Six little men and a young boy run down a long portal pursued by a glowing face of Light and a booming voice that bellows, “Return what you have stolen from me. Return the map. Stop!” They don’t stop but fall into the outer darkness. That’s how the story begins in the old movie: Time Bandits.

The six little men (like the six days of Creation) had been hired by the Supreme Being to fix holes in the fabric of spacetime. However, they had just stolen the map that identified the location of these holes, and so they were running from God. They were planning to use the map to steal things throughout spacetime and then escape through more holes. One of those holes led to Kevin’s bedroom, and another out of his bedroom. That’s how Kevin found himself running from the Judgment of God, along with other little men.

And I think that explains the human condition. If you say, “I’ve never stolen a map, and I’m not running from God,” you’re wrong.

John 12:23-25: “... The hour has come for the Son of Man, to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth, and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life [psyche: soul] loses it, and whoever hates his life [psyche: soul] in this world will keep it for eternal life [zoe].”

Did Jesus hate His own soul in this world? Does a seed hate its lonely self in this world for the sake of another? Does it pray “Save me from this hour!” like each one of us?

John 12:27-29: “Now is my soul [psyche] troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose, I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not mine.”

They all hear something, but they don’t hear “The voice of God.” Maybe they don’t want to hear, for what they would hear just won’t fit in their psyche? These are the people that have the map.

In Exodus 19, the Israelites arrive at the Holy Mountain. They must not touch the mountain, but in verse 13, they are told to “go up into the mountain” at the sound of the long trumpet blast. In verses 16 through 19, they hear a long loud “trumpet voice [qowl],” tremble with fear, and then plead with Moses, saying, “Do not let God speak with us, lest we die” (20:19). So, God writes his Word in stone and has Moses place it in a coffin, also called an “Ark.” Of course I’m talking about the Law, the knowledge of Good and evil — the Map.

In Genesis 2, Adam and Eve see it, or Him, hanging like fruit on a tree. They take the fruit of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which is also “The Life.” And then they hear “the Voice [qowl] of the Lord walking in the garden,” and they run and hide deep in their own psyches. They’ve stolen the map.

People think Scripture is a map. Someone was once surprised to find W. C. Fields reading the Bible and so asked him what he was doing. He replied, “Looking for loopholes, my dear. …Looking for loopholes.”

Some think John’s Revelation is a map — with loopholes through which we can avoid the Judgment of God — but it’s not a map; it’s a testimony to a person. It’s titled “The Revelation of Jesus.”

John 12:31-33: “...Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth will draw [romance] all people to myself.” He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die.

When we don’t “get” the image of God — who is Jesus —

We don’t get the logic of Love — which is the sacrifice of Love: “to lose your life and find it.”

And so, we run from the Judgment of God — which is to run into nowhere and nothing. It is to run from the Light and so hide in your own shadow.

I can’t begin to explain this without three pictures that I share in sermons all the time.

#1) The first image I often share is a picture of a timeline, with the numbers 1 through 6 on the timeline and all surrounded by the number 7. An arrow from the End of the timeline (7) extends to a cross on top of the number 6 on the timeline.

This is the way the authors of Scripture and those in the early church viewed time. Chronological time has a beginning and end, and it can be divided into 6 days (aions: ages), all contained within a 7th day that is unlike all the other days; it’s eternal (aionios: “of the age,” the age to come). That day is filled with Light and the manifest presence of “I Am.” It’s not the absence of space and time, but the presence of all of space and time in every moment, and every moment in all of space and time. Death, darkness, and evil can only exist on the timeline, for shadows and lies can only exist on the timeline, for they are dependent upon separation in space and time.

On the 6th day, God made adam (humanity), and on the 7th day, “everything is good,” and “It (all) is finished.” We are each experiencing our own creation in the 6th day, with the 7th day (eternity) in our hearts — yet not so that we can find out what God has done from beginning to end (Ecclesiastes 3:11). So, even if we have the map, we can’t read it.

#2) The next illustration I like to share is a picture of a bunch of people with red lines extending through each of them, representing blood flow between them, and the Holy of Holies in the midst of them. It looks like worshipers around the old stone temple; but when I draw an outline of a man around all those worshipers, it looks like life in the Body of Christ. It’s the “Last Adam,” in whom all is one and one is all and none are alone.

On the 6th day of creation, God breathed his Breath, the Breath of Life, into some “adamah (ground)” and the first adam (human) became a living soul. He must’ve looked like my grandson, James. When I first held James, I exclaimed, “He’s perfect!” And yet something was wrong — he wasn’t aware of myself, his self, or self itself; he didn’t know that he was alone. That first adam contained the Life of God and was in the very presence of God. And God said, “It is not good for the adam to be alone.”

In the beginning, Adam had life, but he wasn’t living that life; he wasn’t breathing. In the beginning, I am the breath of God, not knowing where I came from, who I am, or what I do. I am a spirit of God dreaming that I am my own creator, unaware of the one who constantly holds me — my Helper.

Last week, I had my first conversation with James. My daughter caught it on video. He grunts at me, and I grunt at him, and we hug. It has 3.2k views on Facebook so far — it’s life! When you pray, you may feel like you are only grunting, but the angels gather round, look in wonder at you and your Father, and exclaim, “Look! He’s perfect! An adam is beginning to live the Life — the Life of God.”

There’s only one Life, and yet all of Him flows through all the vessels in His body — no longer vessels of wrath but vessels of Mercy. So, how do we get from our own individual earthen vessels to Life in the Body of Christ, which is the Kingdom of God? How does the Judgment of Love become the judgment of each and of all? Is it the law (Knowledge of Good and evil) or a life, even the Life?

#3) The third image that I often share in sermons is the painting, "Mystery of the Fall and Redemption of Man" by Giovanni da Modena (1420). This is a picture of a man hanging like fruit on a tree in the middle of the garden of Eden, and the garden of Calvary, and the garden city of the New Jerusalem. It’s all one tree.

In Genesis 3, God arranges for the Adam (Eve and Adam and each of us) to encounter our True Helper. He is the Voice that made them, but now in flesh and hanging on the tree in the middle of the garden. The Adam hears a lie, not knowing the Good, and so takes the Life by breaking the vessel. Adam and Eve begin to know that He’s not a map leading to treasure; He is the treasure. They haven’t made themselves good or alive but trapped themselves in death and evil. They hear the Voice that made them and flee; they each hide their true self in a false self, alone in fig leaves, shame and fear... like each and every one of us.

But there is Seed in the fruit. And at the sound of the Word that is heard, the Seed germinates in the temple of the soul, the veil rips, and the Voice draws the Adam back to the tree that we now see as the cross. And we begin to know that although we did our very worst, He has always remained the very best. Although we each take His Life, he has always given His Life on the tree of Life in the Middle of the New Jerusalem coming down — the Bride and Body of Christ. He is the Judgment of Love; there is only one Judgment. He never changes; he is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

As He cries, “It is finished,” and delivers up His Spirit, He saves us from ourselves and draws us all back to Himself from the inside out. For the judgment that made us is now the judgment rising from within us. The Voice that we once ran from is now our very own voice. This is the romance of God. And so, we freely choose to be what we actually are — the Image and Likeness of God. “It is finished.”

In Time Bandits, just when the Evil One has Kevin and the bandits cornered, and all appears to be lost, the Booming Voice and Face of Light catches them, destroys evil, manifests as a man, and reveals that he “let them borrow the map.” “After all,” he says, “I am the Good One.”

The Revelation of the eternal Judgment of God is the death and resurrection of Jesus. And yet eternity touches time at every moment on the timeline displayed in image #1. That moment is always called “Now.” By the Grace of God, at any moment you can turn, face the light and see yourself reflected in the Father’s eyes. That’s not just wishful thinking.

Jesus said, “My Father is your Father. Abide in me.” In reality — that is, in the 7th day — you are in Him, for He is in you. And as you look out of His eyes into the face of “Our Father,” the Voice says, “You are my beloved, in whom I am well pleased. I have glorified my name in you, and I will glorify it again.” That judgment doesn’t change; but that judgment changes you.

Surrendering moment by moment to this judgment will probably look less like the end of Time Bandits, or some other apocalyptic Hollywood production, and a little more like the cell phone video my daughter made of me and James looking each other in the eye and grunting.

Never run from the Judgment of God, Our Father, but always run to the Judgment of God, for it is always Good. It’s Life. And now you know, not because you stole a map, but because you are known by the Life, who is your “Helper,” risen and living in and through you.