Real Peace. Real People.

Daniel 7:2–7, 13–14 Daniel said: “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me were the four winds of heaven churning up the great sea. 3 Four great beasts, each different from the others, came up out of the sea. 4 “The first was like a lion, and it had the wings of an eagle. I watched until its wings were torn off and it was lifted from the ground so that it stood on two feet like a human being, and the mind of a human was given to it. 5 “And there before me was a second beast, which looked like a bear. It was raised up on one of its sides, and it had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth. It was told, ‘Get up and eat your fill of flesh!’ 6 “After that, I looked, and there before me was another beast, one that looked like a leopard. And on its back it had four wings like those of a bird. This beast had four heads, and it was given authority to rule. 7 “After that, in my vision at night I looked, and there before me was a fourth beast—terrifying and frightening and very powerful. It had large iron teeth; it crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left. It was different from all the former beasts, and it had ten horns. 13 “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. 14 He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed. 15 “I, Daniel, was troubled in spirit, and the visions that passed through my mind disturbed me.

For a time earlier this week, it seemed like the internet was going to melt with accounts and stories and videos of Paris and its attacks. None caught my attention quite like the one I read of a young man who walked the streets of Paris hours just after the attacks. He said, “I went out into the streets. I was confused and afraid, of course. But the terrible things that had happened — I wanted to see them for myself, breathe them in, walk among them. It was a little past 11 and the streets were deserted, silent. Paris no longer existed. Paris had fallen… there was war.” After his walk he went home and when he arrived he bumped into his neighbor and after a more intense, knowing greeting than usual she exclaimed, “This is the end! Where are we going to live now?” That question caused him to go back to his apartment and write. He wanted to try to answer that question, but he couldn’t. He got to the end of his article and he was still at a loss writing, “Where are we going to live now? I still don’t know how to answer.”

Daniel didn’t either. Really. He didn’t. And, yeah, this is the same Daniel that by faith made kittens out of hungry lions in an event that was immortalized as Daniel and the Lion’s Den even before Veggie Tales got a hold of it. This is that Daniel. The Daniel that had been swept away from his homeland in an international resettlement campaign. The Daniel that had lived through the turmoil of seeing his friends get tossed into a fiery furnace, and the Daniel that had almost been offed when Nebuchadnezzar went cra cra on the people he wanted to interpret his dreams. This is that Daniel. We’re talking about one of the best educated and most faith-filled men in history. Bar none. We’re talking about a guy who had seen and experienced regime change and was emotionally mature in the best of ways. We’re talking about a wise and powerful statesman, who was probably in his mid-sixties. That’s why you get the definite impression that the way Daniel was feeling after this vision was totally out of character for him. Listen to how he self-reports his experience here. “I, Daniel, was troubled in spirit, and the visions that passed through my mind disturbed me.” (v. 15)

Even the experienced, brilliant statesman. Even the faith-filled and mature man. Even Daniel was troubled. And he doesn’t spare you the details about his emotional and spiritual state here. He’s actually very comprehensive about it. He said he was troubled in spirit and his mind disturbed him. He was saying, “I’ve not only got a horrible feeling deep down in my gut about this vision of world history, but also my mind is spinning all over the place because of it.” Emotionally he was out of whack. Rationally he was struggling. And as the chapter progresses it gets no better for Daniel. By the end of the chapter the poor guy’s inner anxiety even causes physiological symptoms. His face greys and he emotionally shuts down. He simply says, “This is the end of the matter… I kept the matter to myself.” (v. 28) In other words, “I can’t deal with this. I need to shut down. Daniel out!” It’s enough to make you want to say, “Poor Daniel. Will someone help his troubled soul out?”

And do you know when the Spirit shows us this downer Daniel in this book? Just as we’re fresh off the joy and the victory of the lion’s den experience. Literally the last lines of chapter six read, “He has rescued Daniel from the power of the lions. So Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus the Persian.” (6:27–28) And after you read that you’re thinking, “Sweet! Tell me more. Regimes will change. Kingdoms will rise and fall and everything will be ok for the people of faith.” And fresh off that victory. Fresh off that real confidence giving story comes a vision that inspires fears of the worst kind. Beasts rise and they’re beasts for a reason. The beasts represent predatory nations and powers. Lion-like, bear-like, and leopard-like nations rise, but the last preditorial nation? It’s the worst. It seems Daniel is so overwhelmed by its power and its devastating behavior that he doesn’t even seem able to give it an animal type, a species.  Every other kind of beast has an animal type and temperament in the vision. Except the last one. It’s so powerful and venomous and destructive that it has no animal type. It seems to be its own kind of special evil.

Now I suppose I could rattle off for you the nation states Daniel is seeing here. I suppose we could step back and do world history 101 and I could point out what an accurate prophecy Daniel give us here. I suppose I could lecture to you about Babylonian magnificence, Persian opulence, Alexander the Great’s military conquests, and then go on and on about destructive Roman power – exactly the nations and powers Daniel sees here. I suppose I could do that, but I think probably what’s more important for our purposes today and closer to what the Spirit’s after is not a dry and academic understanding of the twists and turns of ruling nations in history. What the Spirit wants us to know in a very real and very personal way is that until the end of time predatory governments and leaders will even hurt God’s people. Like when a Russian airliner gets downed on a flight from an Egyptian resort. Like when Paris reels. Like when presidential debates turn on a dime and good candidates rise only to fall. Like when policy makers don’t know whether to help weary Syrian refugees or risk taking in Syrian terrorists. Like when Fox News rages or MSNBC spins over the latest and the greatest political moment. Like when never again never seems to actually be now.

That’s the kind of stuff that makes our heads spin and our stomachs knot up. Just like it did for Daniel. Because we understand that nation state history is never something that only happens around us. It’s always something that happens to us. We all get that at a deep level. There’s a reason why what happened in Paris didn’t stay in Paris. There’s a reason why it seemed like that event hacked all our Facebook feeds and lit up all our Twitter accounts. There’s a reason why we have our cable TV news stations droning on in our living rooms and talk radio filling the cabins of our cars. There’s a reason why we even had people at our Aiken County Council meeting saying, “Given our close proximity to the Savannah River Site… we’re a prime target for terrorists looking to do us harm.” We’re afraid. We’re afraid that as history happens to us that it will harm us and our land and the ones we love. That if we don’t manage to get the right president or have the right policy response or employ the correct military strategy that some governmental or systemic predator will attack us in unthinkable and horrible ways.

And that’s why immediately after God describes the predators, he gives the prophetic promise. It’s a prophetic promise that’s nothing short of one of Scripture’s greatest and most memorable so much so that it forms the backbone of much of what the New Testament has to say about God’s ruling activity among us. And it’s not hard to understand why. It’s a prophesy that says that a certain figure will come not only to check predatory and beastly powers, but to defang and destroy them. That figure? Shockingly? That figure is one, “like a son of man.” (v. 13) Which, honestly, on its face sounds totally unexceptional and completely boring. It’s just a person who looks like a normal guy. Like a plumber or a mechanic or someone who pushes paper in some office. Just a person who looks like a normal guy. We only find out that this figure is someone special when we see his ride. That’s when it gets interesting because we find out that this guy is, “coming with the clouds of heaven.” (v. 13) Not on a jet. Not in Benz or an Aston Martin. The clouds of heaven. Do you see what that means? That means he’s not only self-propelled, he’s also self-levitating. And since he’s that, he might as well prove to us that manipulating the weather systems and messing with the cloud patterns is child’s play for him so he rides them right into the presence of the Ancient Days, God himself.

And then as if this cloud riding doesn’t make it clear who and what this figure is Daniel specifies it even further. And he does so with so much force that this can’t be mere academics. “He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.” (v. 14) Do you see how that amounts to academic and teaching overkill? It could’ve simply and very academically read, “This one like a son of man will rule everything forever.” But it doesn’t say that. There’s massive teaching overkill here. There isn’t just authority talked about. There’s authority and glory and power. And it doesn’t just say that this figure will have authority, glory, and power over everything. It says he has authority, power and glory over all nations and people of every language. We’re talking about one universal kingdom! That kind of talk is supposed to push our trust in this figure right on past an academic or intellectual level. That kind of talk is supposed to descend right down into the emotional and faith centers of our being. Daniel gives us this forceful description of the son of man so that we fully rely on him as our King.

And this ruling activity that this prophetic promise is encouraging us to trust? We’re not only given massive amounts of overkill about its universality – its size – but also its historical extent. Did you catch that? The prophesy doesn’t just say that it’s an everlasting dominion. It goes on to hammer home to us that this everlasting dominion will not pass away. And just in case that strikes us impersonally or academically or in a merely informational way Daniel goes on yet from there to say that his kingdom will never be destroyed. It’s universal. It’s unending. And we are to internalize that in far more than an academic or intellectual way. Especially since here and now we sit. Especially since here and now we sit in the time after Alexander the Great croaked and Rome rose. Especially since here and now we sit in the time when the vast majority of this prophecy isn’t prophecy anymore. It’s almost entirely a fulfillment.

So says Jesus. One day there he sat. He sat on trial before the High Priest and when he was asked if he was the Christ he verbatim quoted this passage about himself. With just one little twist. He dropped the, “like.” Because no longer in history was he merely like a son of man. He was the Son of Man. In fact, do you know what Jesus’ favorite name for himself was? Yup. You guessed it. The Son of Man. Daniel’s prophetic promise fulfilled: Jesus is the ruling Son of Man. And right there and right then from history’s oddest looking throne, a cross, he began his rule. Not gaining order with an extensive and divine nuclear arsenal, but ruling sin with his sacrifice. Not getting a border transcending justice with a massive military campaign, but giving the gift of his divine life. Not bashing people over the head with his authority, but drawing subjects to himself with his kingly and royal grace: the forgiveness of our sins. And for now – for now – that’s what he’s up to. Until he’s not anymore. Until it’s time for the last little bit of Daniel’s prophecy to come true. Until it’s time for Jesus to ride the clouds to the universal and everlasting rule where he’s going to put down for good every beastly power forever.

I’m not saying that Fox News shouldn’t ever send a dart of fear through us again. I’m not suggesting that Paris shouldn’t impact federal policy or we shouldn’t care about the presidential debates. For now, beast-like nations and powers are real. What I am saying is that Daniel is giving you a vision of a ruler so powerful and so life-giving that it is to become for us something far more than informational. It’s to make its way down deeply into us. It’s to become our faith and fill us with trust so profound that it seems to hack our Facebook feeds and light up our Twitter accounts, drown out cable TV’s droning, and hijack our golf cart conversations. That it becomes what we know and we share and our one true hope – a ruler so universal and so eternal that it transcends every border, every jihadist ambition, and every political push. A ruler so complete and so saving that no matter what history happens to us; what nation threatens; or what terror strikes; we run to it. We run to the ruler who as firmly as he propels the clouds will propel us into his universal and eternal kingdom.

Honestly? I’m no better or smarter than that young man who walked the streets of Paris that Friday night. If you asked me where I can live in this world and always be completely safe, I couldn’t tell you. You know what I can tell you? I can tell you with whom you can live so that you’re completely safe. That much I know and now you do too: Christ, the Son of Man, our King. Amen. 

Revelation 21:1–5 Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” 5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

A certain reality and feeling so captured one of the modern world’s most influential minds that she put words to music. Her experience of this life was so common and so universal that her song landed on a list of 2015’s current and best pop songs. This is what that great influencer sang: “Lost in the world of me, myself, and I. Was lonely then like an alien. I tried but never figured it out. Why I always felt like a stranger in the crowd. Had to get used to the world I was on. While yet still unsure if I knew where I belong. Ooh, that was then like an alien.” Call it alienation. Call it estrangement or homelessness or some kind of heart-level separation. Call it whatever you want to call it, but that’s what the great 21st century influencer, Brittney Spears, sang about in a song simply called Alien – a song that is currently climbing the pop charts. And, for the record, if you’re wondering why I know that just know that strange things can happen when the rain keeps falling and you have a subscription to Apple Music.

Alienation. Separation. Estrangement. These aren’t just words for us. These aren’t unique experiences of Brittany’s pop culture life. They’re what we feel. They’re what we see. They’re a fair characterization of all of our lives right now. Even of the lives of Christian people who have the Spirit. Even of the life of one of God’s Apostles named John. You can almost sense his yearning, his prayers, his heart’s desire for all the alienation to end as he fills us in on this vision he was given a perfect future. “Then I saw ‘a new heaven and a new earth,’ for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.” (v. 1) So there’s going to be new sky. Here it’s called a new heaven. And there’s going to be a new place to live. Here it’s called a new earth or a new planet. And all by itself, that sounds just awesome. We’re going to get a new and better environment. We’re going to get a new and improved ecology, lifestyle, and climate. We’re going to have a better and different place to do life and a new planet on which to experience more vibrant living. And that’s the vision that John wants to place before us of our shared future.

What’s probably most interesting here though isn’t what John is looking at or what he sees. What most interesting is what John doesn’t see. What’s missing and what he notices won’t be around anymore. Did you catch that? John very pointedly observes not only what’s there – a new sky and a new planet – but also what wasn’t there. He says there wasn’t any sea. It’s just interesting to think about that, isn’t it? That in that moment and in that vision of that planet a certain bit of topographical information caught his attention with so much power and so much force that he thought we should know about it. Interesting, isn’t it? There’s no comment here about mountains missing or hills or plains or lakes or rivers not being there. There’s no mention of those types of topographical points of information at at all. There’s only a comment about a missing ocean. Now I suppose we could notice that and think, “Bummer. I guess my idea of a heaven with palm trees, ocean breezes, and snorkeling in water like you might find off the coast of Belize isn’t what God has in store for my future.” Or, I suppose we could come to the conclusion that God just isn’t a fan of salt water or something. But that hardly seems worth mentioning when what you’re really trying to do is help your readers grasp the reality of the new heaven and the new earth. Mere topography really isn’t that important.

That’s why we can know this really isn’t talking merely about topography. We have to understand something about the book of Revelation. It’s a book full of symbols. Just chock full of them. In fact, that’s what God said he was going to do for John right at the beginning of this book. He said he was going to sign or symbolize the future to him. That’s why most commentators believe the sea here is a symbol. And it’s more than just a symbol of threatening power. Yes, the sea threatens. Yes, the Titanic did go down and hurricanes do hit, but again it’s more than just a symbol of threatening power. It’s more than the fact that in the new heaven and new earth boats won’t sink anymore. For us to understand what John’s after here, we have to know that John saw this vision while he was exiled. While he was separated. While he was estranged and alienated from the life and the people he loved. On clear days it must’ve just killed him as he stared off from his island and there in the distance he could see his home church over there in Ephesus. There – over there – were the people he loved. There was the church he wanted to attend. And there was the fellowship and the togetherness he craved. And what separated them? The sea. The sea alienated him and it estranged him in such a troubling way that the very first thing John notices about the new sky and the new planet is that that kind of estrangement as they say in Spanish, “No existe.” There was no sea.

But please understand something. This isn’t John journaling for us his psychological despair. It’s John feeling right along with us. Alienation characterizes every aspect of life in the current heaven and the current earth. I could go on and on about that. For example, there is the me that I am. And then there is the me I actually want to be that I’m always estranged from. If you want to use psychological terms to talk about that you can say that I’m not fully actualized or if you want to use scriptural ideas we’d say that we’re not yet perfectly Spirit-filled personalities. And so we burst out with behaviors and words that make us shake our heads in disappointment and sometimes even in disgust as we do life. Sin alienates us from ourselves. And then there’s the gap that we experience between ourselves and others. Even this life’s highest relationships suffer. I’ve never once been to a 50th wedding anniversary (And I’ve been to a bunch!) where the couple has said, “It’s been all sunshine and rainbows.” You know what they’ve always said to me? They’ve always said, “There was a time when it was ridiculously difficult.” Every time. Even in the most foundational human relationship that we call marriage there can be a mere inch of personal space that for all intents of purposes is an also an emotional gap as wide as the Atlantic.

And that’s not just it. Since we’ve been hearing this morning from influencing 21st century minds who put their thoughts to music I’d like to remind you of what a lady named Stacie Orrico sang back in ‘O3. She sang, “I’ve got it all, but I feel so deprived. I go up, I come down and I’m emptier inside. Tell me what is this thing that I feel like I’m missing. And why I can’t let it go?” That’s what Stacie Orrico felt. Though this world was all she had ever experienced. Though this life was all she had ever known she sensed this profound loss –  that there was a fundamental piece of her life that was just plain missing. The greatest tragedy of all? In the song she makes no attempt at guessing what that might be. And for us as Christians, it’s arguable worse. We understand that we’re not just missing a fundamental piece of life. We understand sin means that we’ve been estranged from our fundamental life and wholeness: God. That that’s actually the centerpiece and the cause of every other form of alienation we experience here. That way, way back in that ancient garden we ran and we hid from the one being that makes us tick and makes us who we are and make us eternally whole. And since then life has become characterized by that gap – that guilt caused and sea-sized gap – between us and God. The ultimate alienation.

That’s the gap John’s talking about. That’s the sea. That’s the ocean. That’s what John’s eyes immediately notice is missing from the new sky and the new planet. And that’s what a voice booms to John will never be the case again. That the new heaven and the new earth will be characterized by a complete lack of alienation. “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes.’” (v. 3–4) God will dwell with the people. He will claim them and the people will claim him. Finally, the fundamental piece of human wholeness will be visible and manifest and always just there. And then bursts onto John’s scene this visual that is totally arresting in the best of ways. It’s a scene that for centuries has inspired paintings and created yearning. It’s a scene that has at times made the most joyful of people more joyful and at other times has given the most emotionally devastated people reason to hope. In the new heaven and the new earth, God will wipe every tear from your eyes.

Do you see how significant that scene is? Why that’s the lynchpin and the center and the only image that this booming voice gives us? I don’t want to hammer this too hard, but think about it. Everything here ends in tears. Everything. Because everything ends. Let me just give you one example. Have you ever thought about the fact that every marriage ends in tears? Every. Single. One. They have to. Because they all must end. The only question is how many people will have tears in their eyes. Whether it’s one or two. Whether its by divorce or by death. And that’s just one example. Everything here ends with tears. Because everything here ends. And so what John is showing us is a future where this world of endings will itself finally end. But it’s not just that. This is not just a picture of a future where endings end and it’s not even just a vision of a new world of eternal beginnings. It’s better.

You know what John is showing us? John is showing us through tear wiping –  the most emotionally intense scene possible – that every emotional gap is going to be erased. Do you see that? Somebody – anybody – wiping tears away is the highest height of emotional intimacy. If I tried to pull that off on anybody in here besides my wife or daughter, it’d be the creepiest thing ever, but in the new world? God is saying that he’s going to look right down into the windows of your soul, see the pain there, and both literally and metaphorically with his divine and glorious finger wipe it all away. That’s the perfect height and the ultimate depth of emotional intimacy and the perfect opposite of alienation. All emotional gaps will be completely eradicated, erased, and gone. I mean think of the glory of this. Denial, repression, and suppression all will be ancient history. Loneliness and aloneness will never happen again. I mean we’re talking about men who will finally be emotionally liberated and women who will be seen for everything that they are.

That’s what’s happening here. John is picturing a reality where a being will know us so well and make us feel so free that our deepest hurts will come pouring out in a rush of relief never to be felt again. We’re talking about an intimacy so pure that God can not only get away with this tear wiping activity, but that God will be invited to it. Gone forever will be the days where technology promises the world: a way to find our tribe and our people, the group that will finally get us, only to find out that social networks can leave us more isolated than ever before. Gone eternally will be the sad realization that not even a Christian marriage can give you a space where another being gets you in the most profound of ways and always wants to be around you. Arrived will be the time when there will be such a deep and comfortable connection that God will look right into your eyes and suddenly the pain and the grief and the death will exit your soul in a rush of peace. Arrived will be the time when every sense of alienation will be replaced with a God who will love you, and know you, and appreciate you the way that so deep down and forever you’ve thought it could be and should be. Every tear will gone wiped away by the finger of God himself. A being who who is so much better than a soul mate. Our soul’s source. Our soul’s beginning. And our soul’s end.

That’s when we’ll finally be home. And I mean that in the most profound of ways. We’ll be home. Never again will there be yearning. Never again will there be wishing or wanting. Never again will anybody have any reason to sing as the great 21st century influencer, Brittney Spears, sang, “But the stars in the sky look like home.” Followed by the words full of yearning, “Not alone,” sung not once, not twice, not three times, but a whopping 48 times in a less than four-minute song. Then we’ll be home and not alone. And our souls will sing. I think the song will say something about how Jesus erased the gap between us and him not only by coming down here to us, but also by becoming one of us. I think the song will say something about how he bridged the gap between us and him with his cross and by it wiped every sin inflicted pain and every guilt imposed tear from our eyes. And that now for an eternity we’ll celebrate the removal of that gap in a brand new world that so eternally, and so delightfully, and so joyfully, and so remarkably has no sea, but only pure God with whom we’ll finally be home. Amen.

Revelation 21:1–5 Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” 5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

A certain reality and feeling so captured one of the modern world’s most influential minds that she put words to music. Her experience of this life was so common and so universal that her song landed on a list of 2015’s current and best pop songs. This is what that great influencer sang: “Lost in the world of me, myself, and I. Was lonely then like an alien. I tried but never figured it out. Why I always felt like a stranger in the crowd. Had to get used to the world I was on. While yet still unsure if I knew where I belong. Ooh, that was then like an alien.” Call it alienation. Call it estrangement or homelessness or some kind of heart-level separation. Call it whatever you want to call it, but that’s what the great 21st century influencer, Brittney Spears, sang about in a song simply called Alien – a song that is currently climbing the pop charts. And, for the record, if you’re wondering why I know that just know that strange things can happen when the rain keeps falling and you have a subscription to Apple Music.

Alienation. Separation. Estrangement. These aren’t just words for us. These aren’t unique experiences of Brittany’s pop culture life. They’re what we feel. They’re what we see. They’re a fair characterization of all of our lives right now. Even of the lives of Christian people who have the Spirit. Even of the life of one of God’s Apostles named John. You can almost sense his yearning, his prayers, his heart’s desire for all the alienation to end as he fills us in on this vision he was given a perfect future. “Then I saw ‘a new heaven and a new earth,’ for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.” (v. 1) So there’s going to be new sky. Here it’s called a new heaven. And there’s going to be a new place to live. Here it’s called a new earth or a new planet. And all by itself, that sounds just awesome. We’re going to get a new and better environment. We’re going to get a new and improved ecology, lifestyle, and climate. We’re going to have a better and different place to do life and a new planet on which to experience more vibrant living. And that’s the vision that John wants to place before us of our shared future.

What’s probably most interesting here though isn’t what John is looking at or what he sees. What most interesting is what John doesn’t see. What’s missing and what he notices won’t be around anymore. Did you catch that? John very pointedly observes not only what’s there – a new sky and a new planet – but also what wasn’t there. He says there wasn’t any sea. It’s just interesting to think about that, isn’t it? That in that moment and in that vision of that planet a certain bit of topographical information caught his attention with so much power and so much force that he thought we should know about it. Interesting, isn’t it? There’s no comment here about mountains missing or hills or plains or lakes or rivers not being there. There’s no mention of those types of topographical points of information at at all. There’s only a comment about a missing ocean. Now I suppose we could notice that and think, “Bummer. I guess my idea of a heaven with palm trees, ocean breezes, and snorkeling in water like you might find off the coast of Belize isn’t what God has in store for my future.” Or, I suppose we could come to the conclusion that God just isn’t a fan of salt water or something. But that hardly seems worth mentioning when what you’re really trying to do is help your readers grasp the reality of the new heaven and the new earth. Mere topography really isn’t that important.

That’s why we can know this really isn’t talking merely about topography. We have to understand something about the book of Revelation. It’s a book full of symbols. Just chock full of them. In fact, that’s what God said he was going to do for John right at the beginning of this book. He said he was going to sign or symbolize the future to him. That’s why most commentators believe the sea here is a symbol. And it’s more than just a symbol of threatening power. Yes, the sea threatens. Yes, the Titanic did go down and hurricanes do hit, but again it’s more than just a symbol of threatening power. It’s more than the fact that in the new heaven and new earth boats won’t sink anymore. For us to understand what John’s after here, we have to know that John saw this vision while he was exiled. While he was separated. While he was estranged and alienated from the life and the people he loved. On clear days it must’ve just killed him as he stared off from his island and there in the distance he could see his home church over there in Ephesus. There – over there – were the people he loved. There was the church he wanted to attend. And there was the fellowship and the togetherness he craved. And what separated them? The sea. The sea alienated him and it estranged him in such a troubling way that the very first thing John notices about the new sky and the new planet is that that kind of estrangement as they say in Spanish, “No existe.” There was no sea.

But please understand something. This isn’t John journaling for us his psychological despair. It’s John feeling right along with us. Alienation characterizes every aspect of life in the current heaven and the current earth. I could go on and on about that. For example, there is the me that I am. And then there is the me I actually want to be that I’m always estranged from. If you want to use psychological terms to talk about that you can say that I’m not fully actualized or if you want to use scriptural ideas we’d say that we’re not yet perfectly Spirit-filled personalities. And so we burst out with behaviors and words that make us shake our heads in disappointment and sometimes even in disgust as we do life. Sin alienates us from ourselves. And then there’s the gap that we experience between ourselves and others. Even this life’s highest relationships suffer. I’ve never once been to a 50th wedding anniversary (And I’ve been to a bunch!) where the couple has said, “It’s been all sunshine and rainbows.” You know what they’ve always said to me? They’ve always said, “There was a time when it was ridiculously difficult.” Every time. Even in the most foundational human relationship that we call marriage there can be a mere inch of personal space that for all intents of purposes is an also an emotional gap as wide as the Atlantic.

And that’s not just it. Since we’ve been hearing this morning from influencing 21st century minds who put their thoughts to music I’d like to remind you of what a lady named Stacie Orrico sang back in ‘O3. She sang, “I’ve got it all, but I feel so deprived. I go up, I come down and I’m emptier inside. Tell me what is this thing that I feel like I’m missing. And why I can’t let it go?” That’s what Stacie Orrico felt. Though this world was all she had ever experienced. Though this life was all she had ever known she sensed this profound loss –  that there was a fundamental piece of her life that was just plain missing. The greatest tragedy of all? In the song she makes no attempt at guessing what that might be. And for us as Christians, it’s arguable worse. We understand that we’re not just missing a fundamental piece of life. We understand sin means that we’ve been estranged from our fundamental life and wholeness: God. That that’s actually the centerpiece and the cause of every other form of alienation we experience here. That way, way back in that ancient garden we ran and we hid from the one being that makes us tick and makes us who we are and make us eternally whole. And since then life has become characterized by that gap – that guilt caused and sea-sized gap – between us and God. The ultimate alienation.

That’s the gap John’s talking about. That’s the sea. That’s the ocean. That’s what John’s eyes immediately notice is missing from the new sky and the new planet. And that’s what a voice booms to John will never be the case again. That the new heaven and the new earth will be characterized by a complete lack of alienation. “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes.’” (v. 3–4) God will dwell with the people. He will claim them and the people will claim him. Finally, the fundamental piece of human wholeness will be visible and manifest and always just there. And then bursts onto John’s scene this visual that is totally arresting in the best of ways. It’s a scene that for centuries has inspired paintings and created yearning. It’s a scene that has at times made the most joyful of people more joyful and at other times has given the most emotionally devastated people reason to hope. In the new heaven and the new earth, God will wipe every tear from your eyes.

Do you see how significant that scene is? Why that’s the lynchpin and the center and the only image that this booming voice gives us? I don’t want to hammer this too hard, but think about it. Everything here ends in tears. Everything. Because everything ends. Let me just give you one example. Have you ever thought about the fact that every marriage ends in tears? Every. Single. One. They have to. Because they all must end. The only question is how many people will have tears in their eyes. Whether it’s one or two. Whether its by divorce or by death. And that’s just one example. Everything here ends with tears. Because everything here ends. And so what John is showing us is a future where this world of endings will itself finally end. But it’s not just that. This is not just a picture of a future where endings end and it’s not even just a vision of a new world of eternal beginnings. It’s better.

You know what John is showing us? John is showing us through tear wiping –  the most emotionally intense scene possible – that every emotional gap is going to be erased. Do you see that? Somebody – anybody – wiping tears away is the highest height of emotional intimacy. If I tried to pull that off on anybody in here besides my wife or daughter, it’d be the creepiest thing ever, but in the new world? God is saying that he’s going to look right down into the windows of your soul, see the pain there, and both literally and metaphorically with his divine and glorious finger wipe it all away. That’s the perfect height and the ultimate depth of emotional intimacy and the perfect opposite of alienation. All emotional gaps will be completely eradicated, erased, and gone. I mean think of the glory of this. Denial, repression, and suppression all will be ancient history. Loneliness and aloneness will never happen again. I mean we’re talking about men who will finally be emotionally liberated and women who will be seen for everything that they are.

That’s what’s happening here. John is picturing a reality where a being will know us so well and make us feel so free that our deepest hurts will come pouring out in a rush of relief never to be felt again. We’re talking about an intimacy so pure that God can not only get away with this tear wiping activity, but that God will be invited to it. Gone forever will be the days where technology promises the world: a way to find our tribe and our people, the group that will finally get us, only to find out that social networks can leave us more isolated than ever before. Gone eternally will be the sad realization that not even a Christian marriage can give you a space where another being gets you in the most profound of ways and always wants to be around you. Arrived will be the time when there will be such a deep and comfortable connection that God will look right into your eyes and suddenly the pain and the grief and the death will exit your soul in a rush of peace. Arrived will be the time when every sense of alienation will be replaced with a God who will love you, and know you, and appreciate you the way that so deep down and forever you’ve thought it could be and should be. Every tear will gone wiped away by the finger of God himself. A being who who is so much better than a soul mate. Our soul’s source. Our soul’s beginning. And our soul’s end.

That’s when we’ll finally be home. And I mean that in the most profound of ways. We’ll be home. Never again will there be yearning. Never again will there be wishing or wanting. Never again will anybody have any reason to sing as the great 21st century influencer, Brittney Spears, sang, “But the stars in the sky look like home.” Followed by the words full of yearning, “Not alone,” sung not once, not twice, not three times, but a whopping 48 times in a less than four-minute song. Then we’ll be home and not alone. And our souls will sing. I think the song will say something about how Jesus erased the gap between us and him not only by coming down here to us, but also by becoming one of us. I think the song will say something about how he bridged the gap between us and him with his cross and by it wiped every sin inflicted pain and every guilt imposed tear from our eyes. And that now for an eternity we’ll celebrate the removal of that gap in a brand new world that so eternally, and so delightfully, and so joyfully, and so remarkably has no sea, but only pure God with whom we’ll finally be home. Amen.

John 5:19–30 Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed. 21 For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. 22 Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, 23 that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him. Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. 25 Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. 26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. 27 And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man. 28 “Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice 29 and come out—those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned. 30 By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.

As the snow came down with “dizzying intensity and speed,” she drove up the harrowing mountain pass in Montana. Just a city girl who had naively moved to the mountains, she gripped the steering wheel of her small car and prayed. She prayed, “Don’t let me slide into another car, or off the mountainside,” and promised, “God, I will no longer be crabby or impatient or late on my deadlines. Just help me get home.” That same city girl many snow storms, thunderstorms, and years later finally got it. I mean she really got it. She wrote, “Over time, living in Montana has pounded into my consciousness the notion that no matter how we fight it, whether with technology, our wills, or sheer denial, we are natural beings subject to forces greater than ourselves. Sometimes the natural world takes your power, as it does in February, when every fiber of your being wants to hibernate. Sometimes it bestows you with power you never could possess, as it does during the peak of summer, when you don’t need much sleep and you feel like you’re riding along with all the motions of the universe.”

It’s that reality that Jesus wants to wake us up to. That there is a force way above us. That there is a voice and a call and a creative power that is used on our souls to determine our eternal destination; where we’re headed at the Last Judgment. It’s striking really. Not for a second does Jesus place eternity into our hands. Not even for a second. That’s why in this Scripture about Last Judgment there’s no one on some bullhorn on some ancient street corner hollering at us to get our act together. Or some ancient van driving around tattooed with the phrase, “Hell is hot. Choose Jesus.” There isn’t even a sweaty preaching Jesus who with face all red and forehead capillaries about to burst screaming at the evildoers around him, “Change your ways.” Nowhere to be seen here is a Jesus who thought it was his job to preach judgment so forcefully and so thoroughly that all the sinners around him would cry, “Mercy,” and suddenly begin to climb their way out of hell. The only Jesus here is a Jesus who as a force far above nature calmly, seriously, and powerfully confronts the issue of the Last Judgment.

In fact, that’s what this whole chapter of John 5 is about. The chapter could even be entitled Jesus: The Force Above Nature. Because Jesus came and healed what nature never could – a man who had been an invalid for 38 years. And then the people around Jesus react according to their nature. They get mad wanting to put all that power and all that grace into a box. They are so adamant about this that they even launch an investigation into what they deem to be an, “illegal Sabbath healing.” Jesus’ response to them? He basically says, “This is what I do. I am a force above all nature giving grace and power.” He said, “My Father is always at work to this very day, and I too am working.” (v. 17) Jesus wasn’t going to be contained. Jesus wasn’t going to be stopped. He was going to work for us and in us. And that’s how Jesus sets up his teaching on the Last Judgment. He speaks truths to us about himself.

And why? When it comes to Last Judgment, it’s much easier to believe truths about ourselves than truths about Jesus. That’s what Michelangelo shows us. Not the teenage mutant ninja turtle. The artist. In perhaps what was his life’s greatest work and what is the centerpiece of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, he painted himself right into a work called the Last Judgment. He had to. After four years of painting that scene, he began to believe something about himself and his relation to it. All he could believe about it were truths about himself. You know where he painted himself in his masterpiece? He painted his self-portrait on a piece of flayed skin dangling precariously over the fires of hell.

The truth is that that kind of despair about Last Judgment isn’t uncommon. As people who take God and his law seriously, we’ve all felt that. Sometimes the despair can be so thick and the guilt so heavy that counterintuitively it drives us not away from sin, but right to it. We figure, “I’m already toast. I might as well keep on keeping on with it.” So that guy who knows its wrong to play house with that woman just keeps on doing it. And the pew sitter who likes to hoard his cash keeps on hoarding it. And the people who have stopped coming to church just stay away. Because we know that even our life’s greatest works – our Sistine Chapel frescoes whatever they maybe – aren’t enough. In fact, if we look at them closely we can see they’re horribly marred. We can look at our decades of child rearing or our careers accomplishments and do our spiritual calculations and realize that none of it passes muster. That we’re dangling precariously. That flames now licking will then consume not only our life’s best works, but also our very souls. That then the angry Christ will finally have his day. So universal and gripping is that feeling to all us that of all the probably hundreds of figures in Michelangelo’s Last Judgment visitors remember really only one – one figure so memorable that he’s also the only figure that has also gained a nickname. The damned man.

If there’s any part of you that spiritually gets that – any at all – then you’re also going to get why Jesus is so insistent with us here. Why he speaks almost like he’s making an oath. Why he talks like he’s almost swearing. Why he moves us so forcefully and fiercely away from anything that has to do with us when it comes to Last Judgment. “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.” (v. 24) This is no Jesus with a bullhorn yelling about sin or some red-faced, sweaty Jesus preaching so furiously that the capillaries in his forehead are about to burst. Search all you want, but you’re never going to find a Jesus here who says anything like, “Yeah, you should probably be a bit worried. The flames are starting to lick at you.” In fact, did you catch it? The only talk of judgment here had a not before it. All you have here is a Christ. You have a Christ who is saying to you, “Not for a second do I want you worried about Last Judgment. Not even for a second.” We’re supposed to trust him. We’re supposed to believe him that the only kind of judging that we’re headed for is not judging. We’re supposed to trust him that we’ve already arrived. That the eternal direction setting has already been done and it’s been done by him. That we’ve crossed over from death to life.

And that faith? That confidence? That trust that that’s how it really is? Jesus takes full responsibility for creating it. Full. Jesus is insistent about that. How insistent? 26 times in John Jesus says, “Very truly I tell you,” but never perfectly back to back. Except here. Except now when he immediately says, “Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.” (v. 25) Did you catch why Jesus takes takes full responsibility for the creation of our faith? Because it’s apparently not something we can create on our own. I mean it was bad. Jesus doesn’t even credit us here with tiniest amount of spiritual life. Not even a spark. Did you catch that? Jesus says that without the power of his voice in our lives we’re one of the dead. And so Jesus works for us. And Jesus works in us. When it comes to making sure we survive the Last Judgment Jesus is just not going to allow a single thing to possibly go wrong. He’s says, “I’m just going to own the whole deal. I’m going to give you what you can’t give yourself: life. I’m going give you nothing less than a resurrection from the spiritual dead.”

And there’s only one force with that level of resurrection, nature-transcending power. There’s only one force that can command so completely and so powerfully that it puts life where there wasn’t any before. You know what that force is? “The voice of the Son of God.” (v. 25) The voice of the Son of God. And apparently Jesus wants us to be very clear on this point. He just can’t stop talking about it. He says, “Whoever hears my word…” (v. 24) And, “The dead will hear the voice of the Son of God…” (v. 25) And, “All who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out.” (v. 28) And honestly it’s not hard to understand why Jesus wants to be so clear about this. Jesus’ voice has some serious fire power. Jesus’ voice is the same voice that called out into nothingness and first made mass. Jesus’ voice is same voice that set the sun in the sky and commanded the moon into orbit. Jesus’ voice is the same voice that spoke to that 38-year invalid and gifted healing his body. That’s the voice that we’re to bank on. That’s the voice we are to trust can take the dead spiritual material in our souls and infuse it with faith. That’s the voice we are to believe can take the dead kindling of our hearts and set it ablaze with Spirit-filled life and Spirit-filled living.

Even here. And even now. Even in you. Do you realize that’s the whole point of preaching? To call out with the resurrection-level power of Jesus’ voice? Even right here. Even right now. Even inside you. “A time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.” (v. 25) Do you see it? Do you see what Jesus is saying he’s up to right here and right now and in you? Jesus isn’t referring to some future apart from this one. Jesus isn’t talking about a now that’s different than – well –  now. And Jesus isn’t talking about some nameless, faceless, hypothetical future hearer other than you. Jesus is promising you that the time is now and the place is here and the soul he’s resurrecting is yours. So you can believe that you are alive. So you stop thinking that your soul is suspended precariously above the fires of hell and its flames are already threatening to lick your feet. So you stop thinking that the Last Judgment and its outcome is dependent upon your life and its works. So you start believing that your future is entirely secure. That, in fact, it’s already arrived. That you’ve crossed over from death to life. That for you judgment has been entirely and completely suspended.

Because in point of historic fact it has been. That’s what Jesus’ cross is all about. There decades of haphazard parenting stuck and there not so Spirit-filled careers went to quite literally die. There the illicit sex and the harmful thoughts and the unloving words went and faced the Judge. There the flames of hell didn’t just menacingly flicker below. There they actually condemned and consumed. Because there the ultimate damned man hung: Jesus. Do you see what that means? There justice was had for everything. On the cross judgment was rendered for all, but especially for you. So that you don’t dangle precariously. So that you wouldn’t have to worry about the Last Judgment. So that you wouldn’t have to give up on this life thinking, “I’m toast. I might as well keep on keeping on with whatever sin I’m involved in.” So that you can live and bust out of it and claim the cleanest and the holiest and the greatest life’s work called the life and times of Jesus Christ – a life’s work so glowing and so great that it makes Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel frescoes look like a building full of rubbish. That’s what’s yours by the faith that Jesus himself set ablaze in you.

That’s what Jesus does and that’s who he is. He’s a force far above nature – one who takes gospel truths and makes them come alive in you with resurrection-level power. It reminds me of that lady I told you about who moved to Montana. You know how she closed her article? She wrote, “We believe we are run by our thoughts and anxieties, our urges and our choices, but come to a place like Montana and you will be reminded that the moon is running you. The sun is running you. The light or lack of light is running you.” Jesus’ voice is like that, but better. It’s a force that comes into our lives with power so great and a force so creative that the fire of faith begins to burn and spiritual resurrection just booms. And that’s why it shouldn’t surprise us. Not even for a minute. Not even for a second. It shouldn’t surprise us that when the Last Judgment finally arrives Jesus will speak one more time and from our graves we’ll walk out to the eternal life we’ve already here started living. Amen.

John 5:19–30 Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed. 21 For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. 22 Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, 23 that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him. Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. 25 Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. 26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. 27 And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man. 28 “Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice 29 and come out—those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned. 30 By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.

As the snow came down with “dizzying intensity and speed,” she drove up the harrowing mountain pass in Montana. Just a city girl who had naively moved to the mountains, she gripped the steering wheel of her small car and prayed. She prayed, “Don’t let me slide into another car, or off the mountainside,” and promised, “God, I will no longer be crabby or impatient or late on my deadlines. Just help me get home.” That same city girl many snow storms, thunderstorms, and years later finally got it. I mean she really got it. She wrote, “Over time, living in Montana has pounded into my consciousness the notion that no matter how we fight it, whether with technology, our wills, or sheer denial, we are natural beings subject to forces greater than ourselves. Sometimes the natural world takes your power, as it does in February, when every fiber of your being wants to hibernate. Sometimes it bestows you with power you never could possess, as it does during the peak of summer, when you don’t need much sleep and you feel like you’re riding along with all the motions of the universe.”

It’s that reality that Jesus wants to wake us up to. That there is a force way above us. That there is a voice and a call and a creative power that is used on our souls to determine our eternal destination; where we’re headed at the Last Judgment. It’s striking really. Not for a second does Jesus place eternity into our hands. Not even for a second. That’s why in this Scripture about Last Judgment there’s no one on some bullhorn on some ancient street corner hollering at us to get our act together. Or some ancient van driving around tattooed with the phrase, “Hell is hot. Choose Jesus.” There isn’t even a sweaty preaching Jesus who with face all red and forehead capillaries about to burst screaming at the evildoers around him, “Change your ways.” Nowhere to be seen here is a Jesus who thought it was his job to preach judgment so forcefully and so thoroughly that all the sinners around him would cry, “Mercy,” and suddenly begin to climb their way out of hell. The only Jesus here is a Jesus who as a force far above nature calmly, seriously, and powerfully confronts the issue of the Last Judgment.

In fact, that’s what this whole chapter of John 5 is about. The chapter could even be entitled Jesus: The Force Above Nature. Because Jesus came and healed what nature never could – a man who had been an invalid for 38 years. And then the people around Jesus react according to their nature. They get mad wanting to put all that power and all that grace into a box. They are so adamant about this that they even launch an investigation into what they deem to be an, “illegal Sabbath healing.” Jesus’ response to them? He basically says, “This is what I do. I am a force above all nature giving grace and power.” He said, “My Father is always at work to this very day, and I too am working.” (v. 17) Jesus wasn’t going to be contained. Jesus wasn’t going to be stopped. He was going to work for us and in us. And that’s how Jesus sets up his teaching on the Last Judgment. He speaks truths to us about himself.

And why? When it comes to Last Judgment, it’s much easier to believe truths about ourselves than truths about Jesus. That’s what Michelangelo shows us. Not the teenage mutant ninja turtle. The artist. In perhaps what was his life’s greatest work and what is the centerpiece of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, he painted himself right into a work called the Last Judgment. He had to. After four years of painting that scene, he began to believe something about himself and his relation to it. All he could believe about it were truths about himself. You know where he painted himself in his masterpiece? He painted his self-portrait on a piece of flayed skin dangling precariously over the fires of hell.

The truth is that that kind of despair about Last Judgment isn’t uncommon. As people who take God and his law seriously, we’ve all felt that. Sometimes the despair can be so thick and the guilt so heavy that counterintuitively it drives us not away from sin, but right to it. We figure, “I’m already toast. I might as well keep on keeping on with it.” So that guy who knows its wrong to play house with that woman just keeps on doing it. And the pew sitter who likes to hoard his cash keeps on hoarding it. And the people who have stopped coming to church just stay away. Because we know that even our life’s greatest works – our Sistine Chapel frescoes whatever they maybe – aren’t enough. In fact, if we look at them closely we can see they’re horribly marred. We can look at our decades of child rearing or our careers accomplishments and do our spiritual calculations and realize that none of it passes muster. That we’re dangling precariously. That flames now licking will then consume not only our life’s best works, but also our very souls. That then the angry Christ will finally have his day. So universal and gripping is that feeling to all us that of all the probably hundreds of figures in Michelangelo’s Last Judgment visitors remember really only one – one figure so memorable that he’s also the only figure that has also gained a nickname. The damned man.

If there’s any part of you that spiritually gets that – any at all – then you’re also going to get why Jesus is so insistent with us here. Why he speaks almost like he’s making an oath. Why he talks like he’s almost swearing. Why he moves us so forcefully and fiercely away from anything that has to do with us when it comes to Last Judgment. “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.” (v. 24) This is no Jesus with a bullhorn yelling about sin or some red-faced, sweaty Jesus preaching so furiously that the capillaries in his forehead are about to burst. Search all you want, but you’re never going to find a Jesus here who says anything like, “Yeah, you should probably be a bit worried. The flames are starting to lick at you.” In fact, did you catch it? The only talk of judgment here had a not before it. All you have here is a Christ. You have a Christ who is saying to you, “Not for a second do I want you worried about Last Judgment. Not even for a second.” We’re supposed to trust him. We’re supposed to believe him that the only kind of judging that we’re headed for is not judging. We’re supposed to trust him that we’ve already arrived. That the eternal direction setting has already been done and it’s been done by him. That we’ve crossed over from death to life.

And that faith? That confidence? That trust that that’s how it really is? Jesus takes full responsibility for creating it. Full. Jesus is insistent about that. How insistent? 26 times in John Jesus says, “Very truly I tell you,” but never perfectly back to back. Except here. Except now when he immediately says, “Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.” (v. 25) Did you catch why Jesus takes takes full responsibility for the creation of our faith? Because it’s apparently not something we can create on our own. I mean it was bad. Jesus doesn’t even credit us here with tiniest amount of spiritual life. Not even a spark. Did you catch that? Jesus says that without the power of his voice in our lives we’re one of the dead. And so Jesus works for us. And Jesus works in us. When it comes to making sure we survive the Last Judgment Jesus is just not going to allow a single thing to possibly go wrong. He’s says, “I’m just going to own the whole deal. I’m going to give you what you can’t give yourself: life. I’m going give you nothing less than a resurrection from the spiritual dead.”

And there’s only one force with that level of resurrection, nature-transcending power. There’s only one force that can command so completely and so powerfully that it puts life where there wasn’t any before. You know what that force is? “The voice of the Son of God.” (v. 25) The voice of the Son of God. And apparently Jesus wants us to be very clear on this point. He just can’t stop talking about it. He says, “Whoever hears my word…” (v. 24) And, “The dead will hear the voice of the Son of God…” (v. 25) And, “All who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out.” (v. 28) And honestly it’s not hard to understand why Jesus wants to be so clear about this. Jesus’ voice has some serious fire power. Jesus’ voice is the same voice that called out into nothingness and first made mass. Jesus’ voice is same voice that set the sun in the sky and commanded the moon into orbit. Jesus’ voice is the same voice that spoke to that 38-year invalid and gifted healing his body. That’s the voice that we’re to bank on. That’s the voice we are to trust can take the dead spiritual material in our souls and infuse it with faith. That’s the voice we are to believe can take the dead kindling of our hearts and set it ablaze with Spirit-filled life and Spirit-filled living.

Even here. And even now. Even in you. Do you realize that’s the whole point of preaching? To call out with the resurrection-level power of Jesus’ voice? Even right here. Even right now. Even inside you. “A time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.” (v. 25) Do you see it? Do you see what Jesus is saying he’s up to right here and right now and in you? Jesus isn’t referring to some future apart from this one. Jesus isn’t talking about a now that’s different than – well –  now. And Jesus isn’t talking about some nameless, faceless, hypothetical future hearer other than you. Jesus is promising you that the time is now and the place is here and the soul he’s resurrecting is yours. So you can believe that you are alive. So you stop thinking that your soul is suspended precariously above the fires of hell and its flames are already threatening to lick your feet. So you stop thinking that the Last Judgment and its outcome is dependent upon your life and its works. So you start believing that your future is entirely secure. That, in fact, it’s already arrived. That you’ve crossed over from death to life. That for you judgment has been entirely and completely suspended.

Because in point of historic fact it has been. That’s what Jesus’ cross is all about. There decades of haphazard parenting stuck and there not so Spirit-filled careers went to quite literally die. There the illicit sex and the harmful thoughts and the unloving words went and faced the Judge. There the flames of hell didn’t just menacingly flicker below. There they actually condemned and consumed. Because there the ultimate damned man hung: Jesus. Do you see what that means? There justice was had for everything. On the cross judgment was rendered for all, but especially for you. So that you don’t dangle precariously. So that you wouldn’t have to worry about the Last Judgment. So that you wouldn’t have to give up on this life thinking, “I’m toast. I might as well keep on keeping on with whatever sin I’m involved in.” So that you can live and bust out of it and claim the cleanest and the holiest and the greatest life’s work called the life and times of Jesus Christ – a life’s work so glowing and so great that it makes Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel frescoes look like a building full of rubbish. That’s what’s yours by the faith that Jesus himself set ablaze in you.

That’s what Jesus does and that’s who he is. He’s a force far above nature – one who takes gospel truths and makes them come alive in you with resurrection-level power. It reminds me of that lady I told you about who moved to Montana. You know how she closed her article? She wrote, “We believe we are run by our thoughts and anxieties, our urges and our choices, but come to a place like Montana and you will be reminded that the moon is running you. The sun is running you. The light or lack of light is running you.” Jesus’ voice is like that, but better. It’s a force that comes into our lives with power so great and a force so creative that the fire of faith begins to burn and spiritual resurrection just booms. And that’s why it shouldn’t surprise us. Not even for a minute. Not even for a second. It shouldn’t surprise us that when the Last Judgment finally arrives Jesus will speak one more time and from our graves we’ll walk out to the eternal life we’ve already here started living. Amen.

Mark 13:1–11 As Jesus was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!” 2 “Do you see all these great buildings?” replied Jesus. “Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.” 3 As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John and Andrew asked him privately, 4 “Tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are all about to be fulfilled?” 5 Jesus said to them: “Watch out that no one deceives you. 6 Many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and will deceive many. 7 When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. 8 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places, and famines. These are the beginning of birth pains. 9 “You must be on your guard. You will be handed over to the local councils and flogged in the synagogues. On account of me you will stand before governors and kings as witnesses to them. 10 And the gospel must first be preached to all nations. 11 Whenever you are arrested and brought to trial, do not worry beforehand about what to say. Just say whatever is given you at the time, for it is not you speaking, but the Holy Spirit.

Sometimes I think about fairly ridiculous things. Alright. Alright. Since I’m coming clean, I might as well just be honest. It’s probably more than sometimes. It’s probably more like often. Take, for example, some thoughts that I saw wander through my consciousness when I was thinking about this teaching from Jesus. I thought about the mayhem it would’ve caused if, for example, Peter had live tweeted it. Even if Peter managed to avoid tweeting something impulsive (not sure he was really cut out for the smartphone era!) and actually did a bang up job I think the twitterverse would’ve absolutely lit up. I can only imagine the downer hashtags that would’ve immediately started trending after Jesus slams us here. I can see it now. #Jesusisamassivedowner or #JesusWWFstyleslamshisdisciples. I totally admit it. Sometimes I think ridiculous little thoughts, but I don’t think these are some of them.

This does feel heavy handed. And if it feels that way to us, just imagine what this must’ve felt like to the first disciples. If there was ever a moment for Jesus to come through with a ray of sunshine. If there was ever a time for him to reveal himself for the rabid optimist he was, this was the time. I mean it wasn’t just any old temple we’re talking about here. This was the temple where Jesus had flipped tables and had specifically called it his Father’s house. If there was ever a time to just enjoy the beauty and the grandeur of that temple this was it. That’s all it seems the disciples were harmlessly doing. “Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!” (v. 1) “You’re right. It’s beautiful.” Would it have been so bad if Jesus had just admitted that? He could’ve just ran his hand along some of those massive and impressive ninety-foot-long and ten-foot-high stones and said, “Yeah, truly amazing. An architectural wonder!” Would that have been so bad or wrong for him to do that?

But Jesus? He drop kicks their statements like they’re toxic thoughts. “Do you see all these great buildings? Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.” (v. 2) And he delivers this statement with uncomfortable WWF style force. I’m telling you. Jesus couldn’t have been fiercer or more forceful with his comments. Did you notice he even sort of repeats himself here? Like slamming them once wasn’t enough? And you can’t see it in English, but in Greek there are some technical aspects to what Jesus says here that makes it even more forceful. It’s difficult to bring it out in English, but the idea goes something something like this: “Not a single stone will ever be left; every single one will be thrown down.” And then Jesus did a mic drop. He stopped teaching and just let what he said sink in.

There’s a reason why he had to do that. There was nothing innocent about the disciples’ comments. They weren’t just celebrating temple architecture. They weren’t just awed by the impressive stones or the beautiful facade. There was something far more fundamental going on. They wanted Jesus to believe with them that “as the temple goes so go we.” That idea – no matter how the prophets preached to the Jews – just refused to die. It was like the cat with 900 lives. Honestly, anytime the prophets tried to help the Jews get away from that idea they turned into spiritual two-year-olds who stuck their fingers in their ears and yelled, “This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD!” (Jeremiah 7:4) And so it was with great and tragic irony that just hours before Jesus would die the disciples were coming to Jesus with incredible optimism saying, “You’ve got to agree with us. Look at these buildings. Look at these stones. As this temple goes, so go we.” The disciples wanted Jesus to agree that the temple’s stones were saying, “Solid is the world’s future,” and that its buildings were preaching, “Upward is the world’s trajectory.”

Turns out though that we really don’t need a building to believe that about the world. All we need to be is human. Back in 1853 a Unitarian preacher by the name of Theodore Parker in a sermon entitled “Of Justice and the Conscience” said, “Look at the facts of the world. You see a continual and progressive triumph of the right. I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one… But from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice.” And then the Great Depression came. And then World War I showed up. And then World War II arrived and the Holocaust happened. And despite the fact that the world had almost gone up in flames around us three times in row people once again started to say, “We’re on our way up! We’re going to get there.” Even today while Syria burns and refugees inundate Europe and California gets sucked dry of water while two feet of water douse South Carolina, optimism remains. Do you see what that is? That’s classic denial. And it’s easy to understand why it exists. We have a great tendency to deny the downward trajectory of the world because if we don’t we have to admit there’s something horribly wrong with it and with ourselves. We’d have to admit there’s sin in us.

So Jesus drops the mic on us. To break us loose from our denial. So we believe. And not just what he says about the temple or the trajectory of the world or sin in ourselves, but primarily what he says about himself. See, the Jews were within a hair’s breadth of getting it right. Their idea that “as the temple goes so go we” was a razor thin margin away from being completely correct. Their only mistake? They had the wrong temple in mind. They couldn’t yet see that a greater temple was right in front of their eyes. That there was a higher temple that would determine their personal futures and make them good. That there was a true and final temple that would always and only preach, “Upwards is your personal trajectory.” They couldn’t yet see that, “The temple he (Jesus) had spoken of was his body.” (John 2:21) And this temple? It was so much greater. It didn’t need annual or daily animal sacrifices to deal with sin. It needed just one great sacrifice. And this temple, the body of God himself, made atonement for you. This temple made a perfect payment and crushed sin and won forgiveness for you. All by itself this temple would justify you before God once and for all. And that’s why it’s true that as this temple goes, so go we.

And how does this temple go? Think of it. This temple died in this world to live in the next one. This temple was torn down here and rebuilt for the next one. This temple was wrecked here, but now lives there in glory. As this temple goes so go we. When by faith we get connected to the true temple, Jesus’ body, as that temple goes, so go we – all the way to glory! And part of what that means is that this world must go out so that we can live in the new one. And, yes, Jesus did use the word, “must,” (v. 7) when he talked about these things. This world for our sake must have a downward spiral. In fact, in that way it’s actually a lot like giving birth. And, no, I didn’t cherry pick that metaphor. It’s the one Jesus used when he said, “These are the beginning of birth pains.” (v. 8) So the pains will come more quickly. And the pains may even become more intense. And that can only mean one thing. That new glorious world we’ve been talking about? It’s getting closer and closer and closer.

That’s what’s happening and we get that. We don’t have to be alarmed or panicked or worried. Not of a rumor of war. Not even of war itself. We’re ok. This is all part of the deal. It’s all just birth pains. “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.” (v. 8) In other words, it’s not realistic to expect a one world government anytime soon. And it’s not realistic to hope for a permanent or long-lasting geo-political stability. And it’s not because Jesus isn’t somehow over the top of it all, it’s simply because we’re in the birthing suite. And politics aside. We shouldn’t even expect the environment to perform well. Expect that it won’t. Expect that the great biological and ecological and geological systems will start to dramatically unravel. Expect that there will be, “earthquakes in various places, and famines.” (v. 8) That’s how it will be and that’s how it has to be. It’s all part Jesus’ work of bringing us into the new world and the glory he’s promised.

But aside from understanding that, there is one thing –  one incredibly important thing – that we must do as these things happen around us. It’s this: “Watch out that no one deceives you.” (v. 5) And, no, that’s actually not coming out the blue. It’s perfectly related to everything else Jesus tells us here. It really shouldn’t surprise us. If the political and biological structures are going to topple around us, why should it surprise us to see that happening in the realm of the religious. It shouldn’t. It shouldn’t surprise us that the most viral beliefs will be just that: viral – a kind spiritual virus. Listen to what Jesus said, “Many will come in my name saying, “I am he,” and will deceive many.” (v. 6) Many will come to deceive. Many will be deceived. Do you see how Jesus bookends this? Do you see what he’s up to when he does that? He’s trying to open our eyes and shock us and really get to us. Many will deceive. Many will be deceived. And just to be clear. Jesus probably isn’t only referring to David Koresh or Reverend Sung Yung Moon or the Heaven’s Gate cult or anybody else who says, “I’m the Christ.” He’s talking about those people, but not only those people.

I point that out because when you hear this teaching I want you thinking about a whole lot more than what happened to those 82 people in the Branch Dividian cult over there in Waco. I want to give you a deeper understanding of what Jesus is saying here and make you a savvier Christian. Jesus is clearly suggesting that deceptive preachers will primarily come bearing the Christian name. That’s exactly what he said. He said they will claim to come, “in his name,” and will probably very sincerely say, “I’m the guy. I have Jesus’ teaching.” So, yeah, this means that Yelp isn’t exactly going to be a helpful tool for finding a church. A big or even a small, but excited fan base for a church isn’t exactly the right test for true Christian teaching. You know what else this means? It’s sort of the obvious and in your face application here. Don’t believe me. Seriously. Don’t believe me. Just a word to the wise. It’s probably not a good strategy to stake your eternity what some guy with the last name Bourman is spouting off about today. Don’t believe me.

But Jesus is also clearly implying something to us here when he tells us to watch out? Do you know what it is? He’s implying that his teaching is somehow known so you can do that. Do you see that? He’s, in fact, implying that you can know his teaching so clearly that to you it’s not just some fuzzy, ethereal maybe-we-understand-it-maybe-we-don’t kind of teaching. That’s it’s so clear. That it’s so abundant. That it’s so massively available that you’ll be able to know who’s trying to deceive you. You know what else he’s saying? That it’s worth doing that. That his message is worth defending and knowing and believing in a profound, profound way. And why? I think you already know. His Word doesn’t just describe true life to you. It’s gives it to you. It warns you and convicts you of sin. It comforts you and thrills you with grace. It gives you supreme confidence that as Jesus goes so go we. This – by the way – is the only thing Jesus promises will go right as this world heads for the exits. And is, in fact, so incredibly insistent about that he uses the word, “must,” to talk about it. “The gospel must first be preached to all nations.” (v. 10)

You know what this means? It means that if you’ve found a preacher who’s not only sincere, but also truthful you’ve found a place to be. And not only that, you’ve found a place to treasure as something a whole lot rarer than maybe you ever knew before – a place so rare that Jesus had to make a special promise about it so you wouldn’t despair of its existence. You’ve found a place where Jesus will give your soul life. That’s all we do here. That’s it. Peace exists to be a place where the gospel is preached and believed with boldness and clarity. And to whatever extent we truly succeed in that we will be a church worthy of bearing the name of the Reformation – the original return to the true teaching of the gospel. That’s why we’re named Peace Lutheran. But even better and even more importantly, we will be a church worthy of bearing the name Christian – a church where the gospel that Jesus died to win still lives. And that gospel? We will live on it. We will live on it in the most profound of ways even if and when the religious, political, and ecological systems collapse around us. Because finally? We believe that as Jesus goes, so go we. And that means glory for you in a brand new world.

It makes me wonder. What hashtags would trend if Peter were here right now live tweeting this preaching event? Would it be #TheReformationliveson? Or #Returntothetruegospel. Or better yet #AsJesusgoessogowe? I totally admit it. Sometimes I have totally ridiculous thoughts, but hopefully these aren’t some of them. Amen. 

Genesis 3:1–9 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ” 4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. 8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?”

“I have no destination. I have a destiny. I don’t walk behind. I find new paths. Above the ordinary. To the extraordinary. We are passengers. On different roads. Part of the same journey. The spirit of travel.” The videography and the exquisite language of the narrator were truly beautiful. But this wasn’t poetry for the sake of poetry or art for the sake of art. It was poetry and it was art only for the sake of invitation. To be different. To be extraordinary. To be ahead of the rest of the normal souls who inhabit this orb. Or, at least, to be seen that way. Because truthfully? We live with ourselves all day everyday. There’s no hiding me from me. I am me. I can’t control that. What I can control - so suggests the video - is the me others see when they look in my direction.

How I might gain that control was something I thought I had better see. I clicked on the link below the video that read Discover the Collection. Honestly, I was very curious what might pop up. As the data heavy website loaded I wondered to myself, “What would the collection be? How would it look? How might it help me?” Finally, the site loaded and you know what popped into my view? A red handbag. That’s it. It was just a red handbag. Disappointed and a little bored I clicked on the link hoping to find out how much this Louis Vuitton handbag would set me back if, for example, I wanted to get my wife something nice. I scanned the page where the bag was prominently featured and finally saw the sticker price. Immediately I wondered to myself if along with the bag also came a bar of gold bullion because the price of the bag was - no lie! - $44,500.00. No cost is too great to pay when it comes to how we’re seen.

And, yes, now there is always a cost. Moses would have us know that. There was a time and there was a space and there was a humanity where it didn’t cost anything to look great, but a bitten piece of fruit changed everything. How profoundly? That’s what Moses is trying to show us. I mean it would be easy and almost natural for us to look at this account and say, “It was a quick snack at the expense of a silly rule.” Or, “It was just Eve being curious. What’s the big deal?” You could think that. That is until you keep reading and one bitten piece of fruit later Moses writes one of the most profound statements you’ll ever read, “Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked.” (v. 7) It’s almost like Moses is playing midwife. It’s almost like he’s just delivered these newborn humans into the world and they’re now blinking their eyes trying to adjust their pupils to see for the first time outside the womb.

And that’s because that’s exactly what had happened. Adam and Eve had just been born. They had just been delivered into the brand new world they had rebelliously created. It was a world where they would do what they wanted, not what God wanted. And it turns out that this brave, new, sinful world was incredibly disorienting to them. That’s why Moses presents them as newborns blinking as this new world comes into focus for the very first time. And what do they see? They see themselves. They see each other. And for the first time in world history their nakedness felt uncomfortable for them. Very, very uncomfortable. Yeah, now there was a little too much sexual interest. Adam was a little too interested in his wife’s body. He now had impulses for his wife that were over-the-top, twisted, and even perverted. And now Eve for the first time was evaluating Adam and his body in a totally new way. So, yeah, they realized they were both naked. But this wasn’t just the first case of body shaming or overly erotic thinking. It was more. It was far, far more. And far, far worse.

You have to understand something. These two adults were highly intelligent and incredibly sophisticated people with very advanced vocabularies. Adam had already performed admirably as a zoologist within moments of his creation. He was naming animals left and right. And, yet, as highly intelligent as they were and as advanced as their vocabularies may have been they didn’t have words like guilt or shame or sin yet. They saw those things. They felt those things, but they didn’t yet have words for those things. That’s why Moses wrote, “Their eyes were opened and they realized they were naked.” Moses is telling us that when Eve looked at Adam she saw him with a piercing and knowing gaze. She saw him and knew he was corrupt. And he saw that about her too. And it made them feel. It made them feel exposed. It made them feel horribly revealed. It made them feel naked.

You know what they did about it? They invented fashion. Sort of. Not Armani level and definitely not yet to the level of Versaci or Vera Wang. “They sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.” (v. 7) There was no high design here. No planning. No attempt at beauty. Only desperation. Pure desperation. How do I know that? These were highly intelligent and incredibly sophisticated people who not only came up with what amounted to a fashion nightmare, but also to a practical mess. Eve’s leaf skirt would not only never see the light of day on a runway in New York, it was also the most impractical, least resilient piece of clothing that could’ve ever been imagined. These people were so desperate that they found the nearest tree to make fig-leaf shorts for Adam and a fig-leaf skirt for Eve. And why? They needed to stop this seeing. They needed to make it go away. No cost was too great. No expense was to be spared.

That fundamental need still exists. Back in 2006, New York Magazine in an article entitled The High Price of Fashion while discussing an Yves Saint Laurent gown priced at $33,905 and a Louis Vuitton handbag valued at $20,000 asked this question, “Does any of this make any sense.” You know what the author concluded? He said, “It does.” And why? “The tender heart feels safely revealed in (that kind of clothing).” Do you see it? I’m not begrudging any ladies their shoe rack. I’m not trying to take away any guy’s closet full of camo. I’m simply pointing out that now we all have an inborn sense that we should not be seen. Not truly so. We should be veiled. We should be covered. To be naked and to be exposed is to allow others to see that all is not well with us. That there are thoughts that swirl and feelings that are felt that are wrong and bad and evil. And so we cover ourselves - sometimes with a veneer of high (or low) fashion and other times with a veneer of religious interest - so we can stop others from truly seeing us. The hope? Maybe we can fool them and better yet maybe even fool ourselves.  

But none of it actually works. Not the coverings of religion. Not the beauty of high fashion. Nothing. How do I know this? Because Adam and Eve tried it and it degenerated into a ridiculous and tragic game of hide and seek, “They hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.” (v. 8) Now I suppose I could point out how futile it is to hide from the God who knows where you’re going to hide before you ever even hide. I suppose I could also discuss how crazy and irrational it is to hide from the God who is so infinite that he’s already in the spot (always was) in which you intend to hide before you ever even hide there. I suppose I could do that. But do you know what the most tragic part of this game of hide and seek actually was? It shows how fallen, how dark, how sinful, and how lost we are without the Lord. The new human template? The new way humans work? The new way of the world? As Adam and Eve’s kids, we naturally do whatever we have to do to run and hide from God. Seek him? Not a chance. Find him? Even less remote. We’ll do whatever we have to do to make sure God won’t ever see us. Because deep down we all believe we know what he’ll do when he does.

But we’re all wonderfully wrong. We’re terribly and wonderfully wrong. You know what immediately happened after we all became guilty? The Lord didn’t sit in heaven wringing his hands and thinking to himself, “Nuts! Now I’ve got a whole planet full of people who are guilty and lost and running away from me! What am I going to do now?” You know what he did? He showed up that day just like he had showed up every other day before that to take his walk with them, “in the cool of the day.” (v. 8) It’s almost like he wasn’t panicked about the situation at all. It’s almost like he already had a premade and ready-to-go plan that he was now kicking into motion to deal with human sin once and for all. And when this calm and pre-planned Lord shows up on the scene and Adam and Eve start playing this tragic game of hide and seek you know what he does? Instead of losing his cool, he plays the game. That’s what he was doing when he asked today’s leading question, “Where are you?” (v. 9) Like since they were running, he would chase them. Like since they were hiding, he would seek them. Like since they didn’t want to be his children, he would find a way to become their Father.

And why does Moses tell us this? Because this is Genesis. This is the beginnings of everything. This is not only a real moment in history, but also the great prototype of how the Lord is going to deal with us. When we hide, he still seeks. When we run, he still chases. When we weren’t his children, he preemptively found a way to become our Father. Isn’t that just how it worked for you? You hid. And he found you. You ran. And he chased you down. You sinned. And he came and made himself your Father. That’s not only Adam and Eve’s history, it’s also yours. That’s what this story is showing us. The Lord God shows up to this new and awful world all cool and casual and right on time. He shows up whistling Dixie like nothing in the world is wrong. And then he calls out like any father might when they’re trying to find their kid, “Hey, where are you?” And why does he behave this way? So Adam and Eve feel safe. So they’re willing to come out into the open. So they understand it’s ok to be seen. So they take off the metaphorical fig leaves and allow the Lord to see them.

And why would he encourage them to do that? Because they were actually safe to do so. He wasn’t going to leave them naked or exposed. He was already settled on finding a way for Adam and Eve to be safely seen. He was already settled on making a way so he could ask them and us, “Where are you?” and without any compunction, without a hint of shame, and without even a second thought allow us to walk out from wherever we were hiding and say, “I’m right here.” And be seen with everything that that means. Be really seen. And not with any sin. And not with a hint of shame. And not with any searing knowledge of what we’ve done or who we are. Because no expense was spared. And no cost was too much. Already before the world’s creation the Father was settled that he would clothe us with the life and death of his one and only Son. And so it happened. And Jesus puts us so far ahead that eternity is already ours. Jesus makes us so different that God already calls us saints, the set apart ones, the holy ones. Jesus makes us so extraordinary – decked out in his ridiculously lavish faith-bestowed righteousness. And that? Well – I think it’s safe to say it allows us to finally and safely be seen with everything that that means.

It reminds me of that article I told you about called The High Price of Fashion. Do you remember why the author argued that a $33,905 Yves Saint Laurent gown or a $20,000 Louis Vuitton handbag made sense? He argued that it “made the tender heart feel safely revealed.” Safely seen. Exactly. When the Lord asks, “Where are you?” You’re safe to walk out from wherever you’re hiding with whatever you’re hiding with. And why wouldn’t you? When you’re clothed with something as haute couture as the life and death of Christ, you, ladies, will not only be able to be seen, you’ll be absolute revelations. And you men? I think it’s safe to say that no Armani suit or closet full of camo can ever hold a candle. Amen.

Numbers 11:4–23 (selected verses) The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said, “If only we had meat to eat! 5 We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost—also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. 6 But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!” 10 Moses heard the people of every family wailing at the entrance to their tents. The Lord became exceedingly angry, and Moses was troubled. 18 “Tell the people: ‘Consecrate yourselves in preparation for tomorrow, when you will eat meat. The Lord heard you when you wailed, “If only we had meat to eat! We were better off in Egypt!” Now the Lord will give you meat, and you will eat it. 21 But Moses said, “Here I am among six hundred thousand men on foot, and you say, ‘I will give them meat to eat for a whole month!’ 22 Would they have enough if flocks and herds were slaughtered for them? Would they have enough if all the fish in the sea were caught for them?” 23 The Lord answered Moses, “Is the Lord’s arm too short? Now you will see whether or not what I say will come true for you.”

Kelseymae is stressed. Her status update says, “My stress has stress.” She got 190 digital hugs, 15 shares, and 129 stars. CarterB is disappointed. His status update says, “The only time this girl ever sits next to me in class is when she needs to copy notes or something. Other than that I sit at the table by myself.” He got 157 hugs, 18 stars, and four shares. Aeright is sad. Her status update reads, “You know the kind of heartbreak where you can physically feel your heart being broken more?” She got 126 hugs, 40 stars, and six shares. That’s how the most popular feed reads on this new app I downloaded called Vent. It’s a well reviewed and popular social media platform where people can – well – vent and get support.

The idea that venting is a path to emotional and spiritual healing has been around now for a little over a century. It was first popularized for us by a guy named Sigmund Freud. He used popular science at the time to make an application to the life of the soul. We used to drain out bad blood out of the body and siphon away black bile. We did this because we believed that by opening up and ridding the body of toxins that it would heal. Freud took that concept and applied it to the soul. Freud taught that people should open up the windows of the soul to vent their toxic feelings to get rid of them.

You know what venting really is? It’s actually nothing new. It’s just grumbling rebranded. And Moses take on it? Maybe it’s enough for now to pull a Sesame Street and point out he’s not like the others. Especially Freud. And believe me, it’s not because he hadn’t seen or considered the impact of the grumble. It’s because he had. It had started with just a few tag alongs from Egypt. Turns out the journey to the promised land wasn’t nearly as glorious as that rabble thought it might be. They just weren’t being delivered the desires of their hearts on that trip. Moses writes about them explaining that their souls, “had a deep, deep desire,” (v. 4) for meat. And that desire – that craving – made itself known through an angry, angry grumble.

And that grumble took on a life of its own. There’s no other way to talk about it. It lived in people’s thoughts. It captured people’s hearts. It moved people’s imaginations. And for good reason too. This grumble as grumbling so often does held up a stunning and beautiful alternate universe. It didn’t matter that it hadn’t ever existed. The only thing that mattered was the glory of the idea. “We remember the fish we ate,” and, “the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic.” (v. 5) The massive variety, the tastes, the greens, the yellows, and the reds of the vegetables. And the fish! It was so captivating to their hearts. They could smell it. They could taste it.

And the result of that was nothing short of devastating. Moses wants to make that abundantly clear to us. The NIV translation says, “Now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!” (v. 6) That’s a pretty good translation, but in the interest of showing you even more clearly what Moses is describing here I want to give you a very straight and literal translation of the Hebrew. He wrote, “Now our souls have withered; we never see anything but this manna!” (v. 6) The people self described the state of their souls saying, “Now our souls have withered.” Grumbling had left them with wilting, joyless, and dying souls.

So ruined was the state of their souls that they couldn’t even enjoy the best parts of their world. Even one of God’s most amazing and best gifts to them, manna, was wrecked. Even manna. Even the food source which had at first been so amazing them that they named it, “what is it?” Even manna that “settled on the camp at night,” (v 9) like divine snow. Even manna that was so versatile that they “ground it in a hand mill or crushed it in a mortar.” (v. 8) Such was the power of grumbling. It so completely destroyed their inner lives that they had no ability to enjoy even the best parts of their lives.

It’s such a thought provoking thing, isn’t it? That God uses something as mundane and normal and daily as dissatisfaction with a dinner menu to show us the destructive power of grumbling. My wife helped me understand why he does this. Earlier this week she told me told me about a Washington Post article she had seen. It was entitled, I Really Love My Daughter, But I’m Not Supposed to Talk About That. The article went on to say that people are so in love and so used to grumbling about parenting in our culture that it’s now taboo to say anything good about it. Grumbling’s so the norm that this author felt she couldn’t talk about how much she loved parenting her daughter.

It’s just so easy and natural to us. Do you see that? We’ve got right here in front of us a story full of thousands upon thousands of people who apparently have in themselves an incredible ability to wreck even the best things for themselves. You know what the truth is? I’ve totally seen this in myself and maybe I’m alone in this, but time after time after time after time I’ve shown this. If there’s a blue sky, I’ll find a way to put clouds in it. If there’s a beautiful ocean, I’ll focus on a piece of trash in it. If there’s a single problem in a day, I’ll find a way to shove aside every overwhelming grace to obsess over it. Do you see how the Spirit wants to convict us today? Sin makes grumbling so magnetic to us that we can even take life’s best - parenting, food, whatever - and reimagine it as a curse.

You know what else the Spirit wants us to know? Grumbling doesn’t just ruin life’s best parts for us. It also has the potential to ruin us to God. I suppose it might be enough to point out that when we’re down on life, we’re also not particularly joyful about the Lord. But Moses apparently wants to illustrate this in his own life. He just lays it out this conversation that happened between him and the Lord. The Lord said to him, “If the people want meat, then I’ll give’em meat. I’ll give’em so much meat that it’s going to start, “coming out of your nostrils.” (v. 20) He was saying, “I will go to amazing lengths and in this case absolutely overwhelming lengths to convince my people I have everything handled.”

And that’s when Moses makes it abundantly clear what grumbling had done to his faith. It had almost completely dismantled it. We know this because he comes back with such a vacant and unbelieving response that you almost have to do a double take to make sure it’s still Moses. He says, “There are six hundred thousand men here. And you’re going to feed all of them meat? Good luck, God.” “Would they have enough if flocks and herds were slaughtered for them? Would they have enough if all the fish in the sea were caught for them?” (v. 22) Even if you put on the biggest and widest manhunt in history you’re not going to find faith in that answer. It’s just ugly. Grumbling left unchecked goes right at the heart of our faith.

That’s when it happened. Right then as Moses himself is falling. Right then as the tide seemed to be sweeping away all the believers. That’s when it happened. The Lord turned the spiritual tide. You know how he did it? He asked a question. Interesting strategy, isn’t it? Right in the place and time when we’d seemingly most benefit from answers about why our lives are the way they are, the Lord delivers up our leading question for today, “Is the Lord’s arm too short?” (v. 24) Is the Lord’s arm dwarfed? Is it chopped off? Is it mangled or broken? Is it powerless or impotent? Is the Lord’s arm too short? Do you see what that question does? It pries our heart’s gaze off whatever we’d like to have, but don’t have. And it reorients us to the life we do have by having the Lord ask us, “Do you think I’ve got this? Do you?”

There’s so much that’s gorgeous and healing about that question. You know what I think may be the best part? It’s not that suddenly it reorients us back to our present lives. It’s that in a dramatic reversal we’ve suddenly stopped thinking about what we’d like in our lives and we’ve started to think about what the Lord can do in them. Do you see that? When we ask, “Is the Lord’s arm too short?” we stop thinking about what we’d like and instead we start thinking about what the Lord can do. That’s this question’s power. That’s its force. That’s its mission to our souls. It’s there to be a momentary rhetorical question meant to move us off of ourselves and center us back on the Lord’s power and grace for us.

But let’s be clear. This isn’t actually a rhetorical question. Not even close. Moses made sure we knew that. After the Lord asked, “Is my arm too short?” The Lord went to amazing and even overwhelming lengths to answer it. Because the quail did come. Millions of quail descended on the camp. There were so many that they had meat coming out of their nostrils. But that wasn’t the Lord’s final answer to his question. Not yet. The question still hung in the air for the Lord needing to be answered. It drove him and pushed him and motivated him all through history so that with complete theological integrity I can tell you that the Lord’s answer to this question is the entire rest of the Bible. Those are the amazing and even overwhelming lengths the Lord would go to to finally answer his question.

And finally answer it he did. This time though it wasn’t to feed a hunger that would only rise again. This time it was to feed us in such a way that we’d never be hungry again. This time it wasn’t millions of quail that descended to fill our stomachs. This time it was just one who descended to fill our souls. This time it wasn’t quail. This time it was Jesus. The Lord finally showed the length and power and strength of his arm in Jesus. Think of it. In Jesus, the Lord’s arm became so long that it reached right down into this world and totally redeemed it. In Jesus, the Lord’s arm became so strong that it swept away all our grumbling and replaced it with perfect grace and complete forgiveness. In Jesus, the Lord’s arm became so powerful that it took away any reason for ever grumbling or venting again.

You know when I think it’s toughest to believe that? When dreams get dashed. At least, that’s what I’ve found. Our dream was Mia. She was going to be our adoptive daughter. We’d take her home. We’d raise her. We’d snap selfies and laugh and read books. We’d be her parents. It was going to be so wonderful. It was so exciting. We just couldn’t wait. Until we had to. A short and brutal phone conversation happened. “We’re sorry. The birth mom decided to keep the baby.” I know we’re not alone in life moments like that. I’ll bet there’s not a single person in this room who hasn’t been captured by some alternate universe. Maybe it’s a career you thought might rocket. Maybe it’s a marriage you thought you’d still have. Maybe it’s a kid or a bigger kitchen or a new car that’s still in the offing.

When that’s on our hearts it’s so easy and so natural for us to slide into a grumpy, whiney, wailing kind of spiritual funk. And it’s right there and it’s right then where we’re just not going to. It’s right then and it’s right there when with the gospel and with the Lord’s help we’re going to stand in the gap and believe. We’re going to see the blue sky of God’s power for us not the clouds of sin. We’re going to stand in awe and glory in the ocean of grace not noticing Satan’s trash floating by. We’re going to obsess on the Lord’s guiding hand not the single problem that’s come up. With the Spirit’s power we’re going to ask ourselves, “Is the Lord’s arm too short?” and we’re going to believe it’s not. Even when life twists. Even when life turns. Even when life feels empty.

Melanie and I – we drove to Perkins the day of that phone call. I’m telling you the Spirit was with us. There’s no other explanation. None. We were terribly sad, but still trusting. Our hearts were down, but they were not crushed. Not even after the very biblical seven years of dealing with infertility. You know what ended up happening? I suppose maybe you do. Little did we know that at that very moment the Lord was going to amazing and even overwhelming lengths to give us something even better. Maybe you’ve met her. Her name’s Elliana. In the last analysis, everything always works out that beautifully. Everything. It may take us ‘til heaven to see that. It may take us ‘til then to totally wrap our minds around that truth, but truth it still is. How can I be so sure? Because – well – is the Lord’s arm too short? Amen.

Mark 10:35-45 Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.” 36 “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked. 37 They replied, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.” 38 “You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said. “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?” 39 “We can,” they answered. Jesus said to them, “You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with, 40 but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared.” 41 When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John. 42 Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 43 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. 45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

The nurse who works the late shift at the ICU, the mother who takes care of her hungry baby, the couch potato who watches TV and surfs the internet, the CEO who wants to raise profit margins, the employee who works for him – they all have something in common besides their humanity. They’re ambitious. Granted. Not for the same things, but they are all ambitious.

Everybody is ambitious all the time. That much we know. Robin Williams sure was. It’s amazing really. He had troubles with depression, addiction, alcoholism and even a significant heart surgery in 2009, but if you check his résumé there are no gaps. He worked non-stop. People he worked with said he was, “1000% reliable” and, “ready to work… the first one on the set.” In his later years, he even upped his workload. In recent years, he stars in the comedy TV series The Crazy Ones, acted in commercials for Snickers and iPads, and in 2014 alone had four films come out. Everybody is ambitious all the time. That’s not the question.

The question is: what is worth pursuing? Or as Mark so brilliantly notices, the best and clearest question of all is: who is worth pursuing? It’s amazing how Mark sets this up. Three times Jesus predicts his suffering, death, and resurrection. Three times in three back-to-back-to-back chapters. And three times in three back-to-back-to-back chapters the disciples somehow manage to also name theirs. Each time it gets more awkward. The second time they squirm when Jesus asks, “What were you guys talking about along the road?” And you can just picture it. Peter elbows John and whispers, “You want to tell him?” “No, do you?” Because they were talking about which of them was the greatest.

The third gets even worse because the contrast gets even more stark. The third time Jesus makes the most specific and graphic – did I say graphic? – prediction of his ambition: Gentile control, mockery, spitting, and flogging – these are the new bits of information that came out about Jesus’ ambition. And instead of the disciples mourning it. And instead of the disciples seeming to take it to heart. And instead of the disciples seeking to comfort and support Jesus in it, they come to Jesus to profit from it – two of them in particular. Mark very pointedly says, “Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.” (v. 35)

Many different thoughts flood to mind when I think about their request. It’s awful that they ever even asked. That much we can be sure of. I think it may be one of the clearest and barest presentations of human ambition that you can find anywhere. They come to God and they basically say to him, “God, we want you to be our genie in the bottle. God we want you to do for us whatever we ask.” There are so many problems with that I don’t even know where to start. For one, God is not a genie. For two, who in the world thinks that anybody in their right mind – let alone Jesus himself – is going to promise you something before you ever even ask for it?

But what makes their bare, clear ambition even worse was when it bubbled up. Right after Jesus talked about his ambition to die in its barest and clearest form. Right when Jesus says, “I’m going to be flogged, spit upon, and killed.” That’s when James and John come up to Jesus and they basically say, “Jesus, we want to profit from it. Give us permission to do so.” You know what that’s like? It’s like walking up to your dad on his death bed and saying, “Hey dad, after you’re gone, can I get you and mom’s bedroom set?” It really is that kind of bold, embarrassing, insensitive, and tragic ambition, but here the disciples took that to a whole new level.

What’s more remarkable than their embarrassing, insensitive, and poorly timed ambition is Jesus’ response to it. Did you catch what he did with it? He asked them, “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus completely indulges it. He doesn’t holler at them. He doesn’t rebuke them for their poor judgment. He doesn’t even lament how unfeeling and insensitive they were to him and his needs. Instead of shutting it down, he lets them bring them bring their ambition to its absolute pinnacle by plainly stating it to him.

And so out it came, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.” (v. 37) Now their secret ambitions were no longer secret. They wanted to cash in. They wanted to profit from Jesus’ ambition to suffer. And they didn’t just want cash in on it in a minor way like, “Jesus, will you please just let me ride your coattails?” They wanted to have positions of prestige and control in his new government. They were saying, “Jesus, I’ll be your right hand man. Or your left. Just give us the highest and best positions whatever they may be.”

Why Jesus allowed them to indulge their ambitions becomes clear by what happens next. Their ambitions came home to roost through tension, awkwardness, and outbursts of great anger. And, yes, there was great anger. That much we know from Mark. The word he used to describe it is used very rarely. It was the big anger Jesus felt when his disciples barred children from him. It was the hot type of anger or indignation the greedy felt when $40,000 of perfume was poured out all in one foul swoop. That’s big anger Mark says happened, “When the ten heard about this…” (v. 41) Personal ambition always leads to suffering.

It sure did for Robin Williams. Back in 2008, Robin Williams tried some new material at a small venue in Seattle. He was coming off a string of totally mediocre reviews and movies. Afterwards a reporter approached him in his small dressing room. And this is the description of that moment, “He appeared deflated, exhausted, spent and, as is often said of famous people when you meet them in real life, smaller than his screen self. We complimented him on the new stuff – he had killed, leaving the room in tears of laughter. ‘Really?’ he asked like a schoolboy hungry for a pat on the head. ‘Did you really like it?’” Robin Williams’ ambitions left him vulnerable, suffering, and in tatters.

And that is just the way of the world or, in Jesus’ words, how the “rulers of the Gentiles,” (v. 41) function. The happy life – so says everyone – is in winning. It’s in being in charge. It’s in taking. It’s in dominance. It’s in telling. It’s in lording it over others as Jesus says. It’s in exercising authority over others with the goal of getting what you want whether that’s wealth or security or affirmation – whatever you’re personally ambitious for. So we strive for beauty. We push for dominance. We work for power. And our friendships become a place not to listen, but to heard. Marriage bedrooms become not a place to give, but to take. And careers turn into a place to profit, rather than an opportunity to deliver service.

What no one will tell you (except Jesus) is where that lands you. It lands you in suffering. The disciples became isolated and angry at each other. One’s thinking, “Why didn’t I think of that?” Another’s worried saying, “Now James and John are going to boss me around.” Robin Williams lives a life of making people laugh, but tragically is unable to gain any last joy from it because he’s constantly worried he’s not as good or as funny as others. Friendships get ruined so that no one is really heard. Marriages stop humming and become frustrated. Workers stunt their company or cause services to be negatively affected. Personal ambition always leads to suffering for ourselves and others.

And that just won’t change for us until the gospel gets a hold of us. That’s what Jesus describes for us here – a life in which the gospel really lives. It’s a life of freedom – true freedom. Freedom from personal ambition and freedom from the suffering it causes. “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.” (v. 43-44) How we come to live in that world and how we arrive to that kind of freedom is what he says next. For us to live in that world we must understand what the center of the world really is. “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (v. 45)

It’s interesting the terms Jesus uses. He uses the term ransom. The idea is that you take a person held captive and pay the cost demanded by the captor to set the captive free. They’re no longer ruled by their ambitions. They’re freed men and freed women – no longer slaves. How does this happen? Jesus tells us that too. The slaves get served. And specifically they get served by the Son of Man, the King of the world, and Creator of all. Because he knows something. He knows that until we’ve been served we can’t serve. He knows that until good ol’ number one has been taken care of nobody else can sneak in a priority, let alone stand in line for service. So it was his only ambition to serve us. As Jesus said, “It’s my ambition not to be served, but to serve and set free the many.”

The many. That’s a lot. It’s – to point out the completely obvious – the many. It’s hordes. It’s masses. It’s at the very least a massive, massive crowd. And please, please, please don’t misunderstand Jesus. This is not Jesus undermining the completeness of his work or his salvation. This is not him saying, “I served the majority, but missed the minority. I got most everybody, but actually did miss a few.” This is Jesus doing the complete opposite. This is Jesus enjoying the sheer magnitude of what he was about to accomplish by reveling in the numbers. This is Jesus conjuring up in his mind’s eye the many, many, many his salvation would touch.

And more importantly, he’s asking you to do the same. Jesus is saying, “Picture the masses. See the hordes. Conjure up the massive, massive crowd in your minds eye. Revel in the magnitude of the many and in doing so understand you’re somewhere in there.” That’s what he’s saying. He essentially asking us to play Where’s Waldo with the many of the served and saved to find ourselves. Jesus served so many with his life that he must mean you. That he means you when he served up the forgiveness of sins on a silver platter. That he means you when he rolled out the red carpet of eternal life. That he means you when he built the ultimate mansion and monogrammed a doorway for every saved soul. That he means you. That he means to make you one of the most significant, affirmed, secure, and loved persons to ever walk the face of the earth when he served us.

Think of it. Because Jesus was ambitious for us, we’re no longer captives of personal ambition. We’re free to just let it go. Whatever it had to offer us before we now already have in overwhelming amounts. We don’t have to be ambitious for political power or positional prestige or peer recognition when we have it rolling in from Jesus. We don’t have to be ambitious for spousal love or workplace friendship when we have love and friendship coming at us in spades from the friendship and love of Jesus. It’s not even necessary to shoot for the next level of a career. We have all smashed the glass ceiling. We all hold the most powerful and respected position on earth. We are God’s children.

So down with the disappointment, frustration, and anger that is the fruit personal ambition. And in with service. Let’s stop formulating ways to make our career serve us. Let’s just serve in a career. Let’s stop figuring out how to make someone else notice us. Let’s make sure to notice everybody else. You get the picture. That is real life. And it comes from seeing Jesus meet everyone one of our needs by his cross. It comes by believing that we’ve been served in a final and ultimate way – by seeing our face among the many of the served and saved.

It really does work. True story. I was writing this sermon when my wife ran up the stairs and peeked into my office and said, “Hey can you help me real quick?” Normally – well – this time at least I said, “I’m here to serve.” And I did. (She’s been on a picture hanging streak lately.) Two minutes later I bounded back up the stairs to my office to get back to this sermon. As I did I heard her voice call up the stairs after me, “I like this husband.” I felt joy, smiled to myself, and thanked the Jesus who had not only set me free to serve her, but had also given me a conclusion to my sermon. Amen.

Mark 8:27-38 Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, “Who do people say I am?” 28 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” 29 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Messiah.” 30 Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him. 31 He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. 32 He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.” 34 Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36 What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? 37 Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? 38 If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”

Modern Americans live to avoid suffering. That’s what a writer named Charles Taylor says about us. In a book called the Secular Age, he writes at length about how we as Americans and westerners for the first time ever in history have moved from a general belief in God to a general belief in what’s called naturalism. What that’s saying is that there is no God underlying the universe, there is only physics. And since there’s only physics (not God!), we have come to believe that its our job to maximize happiness for ourselves and minimize suffering – to seek comfort and safety and to avoid suffering at all costs. In other words, the goal of the average American is primarily suffering avoidance.

This is why I can sit down at the pool in the summer and hear women talk about how they left their marriages because they weren’t happy, or why in the modern world therapy is so necessary. We not only think it’s up to us to nip the sources of suffering in the bud. We also think we’re the only ones interested in managing the suffering. So we must do what we have to do to remove suffering sources so we can go back to our supposedly happy ways. There’s just one problem. It’s not working. We’re not happier. Just look at the statistics. We’re more counseled and more medicated than anybody before in world history and, yet, strangely we’re just as sad, discontented, depressed, and dying as we’ve ever been before. Our goal of suffering avoidance isn’t working.

Then again that’s not going to stop us from trying, will it? It’s interesting to think about how Jesus sets us up to answer that question. Because he takes us on a very confusing journey. We find ourselves tooling through the countryside with him when he starts this easy, flowing conversation with us. Offhandedly he says, “Who do people say I am?” (v. 28) Fun. Easy. Light stuff. “Well, Jesus, they’re batting around all kinds of different ideas about your real identity, but they’re all agreed on one thing. You’re the reincarnation of somebody important. Maybe John the Baptist. Maybe Elijah. Maybe, “one of the prophets.” (v. 28)

And then Jesus lobs us that fat underhanded pitch of a question: “But what about you? Who do you say I am?” (v. 29) And Peter just knocks it out of the park with his orthodox, right-worded answer. “You are the Messiah.” (v. 29) And then it just gets weird when Jesus suddenly gets super serious. And, yes, this was super serious. Mark uses the same word that’s later used in this account for rebuke. It’s a big, tough word. It’s the sort of serious warning I might issue my daughter when she tries to run her three-year-old self out into the street. It’s a powerful, total, shut down. He says, “Don’t you dare breathe a word about this Messiah stuff to anybody.”

It only becomes clear why Jesus puts the clamps on their ancient Twitter accounts by what he says next. Because he makes it clear that they had no clue who he really was. Sure, they used the right technical term to describe him, but they had the wrong theology behind it. They had the right words to say about him, but held to the wrong beliefs about him. So Jesus for the first time in his ministry begins to tell them what to believe about the Messiah. He must suffer a lot. He must be rejected by the best and brightest of our society. He must be killed. He must rise.

And that’s when it happened. Belief systems epically clashed. It was the life of ease and victory in this life vs. a life of difficulty and victory in the next life. It was Jesus the Messiah saving us for this world vs. Jesus the Messiah saving us from this world. It was Jesus the Messiah of suffering vs. Peter the Apostle of suffering avoidance. So, yeah, it was totally inappropriate and totally unheard of for any disciple of any teacher in that time to tune up his Rabbi, but that didn’t mean Peter wouldn’t try. His entire belief system was in danger of getting upended. So he takes Jesus aside, “to rebuke him.” (v. 32)

And everybody knows what happened next. Honestly, it’s one of the most memorable encounters in the Bible. It’s not just a fluke that the encounter is described in great detail three times in the Bible. Three. It’s not just an accident that Jesus undoes Peter’s aside and lashes out in front of all of them. It’s not just a fun fact that this moment sticks in our mind’s eye like nobody’s business. That’s exactly what the Holy Spirit wants. He wants us remembering this incident. He wants us struggling through its meaning. He wants us seeing Peter whack a very, very angry bee hive. He wants us hearing Jesus say, “Get behind me, Satan.” (v. 33)

And why? No, it’s not because Jesus missed his morning coffee. No, it’s not because Jesus woke up on the wrong side of the bed. And, no, it’s not because Jesus is a meanie or even because Jesus failed to understand that Peter was well-intentioned and was actually only trying to protect him from harm. Anytime you see Jesus rise up with power in the Bible. Anytime you see him strike. Anytime you see him exorcise demonic thinking as he does here. He’s doing it for salvation ends. He’s doing it not only because if he doesn’t he’s in danger of losing us but also because we are in danger of losing ourselves. He’s doing it because he must exorcise wrong believing from us.

And for the record, identifying what must be exorcised and what is to be believed couldn’t be clearer. Did you notice that? That’s not only an inner thought that Mark had, it’s also one he felt compelled to point out to us in writing, “He (Jesus) spoke plainly about this.” (v. 32) Jesus used the word must. Must suffer. A lot. Must be rejected. Must be killed. That’s not understand to understand. It’s clear. Suffering must happen. It’s not a nasty, unfortunate side-effect of this life, it’s a necessary part of it. And it always has a purpose and a goal. It’s always heading somewhere. It’s lead to rising. Purposeful. Necessary suffering.

Especially for the Messiah. Just think what would’ve happened if Jesus caved to Peter. Just imagine if he had said, “Yeah, Peter, I think you’re right. I think I would be better off avoiding the deep suffering that’s coming. I’m going to go into suffering avoidance mode.” Just think. If Jesus actually listened to Peter, not only are we still hell-bound, but by his disobedience he would be too. And now just think what happened because he didn’t. Because he said, “No, Peter, you’re wrong. I’m not going into suffering avoidance mode. I’m on the road to the cross and not even Satan himself is going to knock me off of it.” Just think. Forgiveness, life, resurrection: these are what made Jesus’ suffering necessary and purposeful.

And, no, it’s not good theology. It’s not true believing to think that purposeful, necessary suffering was unique to Jesus. As much as we might wish it it were, it’s not just the Messiah in his role of sin bearer who must suffer. “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? (v. 34-37) In other words, the suffering of Jesus’ disciples isn’t an unfortunate side-effect of following him or a hole in his sovereignty or a withholding of his love. Suffering is an essential and purposeful part of discipleship.

The reason for that has everything to do with our ψυχή. That’s the word that Jesus used here a whole bunch of times. It’s translated a couple of different ways, but it’s actually the same word. It’s actually an English word we still use. Ever heard of psyche or psychology – the study of the true self? That’s the way a biblical scholar by the name of Eugene Peterson translated this idea. He did that in a widely read paraphrase of the Bible called The Message. He said that by losing yourself in Jesus you end up finding your true self. In other words, Christian psychology says that you won’t find yourself on the Appalachian Trail or in heading out to see the world big, wide world or in a career move or a political position. You’ll only get more completely lost. When Jesus enters, I die to me. I live for thee. That’s when we find the true self we were created to be.

You know what the trouble with this is? It causes great inner turmoil. Every fiber of your natural self will fight it. Every inch of this individualistic culture will war on it. That’s just honest. I was thinking about this earlier this week when I was listening a Christian song. One of the lines in one sang about Christian surrender and how beautiful it is. And truly when we lose ourselves in Jesus, it is a beautiful and miraculous thing. It’s just that it’s not really a surrender. It’s much more like Gettysburg than it is Appomattox. It’s much more like continuing the war than signing treaty terms. At least, that’s what Jesus seemed to think. It’s the denial of a treaty. Not the signing of one. It’s the wearing of the pain. Not the removal of it.

I’m telling you. It really is. It’s believing that this Jesus who suffered and died for me owns me. Even my sexuality. So I go to war. I close my internet browser and kill off the images there. I move out from under my boyfriend’s roof despite all the very difficult entanglements because – well – I believe the gospel. Jesus will keep me and love me. I’m telling you that’s not surrender. That’s war. It’s speaking up for Jesus even though that lady keeps insisting, “he’s only a good man.” It’s befriending that awkward lady, letting other people see you with her, and losing social capital in the process. It’s even denying the self-pity over depression or anxiety that we desperately want to wallow in, and instead trusting God’s love in Christ no matter how we may feel.

Sound exciting? It isn’t. That much we know. It’s interesting to watch what happened in Jesus’ ministry after he began to teach stuff like this. His popularity plummeted. If you read the Gospel of Mark, Jesus becomes more and more of a lightning rod until what was left was an empty cross, a filled tomb, and not a single disciple to be found. All of them had run. Some quite nakedly. Why do I point this out? Because I totally get how hard this is. In fact, it’s my cross to have to teach this. There’s a part of me that would just love to talk pick fun and light Scriptures so that every Sunday was gum drops and rainbows, but I just can’t. And I think you already know why.

Because just like those ancient disciples, I’m so captivated by this Jesus who teaches this. I’m so captivated by this Jesus who doesn’t deny suffering, but embraces it for me. I’m so captivated by this Jesus who was so committed to suffering that not only did he disagree with Peter, he blasted Peter. I’m so captivated by this Jesus who not only came to end all my suffering forever, but also came to redeem my current suffering. To make it count. To make it matter. To make it so much more than an unfortunate side-effect of life. To make it more than just the worthless firing of my nerve endings and empty anguish of my soul. Jesus makes every cross count, especially his own. Especially his.

Because of where it leads. I actually think that was Peter’s primary problem when he took Jesus aside. He got so obsessed in his thoughts about the cross that he forgot about where it led.  He worried so much about Jesus’ suffering that he missed what it was promising. He heard the part about suffering a lot. He heard the part about rejection and being killed too, but somehow he missed the rising part. He saw the cross, but not the crown. He obsessed with the suffering and in doing so forgot the resurrection. Fun fact though. He fixed that mistake later. When Peter writes his first letter to us hardly a word gets out of his pen before he starts marveling and going on and on about – you guessed it – the resurrection of Jesus.

Keep reading his letter and you’ll find out that Peter’s very 21st century-like goal of suffering avoidance had been completely exorcised from his thinking. You know what he says now? He says that what we really need to know about suffering is that we’re not going it alone. We’re together. He says that what we really need to know about suffering is that it has a purpose. It draws us closer to Jesus. And he says that what we really need to trust is that suffering will end in glory. Peace family, that’s not just a solid theology of suffering, that’s the very essence of Christianity itself. Amen.