconsciously deny the fact of their loss.  They can put on a false face and pretend that everything is as rosy as ever. Conscious and unconscious denial, however, exact a terrible price psychologically.  Denial renders people become inwardly bent and outwardly lame.

Or people who suffer enormous loss can simply be overwhelmed by it; so overwhelmed as to be frozen, immobilised by it.  Life stops for them. This is a living death.

Or people who suffer enormous loss can admit their loss, own their pain and endure their disappointment.         They can admit, own, endure, and go back to work.  They can begin doing once more what they have customarily done in the past. The job they have worked at they continue to work at.  This is by far the healthiest response.  It’s the best thing that any bereaved person can do.
My wife Maureen and I often comment on the fact that when my mother was Maureen’s age my mother had been a widow for eleven years.  At the time she was widowed my mother was working part-time and was content to work part-time. One week after my father’s death, however, she was working full-time.  My father had left her an insurance payout of $1000 (1967).  After funeral expenses she had $200.  The decision to work full-time was a decision my mother arrived at quickly after little deliberation: if she didn’t work, she didn’t eat. She often joked about riding the subway train to work, packed so tightly into the rush-hour car that if she had fainted she couldn’t have fallen down, her face pressed into the back of a tall man’s rain-soaked woollen overcoat, everything smelling like wet dog. She also says that what she had to do was the best thing she could have done: work.

And this is what the disciples did in the wake of the death of Jesus. They went back to fishing. They had been rocked by the events in the last week of Jesus’s life, shattered by the ending of that life. Worst of all, they felt themselves deluded, self-deluded, as gullible as kindergarten-age children. “How could we have been so naïve?”, they asked each other incredulously, “Our earlier enthusiasm for the mission was as groundless as a mirage in the desert. How could we have been so simple-minded, so silly about ‘The Messiah’?   We aren’t suggestible people.  Then how were we swept up in the tide of exuberance and ardour?   Worse still, how many others have we misled?  How ardently have we commended to any who would hear us what has dribbled away without trace like water in the sand?”

All of us – you, I, and everyone else – all of us are eager to think ourselves sophisticated.  We hate being “suckered” as we hate little else.  All of us like to think we are worldly-wise, able to identify hucksters and charlatans and outright phoneys.  We shudder at being thought as naïve as a child standing wide-eyed and open-mouthed in front of a magician.  There’s no humiliation like the humiliation of public benightedness.

And there’s no humiliation like the humiliation of being taken in religiously. Who doesn’t feel sorry for the person who, perchance at a moment of unusual need or unforeseen vulnerability, makes a religious declaration that strikes us as hugely overblown or espouses a religious cause that’s plainly exaggerated? We share the embarrassment of that person who, months later, feels she “went off the deep end.” What do such people do next? If they are wise they put their embarrassment behind them and simply get on with the business of everyday living.

A minute ago I spoke of bereavement, of loss.  We mustn’t think that jarring loss is loss of loved one only.         There are bereavements everywhere in life.  There are familiar scenarios and situations that are so very familiar as to appear unlosable. But they are lost! Not merely a familiar scenario and situation can be lost but even a familiar world. Someone’s entire world can be lost, and lost more quickly and more thoroughly than she would ever have thought; than she would ever have thought, that is, until the day it was lost.  She always thought she knew how the world turned and what made it turn. Then one day she found out. The day she found out — the day of her shattering disappointment —  was also the day she was bereft of her world.

Denial won’t help. Immobility won’t help. The only thing to do is also the best thing to do: go back to work.         If our work is the work of a homemaker, it’s still work: children have to be fed, the schoolteacher dealt with, the haemorrhaging husband bandaged.

“I’m going fishing”, said Peter; “We’ll go with you”, the rest chimed in; “What else is there to do?”  Back to fishing they went.

 

II: — It’s while they are fishing that Jesus appears to them.  They don’t recognise him. Of course they don’t. In the first place, they aren’t expecting him; in the second, they’re fishing. None of us can be conscientious in our daily work and “be looking for Jesus” at the same time. Besides, where would we look? The men and women who tighten wheel nuts on cars in Oakville or Oshawa aren’t standing around, looking for Jesus.

Still, despite all non-expectations the risen Lord steals upon the disciples and startles them. He speaks. As he speaks, Peter recognises the One he’d put behind him forever – he thought.

It still happens. William Sloane Coffin, among other things chaplain at Yale University for 17 years, and before that an officer with United States military intelligence; Coffin was raised by a wealthy, socialite family that recognised his prodigious talent as a child pianist and prepared him for a career on the concert stage. His family provided no Christian formation at all. When Coffin was an adolescent his best friend died suddenly.  Coffin wasn’t sure why he was going to the funeral, but went anyway, if only to curse the God he didn’t believe in.  Sitting through the funeral service he mysteriously found himself addressed: “Whose life is it, anyway?  What makes you think you’re the measure of the universe?”  He emerged from the funeral service turned around for life, retiring a few years ago as minister of Riverside Church , New York City.

A friend of mine; his parents couldn’t get him to church regardless of what technique they deployed.  This fellow – atheist, sceptic, cynic – went to university to pursue a program in Honour English.  Naturally enough his program required him to read English criticism, including criticism of mediaeval English.  Scholars in this field opened up literary riches to him, cultural wealth he hadn’t known to exist. One such scholar was C.S. Lewis, Cambridge Professor of Mediaeval and Renaissance English. Soon he moved from reading Lewis’s formal academic writings to Lewis’s popular Christian writings. And like Peter of old he came to say, “It is the Lord.”

Neither of the two men I’ve mentioned was expecting any such thing. Both were immersed in everyday matters. Yet both were addressed. In the course of being addressed both came to know who had addressed them.

The apostle John adds a comment to his resurrection narrative that we read this morning: “This was the third time that Jesus was revealed to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.”  The third time? Why was a third time necessary? Weren’t the previous two times enough? First the risen Jesus had appeared to the eleven in the upper room when they were fearful. Then he had appeared to them with Thomas when they were doubting.  And after two such appearances the disciples still want to go back fishing? The truth is, all of us always stand in need of a new visitation from our Lord and a new word from him. We never get beyond needing yet another apprehension and word.

Maureen and I have been married for 37 years.  Even so, a dozen times a week we ask each other, “Do you love me?” I don’t think for a minute we are insecure in our relationship.  I don’t think for a minute that our marriage is at risk and I might go home Monday evening only to find Maureen’s shoes no longer under the bed. Then why do we ask each other, “Do you love me?”, as often as we do?  It’s because both she and I live and work in jarring, turbulent environments where it’s easy to see there are many people who aren’t loved; easy to see there are many people who were once loved; easy to see that love is scarce in the world.  Therefore it’s all the more important to meet each other yet again, affirm each other once more, declare and exhibit and embody our mutual love as often as we need to; better, as often as we can.

We shouldn’t be surprised at the third appearance of Jesus. Before you and I are finished our Lord will have to visit us 300 times.  Needy as we are, our need is never greater than his grace.

 

III: — Yet our Lord does more than visit us again and renew our life with him once more. He also puts a question to us, the same question he put to Peter: “Do you love me more than these?” The Greek word for “love” that Jesus uses here is strong: it’s love in the sense of total self-giving, total self-outpouring, thorough self-forgetfulness, utter self-abandonment.  It’s the word used of God himself, “for God so loved the world that he gave – himself, utterly, without remainder or regret – in his Son.”

“Do you love me like that”, the master says to Peter; “Do you love me more than these other fellows love me?” Now Peter is shaken. “These other fellows” were present, one week earlier, when Peter told Jesus that these fellows might crumble, cowards, when the crunch came, but he, Peter, “the rock”, would remain steadfastly loyal, brave and true.  Then these fellows saw Peter fall all over himself. Now they are watching him. So shaken is Peter that he can’t answer the master’s question.  He can only blurt, head down, “You know that I love you.”

The English translations of our bible hide something crucial: Peter doesn’t use the same word for “love” that Jesus has used.  Peter uses a weaker word. Jesus has said, “Are you willing to sign yourself over to me, abandon yourself to me, never looking back?”   Peter is nervous now about vowing anything this large, since the last time he vowed something large he disgraced himself.  And so now Peter replies, “You know that I’m fond of you; you know that I care for you.”

Jesus asks a second time, “Do you love me?”, using again the strongest word for “love” that there is.  Now Peter is in pain. As if his pain weren’t enough, he’s asked a third time, “Do you love me?” – only this time Jesus uses Peter’s word, Peter’s weaker word. “Simon, are you truly fond of me? Do you really care for me? If this is as much as you can honestly say, will you say this much?”   Peter replies, “You know everything; you know that I care for you.” After each question and answer Jesus says to Peter, “Feed my sheep.”  It’s a commission, an invitation and a promise: “Feed my sheep.”

I am and continue to be a disciple not because of superior insight or unusual loyalty or extraordinary grip on Jesus Christ.  Like Peter I’m a disciple only because my Lord keeps coming to me, keeps speaking to me, and continues to hold me with a grip greater than my grip on him. And when he says, “Victor, do you love me?”, I don’t jump up and say, “Of course I do! Isn’t it obvious? Have a look!”  I don’t say this because, like Peter, I’ve heard the rooster crow. Instead I barely manage to croak, but do manage to croak, “You know that I care for you.” Never has he said, “Not good enough; see me in six months.”  Always he has said, “Feed my sheep.”

Now you mustn’t think I’m discouraged or depressed or immobilised or even suffering from low self-esteem.         On the contrary, the master’s question, “Do you love me?” plus his commission, “Feed my sheep” are a double safeguard.  In the first place we are safeguarded against spiritual presumption. “Of course I love you. My faith is proverbial, my obedience faultless, my life exemplary.”   The question Jesus puts to us repeatedly just because he has to put it to us repeatedly; this question spares us a spiritual presumptuousness as repugnant as it is false.

At the same time his commission, “Feed my sheep”, reinforced relentlessly, safeguards us against despondency and uselessness.   He has promised that whatever we do in obedience to him; whatever we undertake in his name will become food for his sheep.  We aren’t asked to be super-achievers or heroic or even merely impressive; we need only be faithful, and our faithfulness, even when pot-holed like Peter’s, he will yet use to expand his own life within his own people. For our Lord’s commission, “Feed my sheep”, is more than a commission; it’s more even than an invitation; it’s a promise: we can feed his sheep, and we shall, just because he, unlike us, keeps the promises he makes.

The last word to Peter is, “Follow me.”  To follow our risen Lord means that he asks us to go only where he has already been himself.  He asks us to do only what he has already done himself.  He asks us to intercede on behalf of the world only as he has already interceded on its behalf himself.  To follow him means that we are never appointed to a work whose venue and environment he hasn’t already prepared for us.  To follow him means that he’s forever drawing us to himself, never driving us on ahead of him. To follow him means that our obedience always decreases the distance between him and us; only our disobedience can ever increase the distance. To follow him means that his word of pardon and freedom and encouragement is a much louder word and a more penetrating sound than the raucous screech of the rooster. To follow is simply to know that our Lord will ever use us to feed others in ways that we cannot see and don’t have to see.

 

He who appeared to disciples so very long ago with a word, a question and a promise will continue to come to you and me.  His word will let us recognise him.  His question will save us from any suggestion of superiority.  And his promise, “Feed my sheep”, will ensure that we do just that.

                                                                                            Victor Shepherd                                                                                                                                        

Easter 2006