Mark lived in a world where people could only tell the truth because they had no concept of untruth — that is lies (They had no knowledge of Good and evil.) Mark is played by actor Ricky Gervais in his movie, The Invention of Lying. One day, Mark discovers that lying can assist in acquiring money, and thereby women who would otherwise not date him due to his genetic propensity to produce “little fat kids with snub noses.” When his mother dies, Mark invents a lie to make her feel better, someone overhears, and soon the whole world wants to know about “The Man in the Sky.”

Under pressure, Mark writes down 10 points on two pizza boxes that look a little like stone tablets. He tells the world: “There is a man in the sky who controls everything... When you die, you don’t disappear but go to a really great place... If you do bad things, you won’t get to go to this place... [but] a terrible place the worst place imaginable.” Of course everyone wants to know what constitutes “a bad thing,” so for two hours, Mark gives them his best shot at the “knowledge of good and evil.”

When asked, Mark reveals that it’s like baseball: You get three bad things, three strikes, and you’re out. “The man in the sky who controls everything decides if you go to the good place or bad place,” he says. When the people discover that he also causes natural disasters, they all want to kill the man in the sky. But Mark reveals that the man in the sky makes up for it (if you go to the good place) by giving you an eternity of good stuff after you die. They conclude that He’s “kind of a good guy” and “kind of a (something that can’t be posted online),” and so life is “kind of a test.” And Mark says, “Yes.”

In the movie, Mark invents religion, and it’s all a lie. It’s a hilarious comedy, and the truth is that people do invent all manner of “religion.” At the end of the film, he tells someone, “There is no man in the sky” — BUT:

#1. How does Mark (or Ricky) know that there is no man in the sky?

#2. If Mark (or Ricky) is suggesting that Jesus is our invention, who would invent a messiah that would tell us that we must all pick up a cross? (That’s not a test to see who does or doesn’t get in; that’s the revelation that all must be tested in order to get in.)

#3 The “invention of lying” assumes the existence of Truth.

What is Truth?

If someone says to you, “There is no absolute truth,” just ask them, “Is that the truth... absolutely?” If it’s not absolutely true that there is no absolute truth, then there is absolute truth. Truth holds all things together. We assume truth every time we connect two thoughts or speak a word. And yet we cannot prove truth, for with what would we prove it... The Truth?

John 18:38, Pilate looked at Jesus and asked, “What is Truth?”

John 14:8, The night before, Jesus told his disciples, “I am... the Truth.”

That’s not an argument; that’s a crisis (krisis in Greek, a “judgment”).

One stormy night, the captain of a ship looked into the dark night and saw a faint light in the distance, but approaching fast. Immediately, he sent a message: “Alter your course 10 degrees south.” Promptly a message was received: “Alter your course 10 degrees north.” The captain sent a second message: “Alter your course 10 degrees south – I am the captain.” Soon a message was received: “Alter your course 10 degrees north – I am seaman third class Jones.” Immediately the captain sent a third message: “Alter your course 10 degrees south – I am a battleship.” Then the reply: “Alter your course 10 degrees north – I am a lighthouse.”

God is Light. Jesus is the Light of the World. He is also the Rock . . . that “followed them.” Not even the most ardent atheist could make a movie about inventing religion without assuming the Truth and crashing into the Lighthouse.

What is Truth? John has been telling us all along and is now clarifying the answer in John 18.

John 18:13-14, “First they led him to Annas, for he was father-in-law to Caiaphas, who was high priest that year. It was Caiaphas who had advised the Jews that it would be expedient (profitable, useful) that one man should die for the people.” Remember? It was a prophetic word!

Jesus did die for the people — but not because God is bad, Jesus is good, and God had to kill him to feel better about you. Could we say such things if we knew “Our Father”? Caiaphas knew about God and the Messiah and concluded that he, Caiaphas, should kill Him. We all take knowledge of the Good (God alone is Good) who is the Life (Jesus is the Life); we all crucify Him. We can know all about the Truth and even use the Truth, but that’s not the same as knowing the Truth and being known by the Truth and becoming Truth Full.

John 18:17, The servant girl at the door said to Peter, “You also are not one of this man’s disciples, are you?” He said, “I am not [ouk eimi].” That’s not only a lie but a terrifying ontological statement. Every lie is a rejection of I am and his Word, who creates and sustains everything that’s anything, that is Reality. You can deny the Truth, but you will also be denying yourself.

John 18:20, To Caiaphas Jesus said, “I have said nothing in secret [kryptos].” A secret is a truth you hide in order that it may not be comprehended. A mystery [mysterion] is a truth you share but cannot be comprehended; it must comprehend you. The Truth is no secret, but it is a mystery.

John 18:22-23, “When he had said these things, one of the officers standing by struck Jesus with his hand, saying, “Is that how you answer the high priest?” Jesus responded, “If what I said is wrong, bear witness about the wrong; but if what I said is right, why do you strike me?”

Jesus is the High Priest and “the Truth.” The Beast from the land (political power), the Beast from the Sea (religious power), and the Great Harlot who rides the Beast (the people of God in bed with “power”) will all try to become your High Priest. If you can’t handle simple statements of fact, you are worshipping an idol. Wake up. Truth can be misunderstood, slapped, beaten, twisted, and crucified, but you cannot change the Truth. The Truth is a Lighthouse built on a Rock.

John 18:26-27, “One of the servants of the high priest, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, asked, ‘Did I not see you in the garden with him?’ Peter again denied it [Strike 3], and at once a rooster crowed.” We have all sacrificed the Truth to the lie in the Garden on a tree called “the Cross.”

John 18:33-34, “Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ Jesus answered, ‘Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?” Jesus talks as if he knows Pilate, not the king but the little boy lost inside. The Truth knows you — the real you — and likes you immensely.

John 18:35-37, “Am I a Jew?” asks Pilate. Great Question! “ ...So, you are a king?” asks Pilate. “You say I am King,” answers Jesus (Jesus isn’t lying, and He knows Pilate). Pilate not only says it; he makes a sign and places it on the cross above Jesus’ head for all the world to see: “The King of the Jews.” When the Jews complain and demand him to add the words “This man said...,” Pilate responds, “I have written what I have written.”

In the Revelation, John sees the Truth cut the flesh from the kings of the earth with a sword that comes from his mouth. And then he sees the “kings of the earth” enter the New Jerusalem. Pilate must’ve been one of those kings. “Outside... is everyone who loves and practices falsehood.” Jesus said, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free...” from yourself, I would suppose. Until then, the Breath of God remains buried in a tomb of fig leaves, shame, and fear — the Breath of I Am in a prison of I Am Not.

John 18:38, “Pilate said to him, ‘What is Truth?’” How is Jesus to answer? Jesus is the answer . . . seeking Pilate. The Truth is not a “what” but a “who” that is constantly seeking you, romancing you. He doesn’t seem to care whether or not you think He exists, but He died so that you would want Him to exist and freely choose to abide forever with Him. The Truth lets you take His life on the tree, that you would see that He gives His life on the tree, and know that He is the Good and the life; He is Love.

But make no mistake, no matter how big your battleship, He is still the Lighthouse and the Rock. He not only exists; He is existence. Not even the most ardent atheist could make a movie about Religion and lies and miss the Lighthouse.

In the movie, The Invention of Lying, Mark falls in love with a woman named Anna, but he refuses to lie to Anna to gain her love. He suffers for Love and actually begins to look like Jesus. Unaware of what she really wants (a bit like old Adam and Eve), she agrees to marry Brad, who has a very nice nose. When Mark interrupts the wedding objecting to their union, the pastor, Anna, and Brad all turn to Mark who is standing in the aisle and ask, “What does the man in the sky want us to do?”

Mark refuses to lie and invent religion. He leaves the chapel. Anna follows. She catches him. He confesses: “I did a bad thing.” She says, “That’s OK — you get three.” He says, “There is no man in the sky.” She asks, “How can you say something that wasn’t?” “I don’t know. I just can,” he replies. “Well, when I asked you if being rich changed your genetics, why didn’t you just say, ‘Yes’?” asks Anna. “Because it wouldn’t count (It wouldn’t be real),” Mark responds. “Mark...” she says, “I know what I want. I want little fat kids with snub noses.” She’s fallen in love with Truth in Mark, who has fallen in love with Love: Real Love. That’s what we all want and don’t yet know that we want.

“God is Love,” writes John. And Jesus said, “I Am the Truth.” The Truth is a lighthouse, but the lighthouse moves, and we become the lighthouse built on the Rock by God.

Pilate put the Truth to the test, but the entire time the Truth was putting Pilate to the test — NOT to see what Pilate would do, BUT that Pilate would see what the Truth would do, then call him “King,” and even proclaim his kingdom. Pilate wants Jesus.

The Jews put the Truth to the test, but the entire time the Truth was putting the Jews to the test — NOT to see what they would do, BUT that they would see what Love does do, call him “King,” rise from their graves at the sound of his voice (John 5:25-29), and enter the Land (Ezekiel 37).

Peter put the Truth to the test, but the entire time the Truth was testing Peter — NOT to see what Peter would do, BUT that Peter would see what Jesus does do and freely choose to pick up a cross, do the same in Rome as was done in Jerusalem, and give birth to the Church.

Adam and Eve put the Truth to the test on the tree in the garden, but the entire time the Truth was putting all of us to the test — NOT to see what we would do, BUT that we would see who He is, surrender to Love, and become His Lighthouse, the image and likeness of God.

At the end of the old movie, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Nazis raid the inner room of a temple with many cups — one of which is supposedly the Holy Grail containing “Eternal Life.” The ancient knight guarding the cups tells all to choose wisely. One of them chooses to drink from a golden cup studded with jewels. He dies, turns to dust, and is blown away. “He chose poorly,” comments the knight.

Drinking is dangerous, because you can’t always tell what’s in a cup and how it will affect you until you drink it. So, if someone hands you a cup, it’s wisdom to only drink cups from those who have earned your trust.

The Gospel of John is all about drinking: water to wine at a wedding feast, living water for thirsty Samaritans, life in his blood for those who drink it, a promised fountain rising from within. At the last supper, He hands His disciples a cup. In John 17, Jesus prays that He would be “in them.” In 18:1 he enters “a garden.” In this garden, He prays “Father, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will (that’s one will) but thy will (that’s another will) be done (that’s a third will that wills what it does not will).” I think that’s called “faith,” or perhaps, “The Helper” who is the Spirit of God in us.

In John 18, Judas and a detachment of soldiers arrive in the garden to arrest Jesus. Peter draws his sword and cuts off the ear of the High Priest’s slave. John 18:11, “So Jesus said to Peter, ‘Put your sword into its sheath; shall I not drink the cup that the Father has for me?”

In John 19:29, hanging on a tree in a garden, Jesus drinks sour wine; He drinks our cup; He drinks sour wine from sour grapes, from Israel his Vineyard. Jesus from “the bosom of the Father,” the heart of God, drinks sour wine and bleeds perfection — the wine of the kingdom. A heart constantly drinks spent blood (sour blood) and bleeds oxygen enriched (spirit enriched blood), a river of life that flows through every member of the body and back to the heart (the throne). “The first Adam became a living soul; the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit.” This is “The Seventh Sign That is the Substance.”

We say, “Fine, but what does it mean for me now?” John 18:11, “Jesus said to Peter, ‘Put your sword in its sheath; shall I not drink the cup the Father has for me.’”

Nineteen years and one month ago today, I had just finished preaching, breaking the bread and pouring the wine. I was sitting next to my wife in the front row as people filed past. Suddenly, she grabbed my arm and whispered loudly in my ear, “I just saw your dad!” (He had been dead for three years.) “He was so young and alive. His eyes were on fire! He was so excited. He leaned forward with a bowl in his hand and said, ‘Peter and Susan, do not be afraid to drink from the cup that the Lord has for you.’ And then he vanished.”

Within three months, I had been publicly tried, condemned, and defrocked. So, for 19 years I’ve been asking, Am I drinking the cup? Do each of us have a cup? What’s the cup, and what’s in it? How do we drink it? How do we refuse it? Have we already chosen poorly? Has God already chosen well?”

I was tried and condemned for hoping that “As in Adam all die, so in Christ will all be made alive.” My father was tried and condemned for reasons I don’t fully understand, except that I know he wanted to preach Jesus from Scripture. The Lord has shown me that I had resolved to never allow what happened to my dad to happen to me. But I drank my dad’s cup, and now I can’t wait to see him again —I now know him as I never did before. I drank my dad’s cup, and I drank my Father’s cup (at least a little bit), and “knowing” Him, “and Jesus Christ whom he has sent is Eternal Life” (John 17:3).

According to the Dictionary of New Testament Theology, “the cup” symbolizes the way in which God’s gifts and judgments come to us. The cup is like circumstances containing experiences. “The Lord has assigned my portion and my cup,” writes David. “Consolation, Joy, Blessing, Salvation, Suffering, Wrath”: It’s all The Father’s Cup. Isn’t reality . . . the Father’s Cup? He speaks all things into existence with His Word. So, evil must not be a “thing” so much as a “no-thing,” not Truth but lies, not Light but dark, not Logos but chaos, not Reality but illusion — and only known because of the pain it produces in who it is that “I am.”

The 17th century mystic Jeanne Guyon writes: “You must utterly believe that everything that has happened to you is from God and is exactly what you need.” Julian of Norwich wrote: “There is no doer but God.” Scripture agrees. So, the cup is the reality that meets you every day as the circumstances of your life, and because there is no doer but God, everything that’s anything is Grace. In other words, the drink in the cup of reality is always the Blood of the Lamb.

My dad was holding a “bowl.” The priests in the temple collected blood in bowls to return the life as worship—return the Life to the One who constantly gives His Life to the world. In the Revelation, seven angels pour the blood on the earth; it burns away “me-sus” and reveals Jesus. We drink that blood every Sunday. That can be stressful. How do we know it’s the Father’s cup that we are, in fact, drinking?

When I drank the cup, I had a revelation (my wife’s vision). I also knew that to deny the cup would be to lie, to be untrue (all truth is revelation). And I had faith . . . but we sometimes confuse faith in me-sus with faith in Jesus, lie to ourselves, and we don’t always have visions. Yet I think there is another way (that is the same way) to discern the Father’s cup. It seems backward to us because it’s opposite of this entire world. If we’re grateful to the Father for a cup, we’re drinking in faith by grace, true to God, and everything becomes the revelation of reality — our eternal life.

1 Timothy 4:4, “Everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy (sanctified, made eternal) through the word of God and prayer.” So, if you are a self-made man, you’re not good, and therefore you’re nothing. And yet “a nothing” cannot imagine it’s “a something.” And so, you must be created by God, and when you confess your sin and thank Him for yourself, you will come to see just who it is that you actually are. You’ll find the Something growing in the depths of your nothing like a baby in a womb.

Jesus broke the bread, and He took the cup... and “when he had given thanks, he gave it to them.” Did you hear it? Jesus thanked God for His own body broken and bloodshed. Which means that He thanked God for those who broke His body and the sins for which His blood was shed. Which means that He sanctified all things with Himself; He is the Word of God, and the Faith with which you pray all of your prayers. It means that He thanked God for His experience of evil in you, and yet He transformed it into good, which is who it is that you actually are, such that “where sin increased, Grace abounded all the more.”

Each of us is like a temporal clay cup filled with the eternal blood of the Lamb. He doesn’t only save part of you but all of you — past, present, and future. When we trust, we live our eternal life now, or I should say, Eternal Life lives us now.

I have a friend who found some old pictures while cleaning her house. The pictures were of events in her past, which triggered memories that kept her from living now. In prayer, Jesus appeared to her in a vision. She asked Him to hold her, and He would not. Understand that He had held her many times in visions before.

“You must give me those pictures,” He said. I prayed, “Jesus help her to see herself as you do.” Much to my dismay, He responded, “Those pictures are part of who you are.” At first, I wondered if it was Jesus who was talking. But each time that she would hand Him a picture, He’d reveal his presence in the picture: The Truth in the lies, the Light in the darkness, the Grace in the sin, the Logos in the chaos, and the meaning of the picture would change entirely. He’d do this with each picture, place each one in a frame, and then hand them back to her.

The last picture was of a Halloween night long ago. She remembered that she had always wanted to be an angel, and so her mother dressed her as an angel. When her father came home that night, he flew into a rage and took her to a meeting where men abused her in the vilest of ways. Jesus entered the picture with eyes of fire, took her from the table, dressed her in white, held her in His arms, and said, “You are and you will always be my little angel.” He has shown her that her scars are on His body — that whatever they did to her, they literally did to Him. I said, “Look, He is holding you, and He is telling you just who it is that you truly are.” Then Jesus said to her, “Your pictures are my pictures.”

After a time — the vision now over — she looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, “How do you think it makes Him feel when we’re ashamed of those pictures?” I thought for a moment and said, “I guess it would mean that we’re ashamed of Him.”

We die with Him and rise with Him and are never dead again.

If the Father’s cup is reality, how could we NOT drink the cup the Father has for us? Jesus had asked Peter to stay awake, but he slept “for sorrow” (Luke 22:44). Then Peter drew his sword, and Jesus said, “Put your sword in it’s sheath; shall I not drink the cup that the Father has for me?” I drank my Father’s cup, but I also did not and still do not drink His cup; I’m ashamed of those old pictures and terrified it might happen again. It keeps me from living now. Sometimes I sleep to them and act as if they never mattered. Sometimes I swing my sword and try to destroy them. And that’s why I need to come to worship, hear His story, drink the cup, and say, “Thank you, Father, for our cup,” then drink it with Jesus. When Jesus rose from the dead, He showed them His scars — they are His glory.

And it wasn’t every day that the Father handed Jesus a cup of crucifixion. Some days He handed Him a fishing trip with his boys, or six jugs of water to turn into wine. Because He had faith in His Father, He drank every cup. When Jesus heard a good joke, I think He laughed the loudest. When Jesus drank wine, to Him, it always tasted the best. When He made furniture, it wasn’t just work; it was worship. When storms came His way, He either enjoyed them or fell asleep on the boat. When He attended a funeral, He wept the most heartfelt of tears. And when the Father said, “Now it’s time to drink the bitter cup,” He made all things new.

We all chose poorly. It’s always the blood of the lamb that’s in the cup. It’s not the cup that is the problem; it’s that we take it and never say “thank you,” for we don’t yet know that everything that’s anything is Grace. Drink the cup, say “Thank you Father,” and Christ in you makes all things new. That’s Wisdom.

Grandpa scared me. He drank beer and constantly smoked White Owl New Yorker cigars which he kept in the front pocket of his overalls. And Grandpa said all the words I wasn’t supposed to say, including the worst of all: “God damn,.” I’d been told that this phrase was the definition of “taking God’s name in vain,” which I now understand to be something far more subtle.

But if you ever do spend some time in “hell,” you may discover that it’s filled with broken farm equipment from central Nebraska. I heard him say it time and time again. “This tractor... God damn it to hell; God damn it to hell—these damn irrigation pipes.” I thought: “Grandpa is going to hell.... and no one seems to care.”

I honestly did not know what to do with Grandpa, but he seemed to always know what to do with me. In the summers when we’d stay at the farm on family vacation, in the morning or at bedtime, Grandpa would say, “Peter, you get in here, crawl up into bed with me and Grandma and let me give you a squeeze.” He’d pull me into his “kolpos” (in Greek), his “bosom” (in English), and hug me so tight that I’d say “Grandpa, I can’t breathe.” He’d say something like, “Ah hell, you’re just fine,” and squeeze me even tighter until Grandma would say something like, “Ralph, let Peter go to bed.” I honestly didn’t know what Grandpa saw in me: the neurotic preacher’s kid from the “big city.”

Many years later (1978, I believe), Grandma had died and Grandpa was staying with us in Colorado recovering from a broken hip. I was now going to Young Life and youth group and had recently re-dedicated my life to the Lord. And, I felt the need to save Grandpa from God . . . our Father. I knocked on his bedroom door. He was sitting on the side of the bed, his dentures in the front pocket of his overalls, a cigar in his mouth, playing Solitaire on a TV tray.

He listened to my reasoned presentation, followed by its logical implication: He needed to make a decision to save himself from the decision (Judgment) of God our Father. Surprisingly, he listened most intently, took a breath, and said, “Ah hell, Peter. The Presbyterians say one God damned thing, the Methodists say another damn thing, and the Baptists another, and then they fight over it.” And I didn’t know what to say. I had read enough of my Bible to realize that Jesus agreed with Grandpa.

In John 17, God the Son (from the “bosom of the Father”), speaks to God the Father. “Holy Father, keep them (the twelve) in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one... I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that all [pas: everyone] might be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world [cosmos] may believe that you have sent me (vs. 11, 20-21).”

If Jesus is praying “in Jesus’ name,” then it would appear that their will be a “oneness” in the twelve that would be so appealing that all people would see it, want to enter it, and all creation would be transformed..., as if the New Jerusalem were coming down, and so “all creation will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”

“Make them one as we are one,” prayed Jesus. And he was praying for Grandpa.

Oneness is what we all want. It’s why Nazis wear uniforms, march in uniform, and scapegoat Jews. It’s why people get drunk together — to lose themselves and find themselves in another. It’s why people hang out in the red-light district. We all want to belong, for “it’s not good for Adam to be alone”; it’s evil. And yet, saving ourselves from aloneness in the wrong way is even more aloneness, evil, and damnation later on.

Oneness: It’s what we all want more than anything, and yet it’s the very thing that terrifies us more than everything or anyone.

It all reminds me of “The Borg” (on Star Trek). The Borg is a giant alien cybernetic organism that possesses other life forms, dissolving all individual distinctives into itself. And that is seductive because individual distinctives can be quite a burden. You yourself, “Me-sus,” can be quite a burden, but the Borg is what I call “We-sus” — not “Me is salvation” but “We are salvation.” We-sus constantly tempts Me-sus, saying, “We will help you save yourself; we will help you be self-centered; if you only belong to We-sus, you won’t need Jesus. In fact, you can hide from Jesus in We-sus, which is us — we are the crowd, the Americans, the Iranians, the Republicans, the Democrats, the Presbyterians, the Methodists, and the Baptists. Paul referred to We-sus as “the Principalities and Powers of this World.” John saw We-sus in the Revelation; I think he called it “The Beast.”

According to Scripture, we’re all born into “the Borg.” It’s John who writes, “The entire world is under the power of the Evil One.” That means that people think they’re free because the Borg tells them they’re free, and people think they love because the Borg tells them that they love.

“On Earth, this desire is often called ‘love.’ In hell, I feign that they recognize it as hunger,” writes C.S. Lewis. “There I suggest the stronger spirit can permanently gorge its own being on the weaker’s outraged individuality... This, I surmise, is the only imitation [satan] can understand, of that unfathomed bounty whereby God turns tools into servants and servants into sons, so that they may be at last reunited to Him in the perfect freedom of a love offered from the height of the utter individualities which he has liberated them to be.”

Jesus prayed, “Make them one as we are one.” So how is God One?

In 312 A.D., Emperor Constantine converted and asked this very question. In 325 A.D., he convened the Council of Nicaea, which eventually produced the Nicene Creed and what is now known of as “The Doctrine of the Trinity.” I think the Creed is beautiful, true, and profound — but it’s not Scripture. And what do you do with people who don’t agree? Constantine knew. Because we thought we knew how God is one, we experienced our first “official” division... followed by more and more creeds until “The Presbyterians said one damn thing, the Methodists another, and the Baptists another,” and we’re still fighting over it. Jesus prayed, “Keep them in your name.”

When Yahweh declares His name to Moses hidden in the cleft of the Rock, He says, “Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious... forgiving iniquity and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty.” I think that’s impossible to believe without the realization that God is constant forgiveness and that unforgiveness is the unforgiveable sin.

On the Sixth Day of Creation, God (Elohim, also translated “gods”) said, “Let us make man in our own image.” So “in the image of Elohim he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:26-27). “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). God is one like husband and wife are to be one and a human body is one. “This mystery is a profound one,” writes Paul. “It refers to Christ and his Church.”

That fills some with hope and others with terror. This longing for communion is our deepest desire and deepest terror, for we were each made for God and yet have been violated by the Borg.

I think I know what Grandpa saw in me: himself, before he’d been violated by the Borg. It’s what I see in my one-year-old grandson, James. We all want just a smile and, hopefully, a hug from James, for we know it doesn’t come from the Borg but from the James that God has created — not his fig leaves, shame and fear. James isn’t quite old enough to know how to impress any of us, and so he’s free to enjoy all of us . . . if he wants to; he’s capable of a little love in freedom.

Maybe that’s how God is one. He doesn’t have to be; He wants to be one — two or three (or more) but One. He wants to be, and He is, LOVE. Love is never less and always more. A chicken leg isn’t less a chicken leg for being attached to a chicken; I’m not less of a man for making love to my bride; you’re not less a person for losing yourself and finding yourself in Jesus — the Logos (logic) of LOVE.

Jesus keeps praying, “I in them and you in me, in order that they might be having been perfected into one that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me... I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them” (John 17:23,26).

We’ve been asking, “How is God three in one?” Perhaps we need to also ask, “How is God one in billions upon billions of ‘persons’?” The Father is in Jesus. And He just prayed, “I in them.”

How does He get into them? “The first Adam became a living soul; that Last Adam became a life-giving spirit,” wrote Paul. Jesus crossed the river of Lamb’s blood, entered a garden, then on a tree in a garden He delivered up His Spirit. On that tree and at this table He is enthroned. He is not the Borg, a lion seeking someone to devour (That’s satan). He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah, AND he is the Lamb. He is absolute Power and Supreme Humility. When you see Him as He is, you will never see anyone or talk to anyone, including your grandpa, in the same way ever again.

Now I know what I wish I would’ve said to my Grandpa when he said, “Ah hell, Peter. They all say a different God-damned thing, and then they argue about it.”

I wish I would’ve said, “I’m sorry Grandpa... I wish you would’ve seen Presbyterians, Methodists, and Baptists fight about all sorts of damned things but then forgive each other all sorts of damn things and start sharing all things together in common — actually enjoy each other in all things, kind of like you and your friends at the bar in North Loop, Nebraska. But you didn’t see that, and I’m sorry. ”

“I’m also sorry for my awkward ‘presentation’ just now. I’m just thinking that you might actually see God face to face, and pretty soon. And when you do, it’s bound to scare the crap out of you. I think He’s pretty different than me and you, and yet, I think He’s also an awful lot like you . . . Grandpa.”

“Do you remember when I was little and you always wanted to hug me? I don’t think that was just you, Grandpa; that was God in you. And I think God has always wanted to hug you like you used to hug me. I hope you let Him. He’ll hug the hell out of you and all of Heaven right into you.”

I wish I would’ve said that, but I didn’t. Grandpa died soon after. But don’t worry about Grandpa. God is not dependent on Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, or me. And I did love Grandpa and Jesus, at least a little bit. And nothing is more powerful, or humble, than Love. God is Love. LOVE is never in vain.

What was He Thinking?

John 13-16 spans just a few hours. These are our Lord’s last words spoken to His disciples in the Gospel of John. He uses the imperative tense just three or four times — “Don’t stress; abide; have courage.” Yet, there are many conditional statements, like, “If you ask in my name, I’ll do it; if you love me, you will keep my commandments.” P.S. — “The Devil is coming; I’m leaving; apart from me, you can do nothing.” It’s a bit terrifying, and the disciples appear to have very little control over the conditions. What was Jesus thinking?

John 16:32, “’Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own [idios: pertaining to self, private], and will leave me alone.’” In the garden, they ate the fruit, hid their “privates” from each other, and hid their souls from the Voice of God walking in the garden. Why did God plant that tree in the middle of the garden? What was He Thinking?

John 16:33, “’But have courage; I have conquered the world.’” What a strange thing to say right before you’re crucified. And even more bizarre are these “last words” spoken to these “disciples.” Why did Jesus pick these guys and not fire these guys? Why didn’t He leave behind an organizational system? Why didn’t He lay out the “Plan of Salvation”? Why did he leave it to Bill Bright to write the “Four Spiritual Laws” and to Billy Graham to author “The Sinners Prayer”? What was He thinking?

These are the last words of Jesus spoken to His disciples as a group before His crucifixion in the Gospel of John. Last words — and yet, He doesn’t stop talking; He just stops talking to them. Next verse: John 17:1, “When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, ‘Father...’”

In The Revelation given to John, we get to overhear God the Son speaking to God the Spirit, in the seven churches, about what it means to conquer. In John 17, we get to overhear God the Son speaking to God the Father about us. This is what they are thinking. And they want us to “know.”

John 17:1-18:2 (greatly abbreviated), “’Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.’” [He just told us in 16:15, “All that the Father has is mine.”] “’And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent... Consecrate them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world [kosmos], so I have sent them into the world [kosmos]. And for their sake, I consecrate myself, that they also may be consecrated in truth. I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word... The glory that you have given me, I have given to them that they may be one even as we are one — I in them, you in me — in order that they might be having been perfected into one, so that the world [kosmos (Flatland)] may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me... I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.’ When Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples across the brook Kidron, where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered. Now Judas, who betrayed him, also knew the place, for Jesus often met there with his disciples.”

This is such an ominous scene. John will keep mentioning “gardens.” The Passover lambs (over 250,00 according to Josephus) were slaughtered at the temple at 3 p.m., and Passover began at sundown. The Blood would flow out of the temple, down the Kidron, through its junction with Gehenna, and then on to the Dead Sea — the lowest spot on the surface of the earth. John’s readers would have known that as Jesus prayed these words, crossed the Kidron, and entered the garden just east of Eden where He would be betrayed by the Chosen, He would’ve crossed a literal river of lamb’s blood. What was He thinking? Well... John 17.

Jesus wasn’t thinking about 1.) Who would make the cut. 2.) Dishing out more “knowledge of Good and evil” practical application points and organizational systems. OR, 3.) A plan that they can choose to follow. That must be why He’s praying: It’s not their choice; they’re not free to choose.

I think we can’t begin to think about what He’s thinking about without the three pictures that I refer to all the time which very few Modern Western Christians think about. I think we normally think that 1.) We are the author of our own story, and that’s why we’re judged. 2.) Jesus suffered so we don’t have to suffer, and that’s the plan — to never sacrifice. And 3.) We have “free will,” which implies that Free-Will doesn’t have us (We think it’s possible to disagree with God and win the argument).

The first picture is of the timeline: six days of chronological time completely surrounded by a seventh day which enters the sixth day at the point of the cross. Jesus prayed, “I in them, you in me, in order that they might be having been finished into one.” Without something like the timeline, we would think our Lord’s prayer was just a “figure of speech.” God is writing a story, and it’s not finished in spacetime, and yet it is finished in eternity, and NOW He finishes it with His Word in and through us, and so we become who we are, what I am is doing — the Body of Christ, one Body.

The second picture is just that: a body. Life is a story, and Life is Love. “In this is Love,” wrote John, “that he sent his son to be an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” So, Jesus prays, “I consecrate myself.” But He continues, “…that they might also be consecrated.” The Jews knew that all life came from God and that the life was in the blood and that God gave the blood to “make atonement.” So, whenever the Israelites ate meat, they were to bring the blood to the Tabernacle. Worship was all about blood flow, and God must’ve seemed blood thirsty. But when we draw the outline of a man around all those worshippers at the temple, sacrifice no longer looks like death but life — no longer a picture of pain but ecstasy, even rapture. It’s one for all and all for one, one story in all stories, and all stories in one. It’s the seventh sign that is the substance: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

If Love is a law, the Life dies, and the temple turns to stone. If Love is a life, the Life must rise from within us; it must be freely chosen; this is the Logos (logic) of Love. God is Love, and Love is Free-Will (If there is free-will, God is Free-will). So how can we freely choose the One who is always freely choosing us?

The third picture is of the man hanging on the tree in the middle of the garden. In verse 3, Jesus prays, “This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” Life is a Story. Life is Love. “The Life” is “The Good.”

“God planted a garden in Eden in the East. The tree of Life was in the middle of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil... ‘Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat for in the day you eat of it, dying you will die.’”

It sounds like knowledge is evil, but as Jesus crosses the river of blood, and enters the garden, east of Eden, He prays, “This is eternal life that they know (present tense) you and me.” Jesus seems to think that knowing is The Good and The Life. So maybe there’s one tree and two ways of knowing.

One is evil, the other is good; one is death, and the other is life. One is bondage, and the other is freedom.

Why the trauma? Why the tribulation? Why the confusion? Why that tree in the middle of that garden? What were you thinking, Lord?

The Danish philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, told of a young king who spied a peasant girl working the fields. From a distance, he fell in love and longed for her to return his love in freedom. He had the power to bring her back to his palace by force, but that would be rape, and her love would not be free. He also had the wealth to dazzle her with all that adorned his soul: his money, his knowledge, and his fame. But he realized that he would never know, and she would never know if she had freely fallen in love with him. Rich and powerful people create false people all around them for none of the people around them will disagree with them. But the king wanted a real bride, not an illusion, not a robot, not “AI.” So, the king emptied himself, became a peasant, and romanced this girl in the midst of tribulation, longing for rapture.

If you have ever romanced someone, you know that nothing is as effective as bleeding for them, especially if the one you romance is the one that made you bleed. And if you have ever been romanced, you know that you don’t take credit for your decision to be romanced. You don’t stand up at your wedding banquet and say, “I decided... it was tough, but I decided to love my bride.” Instead, you say “I was smitten... She captured my heart.”

Kierkegaard claimed that there was more to our story. If we choose God, it’s only because we were chosen to choose, for God makes everything, and certainly the most important thing, that is our chooser — our free will. Kierkegaard goes on to argue that we can’t seek what we don’t know, and we can’t seek what we already do know, so all seeking must be remembering.

On the tree, in the middle of the Garden, Jesus delivered up His Spirit. I think that must be the same Spirit that God breathed into the dust in the beginning, which we each imprison in the Sanctuary of our own soul. And that night at Supper, hHe had broken bread and poured the wine, saying, “This is my blood,” and “Do this in Remembrance of me.” They all knew: The breath, the spirit, the life, was in the blood. You were made with something in you that recognizes that something in the blood. AND have you ever stopped to think that you might be romanced by God all the time?

He said, “I am the Light.” The light shines in the darkness. That’s where we fall in love with the light. He said, “I am the Truth.” You can take the truth in any statement, twist it, use it, and crucify it for your own purposes. Or you can surrender to Him and become an honest person. He said, “I am the Life.” You can take the life in any moment, kill Him, and use Him as if He were a thing. Or, you can surrender to Him and give birth to Him, which is “the Life” in you — who it is that you truly are.

With every decision, you may crucify the Word of God (The logic of Love). Or perhaps with every decision the Word of God is rising in you already. If it is the former, you will be proud and lonely as hell; it’s bondage. If it is the later, you will be grateful, lose yourself, and find yourself in the great dance that is the kingdom of God; it’s freedom. And, once you hear this news, there is no point in worrying about your choices, because apart from Him you can do nothing. You, on your own, have never chosen Him, and He has always chosen you. And He wins the argument.

So, what was He thinking? He was thinking about you. You are the picture in his wallet. He was thinking about you and all things with you, lost and found in an eternal symphony of Love called Life — Eternal Life. Have Courage.

Jesus is walking through Jerusalem from the upper room to the Garden of Gethsemane with his

disciples early Friday morning as He says, “You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish [thlipsis: tribulation], for joy that a human being has been born into the world... Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own [idios], and will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me. I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation [thlipsis]. But be of good cheer, be courageous, I have conquered the world” (John 16:20-21, 32-33).

Then, He did NOT say, “I hope you can conquer the world, too.” Or, “I have conquered the world except those parts that don’t freely choose to be conquered.” Or, “I hope to conquer the world.” Or even, “I will conquer the world” BUT “I have conquered the world.” In The Revelation, John refers to Jesus as “The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8 NKJV).

“I have conquered the world... It’s like when a woman gives birth... sorrow turns into joy, and tribulation becomes rapture.” Tribulation... then rapture, because Jesus has conquered the world.

So, how weird is it that so many of us seem to think that if we conquer (choose correctly), we will be raptured and avoid tribulation, as if the prize for being a great Christian is that you won’t look like Jesus because you never had to pick up your cross and follow?

Except for a few debatable references in ancient history, no one even knew what “a pretribulation rapture” was until 1827 when an Englishman named John Nelson Darby formulated the idea, which was later popularized in America through The Scofield Reference Bible.

The Pretribulation Rapture is this modern idea that before “a seven-year tribulation” that leads to “the Millenium” (a greatly debated idea), people who agree to “the plan of salvation” will get raptured to heaven and avoid tribulation. And this “plan of salvation” is this other debatable and fairly modern idea — the idea that God spent his wrath on Jesus so that he wouldn’t have to inflict his wrath on us. So, if you have this knowledge that God the Son saves you from God the Father as a “penal substitute,” and you agree with this plan by saying “the sinners prayer,” then you will avoid suffering as Jesus suffered. And you will get to return to earth with Jesus and help Him lead a civil government based in the nation state of Israel.

This is the basis of all the Left Behind books and movies.

I once prayed with the sweetest young woman who had unwittingly befriended a demonic spirit that told her that when Jesus came back, He would leave her behind.” Of course, that lie filled her with despair, and her life began to unravel until she brought the deception out into the light; we prayed together; and God the Father gave her a vision of Jesus. Jesus had her sit on His lap as they swung on a swing, and He told her, “I would rather be left behind than leave one little girl behind.”

Movies like “A Thief in the Night” may be good for getting frightened teenagers to raise their hand at the end of the movie and agree to “The Plan of Salvation.” But they may be even better at getting those teenagers to distrust Jesus. We’re not saved by “knowledge of good and evil” even if we call that knowledge “The Plan of Salvation.” We’re saved by a Savior, whom we trust, for He is the Good and He gives us Life — His own Life, the Life — and so, we know because we’ve been known. He does come as “a thief in the night,” but He’s not a thief in the night; He’s our Bridegroom, and so we keep our lamps burning. Salvation is “loving His appearing,” for you know that He is the Good and so, don’t run from Him when you see His face shining like the sun.

“We rejoice in our tribulation [thlipsis],” writes Paul. “This slight momentary tribulation [thlipsis] (beatings, imprisonments, floggings) prepares us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.” Just as sorrow creates a space for joy and, actually, becomes joy, tribulation creates a capacity for glory and is transformed into rapture. The word “rapture” doesn’t show up in most English Bibles. I could only find it in two translations — once in each, and both in the Song of Solomon. The English word “rapture” can refer to the experience of being taken out of yourself in a moment of ecstatic communion with God, or another person, or it can refer to this strange idea that certain Christians will be taken out of a group of people that are about to suffer... a lot.

In 1 Thessalonians 4 (The classic rapture proof text), Paul uses the Greek word “harpazo,” usually translated “caught up,” but translated as “rapiemur” in the Latin Vulgate.

In 1 Thessalonians 4:15-18, Paul is writing to baby Christians who are worried about loved ones who have died before the return of Jesus. He writes, “For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. [literally: “the dead, in Christ, will stand up first”] Then we who are alive, who are left [“the left behind”], will be caught up [harpazo: “rapiemur”] together with them [literally: “at the same time”] in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore, encourage one another with these words.” NOT “Freak each other out,” BUT “Encourage each other.”

The Thessalonians are obviously asking, “How can Heaven be Heaven if my loved ones aren’t in Heaven — Mom, Dad, brothers, sisters, neighbors, friends?” I think Paul is answering as clearly as possible (Remember he’s the one that tells us twice, ‘As in Adam all die, so in Christ will all be made alive.’)... He’s answering, “Although we may all die at different times in the world, we are all caught up into Heaven in the same moment, for Heaven isn’t Heaven if anyone is left behind.” Of course, this can only be true if spacetime is not the same in “Heaven” as it is “here.”

Paul was raptured [harpazo]. He describes it in 2 Corinthians 12, except that he can’t describe it, for there are no words — human words, that is. John was also caught up on the Island of Patmos. Jesus appeared with a face shining like the sun. John dropped as though dead, until Jesus touched him and dictated seven letters (weird huh?). Then a door opened in Heaven, and Jesus said, “Come up here and I’ll show you what must become with these.”

In Revelation chapter 10, just as the seventh angel is about to blow the seventh trumpet (The last trumpet when “the dead are raised imperishable”), John sees “a mighty angel,” who is described just as Jesus is described, who does just what Paul predicted in 1 Thessalonians 4. He stands on land and sea and literally swears (look it up): “Chronos [chronological time] will be no more, but in the days of the 7th trumpet call, the mystery of God will be fulfilled.” According to Paul, the “mystery of God” is “faith, godliness, Christ, Christ in us, the hope of glory” (all different ways of saying the same thing).

Having published a commentary on The Revelation and having preached it twice, I’ve often used Edwin Abbott’s fictional story of “Flatland” to help explain its contents. Flatland is a two-dimensional world in which Flatlanders can only perceive two-dimensional objects, — like squares and circles — until one of the Flatlanders is “raptured,” caught up into the third dimension where he encounters three-dimensional objects — like cubes and spheres. When he returns to Flatland, he can’t find the words to describe his revelation, for what’s obviously true in three dimensions seems to be impossible in two... just as “already, not yet,” “three in one, one in three,” “The Father in me, I in you and you in me,” seems impossible to us here in three and a half dimensions.

If I we reduce Flatland to “Lineland,” we can picture people stuck in chronological time, where one moment must follow another moment in a string of cause and effect. Imagine a timeline on a poster board. And then imagine that I’m Jesus (just pretend). If I spoke into Lineland with the voice of a trumpet saying, “Behold, I come,” and then slammed the posterboard into me, I would’ve come to Lineland at an infinite number of moments in Lineland, but in only one moment for me. And if the people of Lineland were then raptured out of Lineland in me, they might each be “caught up” in different moments and yet arrive in one moment in me.

Many years ago, I was raptured, and I saw that Jesus was everywhere and everywhen loving me. My sorrow became joy, and my tribulation had prepared me for the rapture... but in this world I forget. In contemplative prayer, I remember. I suppose that we experience something like rapture every time we read a great book. While you’re reading, you’re stuck in chronological time; you have to read one page after another, but when you get to the end, you know the Plot — and if the plot is good, you want to go back and enjoy every page. The Lord who descends and says, “Chronos will be no more,” is the plot to every story that’s any story. And when you trust Him, He changes your experience of every moment in your story. Walking by faith through grace in the author and His plot is always rapture.

In Revelation 12:5, John sees Jesus get raptured. He sees a woman crying out in “anguish (Tribulation) to deliver.” The woman is us. She gives birth to the “Son of Man.” The dragon attempts to devour him, and he is “caught up (harpazo) to the throne.”

And that’s right where we are at the end of John 16 as Jesus walks to the garden early Friday morning. He will soon lift His head on the tree and deliver up His Spirit — the Spirit that falls on the church at Pentecost, filling us with faith. “This is the victory that conquers the world,” writes John, “our faith” (1 John 5:4). Faith, hope, and love in you is Christ in you.

The Revelation ends with a Party descending to earth, “Every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth worshipping the one on the throne.” She is a bride, a body, and the living temple of the Lord. His story is your story, and your story is His story. You are the greatest story ever told, and so am I. We will lose ourselves and find ourselves living in each other’s stories, and it will all be Jesus’ story, the Gospel. It will be rapture.

Tribulation in this world doesn’t mean something is wrong, but that we are at the edge of everything that’s right. Satan will tell you to run and hide in the dark, for you’ve been left behind. Look to Jesus and He will tell you, “Everything is going according to plan; your tribulation will turn into rapture; and none will be left behind.” He’s the One that doesn’t leave the one behind. First Thessalonians 4: “Encourage one another with these words.” And that’s all I’m trying to do, for Heaven isn’t Heaven without you.

John 16:14-15, Jesus says to the 11 on their way to the Garden of Gethsemane, “He [The Parakletos, the Holy Spirit] will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

“Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven,” said Jesus in Matthew 12. To blaspheme is to “speak against.” So, to blaspheme the Holy Spirit would be to say, “The Holy Spirit can’t or won’t do what He is called to do.” If it’s not forgiven, then it’s not allowed, right? If you’re not forgiven a debt, you have to pay it back. And so, apparently, one day every soul will have to agree with the Holy Spirit, glorify Christ, and inherit our Father’s kingdom. Until then, the Truth may burn.

John 16:16-24, “’A little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see me’.... So, they were saying, ‘What does he mean by “a little while”?... Jesus said, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. So also, you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name [Yeshua: “God is Salvation”], he will give it to you. Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full [literally “That the Joy of you may be having been filled”].

What is Joy? I find it to be rather hard to define. If I seek joy, I find it almost impossible to obtain. And once I think I have experienced joy, it’s already gone.

In his autobiography, Surprised by Joy, C.S. Lewis writes, “Joy is never in our power, but pleasure often is.” Joy is hard to define and impossible to grasp, so maybe we’re always surprised by joy because Joy is forever new.

But what is the fullness of Joy? Wouldn’t that be the joy of every creature ever made and the joy of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? How could we ever contain that much Joy? “Ask that your joy may be full,” says Jesus. He talks as if Joy is a vessel waiting to be filled, or perhaps we are that vessel — like an earthen vessel. But... “In this world you will have sorrow,” says Jesus. We all have sorrow. And you have a particular sorrow — a shape to all of your sorrows. Can you name it?

What is sorrow? Perhaps it’s like an empty cup. Perhaps Joy is the wine in our cup? Or maybe that’s despair; it’s possessing everything and being unable to enjoy anything. So, what’s joy? Maybe it’s drinking the cup? And yet that lasts for only a moment.

Everyone drinks water. But who in all the world has most enjoyed water? Wouldn’t that be the one who has been most thirsty? Perhaps joy is that moment at the edge of being thirsty and then full and, therefore, being unable to experience the joy of drinking. Maybe joy is the knowledge of absence and the experience of presence which can only happen in the “now.” Perhaps Joy is the knowledge of evil and the presence of the Good, who is eternal — the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Joy is the moment you see the Light in the darkness; the moment Life is born in the midst of chaos, suffering, and despair; it’s the moment you hear a newborn baby take a breath, and cry.

Few times have I witnessed such sorrow as when my bride thought that she couldn’t have a baby; and perhaps, never have I seen a person in as much anguish as when she did.

It took us a year to get pregnant (no complaints on my end), but Susan began to worry, and that turned to sorrow…and then wrath (that’s what happens to sorrow that’s been bottled up.)

A friend of ours got pregnant out of wedlock. Driving home from work, my bride began yelling at God: “It’s not fair! it’s not fair! I did everything right, and she did everything wrong.” And then she heard the Lord. He said, “Pull this car over right now... Who are you to tell me that I cannot bless her with a child? It doesn’t matter who the father is; I am the Father and this is my child. You must forgive.” Then in a fountain of tears, on the side of the 405, she did. A vessel of wrath became a vessel of Mercy.

Not all women are called to have biological children, and many of those women are the most fruitful of all (See Isaiah 54.) It doesn’t always work this way, but soon after that day on the freeway, my wife conceived and gave birth . . . in anguish.

I had never seen a person in such anguish! In the 35th week, she ruptured her placenta, and her water broke. It was a nightmare. If the baby stayed in the womb, mother and baby would die. But the tribulation (“anguish,” same word in Greek) would prepare the baby to expel one world and inhale the next. So, the doctors prolonged labor for a full day. It felt like a thousand years. We kept asking “how long,” and they kept saying “a little while.”

I so clearly remember thinking to myself, “Peter, if this baby lives, you had better love this baby, for this is the only baby you’ll ever get. There is no way that Susan will ever agree to go through this again!” I watched him come out — the head, first and then the body. The doctor held him up. He took a breath and let out a huge cry. I looked at Susan’s face. She was radiant. And then, at the top of her lungs she just cried out, “Oh, I want another one!”

All Susan’s sorrow had literally turned into Joy. Her tribulation had literally turned into rapture. And a day that seemed like a thousand years was now only a little while. She hadn’t made the baby, but she had labored for the baby. It was obvious that God had made the baby, and — with the baby and the labor — God had made her. . . and she was grateful. I had never, ever seen such fullness of joy! I remember thinking, “I don’t understand this, but this is ‘Holy.’”

Now think about your sorrow. “Your sorrow will turn into joy.” So, are you pleased? “If I knew for certain that all my stones should be changed into gold,” said Meister Eckhardt, “the more and larger the stones I had, the better I should be pleased.”

“So, also you have sorrow now,” says Jesus to these 11 men, early Friday morning as they make their way to Gethsemane and then travel on to a tree in the middle of a garden on the Holy Mountain. Who’s being born, and who’s giving birth?

Jesus seems to think that these 11 (or 12) men are giving birth... and He’s about to be born. He’s “the Firstborn of all creation, Firstborn from the dead, Firstborn of many brothers (and sisters).” He didn’t call himself, “Son of Mary” but “Son of Man.” We give birth to God incarnate every time we love, or should I say, Love gives birth to us. “How I am in travail... until Christ is formed in you,” writes Paul. “There is one body.” The head comes first, then the body. And “This is the plan for the fulness of time to unite (bring together under one head) all things in Christ.” John calls him “The “Only Begotten,” then records Him, saying that we must also be “begotten.” Paul writes, “The whole creation is groaning in birth pains until now (that point that eternity touches time and time becomes eternal).” “The earth will give birth to the dead,” prophesies Isaiah. According to Matthew, at least some of the dead came out of their tombs and went into Jerusalem (old or new?) as Jesus cried, “It is finished,” and the curtain ripped. The Church Fathers described Jesus as “eternally begotten,” (The uncreated created?) Perhaps all things are “eternally begotten” in Him? He just told us “The Father is in me... I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.”

It sounds as if God and all creation is giving birth to God and all creation. That must be an unspeakable amount of sorrow. Could it all turn into Joy?

And Jesus said, “No one will take your joy away from you (not even you).” How is that possible?

“Until now you have asked nothing in my name,” said Jesus. His name is literally “God is Salvation.” How could you believe that God cannot save some or does not want to save all and also ask anything in the name of “God is Salvation”?

But if we sincerely prayed, “Father save us all,” what would we be asking the Father to save us from? We’d be asking Him to save us from our sins — which we have come to think of as ourselves, which is actually self-righteousness — that is actually no righteousness but just illusion, lies, and the work of the Devil. If God saved everyone from themselves, it would be the death of every false self, and the liberation of every true self which is Christ’s self. It would be the union of all selves in one man and that one man in all selves; it would be the resurrected body of Christ; The 7th sign that is the substance; “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” It would be billions of “Me-suses” giving birth to Jesus, billions of members in one body with one heart, having been transformed from vessels of wrath into vessels of Mercy. That is, blood vessels constantly losing “their life” and finding it — “The Life (The Spirit is Life) is in the blood.” . . . Do not blaspheme!

“Ask and receive that your joy may be full,” said Jesus.

Perhaps your sorrow is the shape of your old man. It’s how you want to be God but can’t make yourself God. At the foot of the cross, surrendered sorrow turns into joy. For in that place in which we attempted to make ourselves God, we discover that God is always making us Himself. In that place, the shape of your sorrow becomes the shape of His Joy in you. But not a little joy — an endless river of Joy — the river of life flowing in and through you as you constantly drink. You will have knowledge of evil, but with the constant ever flowing presence of the Good. God is the Good whom you constantly choose in perfect freedom. In that day, your temporal self is revealed to be an eternal vessel for the fullness of Joy, which is all the fullness of God.

In a healthy body, every member is distinct, and yet there is no division. So, although there may be memory of pain, there is no sorrow; AND the joy of one is the joy of all; and the joy of all is the Joy of one. In my body, my foot is not jealous of my tongue, and when my foot gets a foot rub, my tongue says, “thank you.” Just think: Their will be no more sorrow or pain, and you will experience the joy of billions of hungry children eating pizza, the lost being found, the light shining in the darkness, Jesus finally getting His drink, the Father hugging all of His lost children, and the Spirit of God delighting in them all.

Some say “Blasphemy! Impossible!” . . . Is it?

Or would it be blasphemy to suggest that this is impossible for our God?

“You can’t handle the truth.” That’s an iconic line spoken by Jack Nicholson in the movie A Few Good Men. Jesus says something similar in our text for this week: “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot handle them now” (John 16:12). It’s a little surprising since He just told them, “All that I have heard from my father, I have made known to you” (John 15:15). It seems that they know, but not as they ought to know. And that does seem applicable to the situation.

Jesus and the eleven are walking to the Garden of Gethsemane. Each of these disciples has vowed fidelity to Jesus. And in a few hours, each will flee and “go to his own” (John 16:32) — his own abode, rather than abide with Jesus.

In a few hours, men — trying to make themselves God — will take the life of Christ on a tree in a garden. It’s not the first time it’s happened. Making yourself God is making God “not God.” It’s the “original sin” and every sin. To sin is to judge the Judgment of God with your own judgment. They take “the Life” on the tree, and the World goes black, literally. “The day you do it is the day you die,” said God in Eden. And Jesus talked as if we were already dead (John 5:24). That might be a truth that’s rather hard to handle.

Brad was my best friend as a young boy. We caught bugs together. We took art classes together. Over the years, we grew apart. In high school, Brad seemed to have lost his faith. I used to witness to Brad about Jesus. He’d smile and walk away. About 30 years ago, he died of AIDS. At his funeral, his sister pulled me aside and said, “Peter it was so weird. Before Brad died, he was delirious, and he used to lie in bed muttering over and over again, 'I can’t be God; I can’t be God; it’s so hard to be God.”

Shirley MacLaine once wrote: “I was my own universe. Did that also mean I had created God and I had created life and death? Was that why I was all there was? A chilling wave of loneliness rippled through me...” Yes. I would think so. And yet, due to the implications of quantum mechanics, some physicists speculate that this might be true. It’s a horrifying thought, for it would mean that each one of us is thoroughly alone and utterly insane — trapped in our own logos, our own logic, our own reason, our own truth . . . “Was this what was meant by the statement I Am that I Am?” asks Shirly MacLaine. Is God infinitely lonely?

John 16:8-15, Jesus says, “When [The Helper] comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; 10 concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; 11 concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. 12 I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 When the Spirit of [the] truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth [that’s Jesus], for he will not speak on his own, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14 He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15 All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

NOW, read that last line over and over again.

Scripture is clear that all that the Father has is all that there is, including all souls. He has all judgment, which has been given to the Son (John 5:22); it’s the ability to make a world with just a word; it’s a thoroughly free will. The Father has a name, “I Am.” He gives it to His son “I Am is Salvation.” It sounds like an identity. Is it given to us?

To be God is an attractive idea at first, then utterly terrifying.

There’s an old Twilight Zone episode in which a six-year-old has the power to create his own world with just a word. Of course, everyone’s terrified of him and so cannot love him, but they all pretend to love him. All that he actually wants is Love, although he doesn’t yet know Love, so he repeatedly demands Love, and so crucifies Love, and so becomes more and more angry — a little vessel of wrath. He ends up willing everyone away and willing himself into darkness, utterly alone, which is “hell (hades). “It’s not good for the man to be alone,” says God; it’s evil.

Yet Jesus already told us (and the Pharisees) in John 10:34, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’?” He’s quoting Psalm 82, in which “gods” is the Hebrew word, “elohim,” normally translated as “God.” He’s just said, “I and the Father are One.” Is each of us is to be one with the Father as Jesus is one with the Father?

The Pharisees accuse Jesus of being “a man that’s made himself God.” But Jesus is God having made Himself man. When a man makes himself God, he does the work of the devil, traps himself in outer darkness, and brings death to everyone he meets. When God makes Himself man, He looks just like Jesus — The Way, The Truth, The Life, The Good in flesh, the perfect image of the invisible God.

“You are gods” and “The Spirit of Truth will take what is mine and declare it to you,” says The Truth. That’s a truth that’s rather hard to handle, and perhaps we really can’t handle the Truth until the same Spirit of Truth convicts us concerning sin, righteousness and Judgment.

1. “Concerning sin, because [or “that”] they do not believe [trust] in me (v.9).” I don’t think we have any idea of just how evil this world actually is. And any idea of how often, and how much, each one of us sins. And how horrid it is when we do sin. And that all we do and can do, apart from Jesus, is sin. He just told us, “Apart from me, you can do nothing.” Sin is a nothing that we think is a something that produces tremendous pain. Sin is a lack of faith in Jesus, which traps us in Me-sus. And righteousness is the faith of Jesus, which annihilates Me-sus and liberates us to be the image and likeness of God... which is Jesus.

2. “Concerning righteousness, because [or “that”] I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer (v.10).” Jesus just told us, “The Father is in me... In that day, you will know that I am... in you...If anyone loves me... we will make our abode in him (John 14:12, 20, 15:23).” We are the Father’s house. We think it can’t be true, because we’ve been convinced that life on this timeline is all that there is. We have no idea of the depths of evil in this world and ourselves, but also no idea of the glory of the righteousness of Christ in us and through us in the world.

1. He is the Truth that we haven’t “handled”; we — each and all — took His Life on a tree.

2. And yet, He rises from the dead in us; He is every right decision in and through us.

3. And this is the Judgement of God; His Choice given to each one of us.

Perhaps this needs to be more than knowledge gained in a book, but instead, a life lived in this world and then born into the next.

3. “Concerning judgment, because [or “that”] the ruler of this world is judged.” It is the ruler of this world who whispers, “He can’t save you, and He doesn’t want to save you... So, you better save yourself. Take the fruit of the tree and make yourself in the image of God; make yourself God.” All of the accuser’s power is based on a lie that is annihilated by the revelation of the Truth. Me-sus is the prison. Jesus is the Truth.

His superpower is humility. Humility is knowing that you cannot make yourself God, for God has already made Himself you. He is our Helper, made fit for each and every one of us. The lie of the evil one is that you must exalt yourself to get what you want. The Truth is that when you humble yourself, you will be exalted, for all that you really want is Love... and God is Love. Life is a communion of Sacrifice called Love, which is the Judgment of God that is God; it’s one for all and all for one; it’s the 7th sign that is the substance.

“All that the Father has is mine. The Spirit of Truth will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

— That would include my old friend, Brad. I did his funeral. Being a young evangelical pastor, it made me rather nervous; it wasn’t a “normal” Sunday morning church crowd. But I spoke of the many ways I had encountered the Righteousness of God in Brad — their Honesty, Beauty, Kindness, and Love. After the service, Brad’s old girlfriend said to my wife, “One day, toward the end (when he’d lie in bed moaning, ‘I can’t be God. It’s too hard to be God.’), I asked Brad what he wanted for his funeral. I said, ‘Have you talked to your old friend, Peter?’ And Bradley said, ‘Oh Peter, I talk to him every week.”

I hadn’t talked to Brad in years... but maybe he had been talking to Jesus, whom he met in me. And maybe he’ll recognize him when he stands before the throne. Maybe he’ll say, “I know you,” as Jesus replies: “And Bradley, I know you. We used to catch bugs together down by the ditch. We drew pictures together at your house after school. Now, this is our Father’s house. Welcome home. Would you like to come in?”

Many years before his funeral, when we were both in Los Angeles — Brad, making art in Hollywood, and me, attending Seminary in Pasadena — Brad called me at church. He said, “Peter, I’m having a party, and you have to come. I’ve got a communist, a physicist, a lesbian, a rabbi, an atheist, and you’re a pastor – it’ll be perfect if you would only come.” I said, “no.” I think I thought it would be a little too much for me to handle.

I said “no.” But I expect to one day say “Yes!” for Jesus said, “All that the Father has is mine.” That would include communists, physicists, lesbians, rabbis, atheists, even pastors and Brad. “Therefore, I said,” said Jesus, “The Spirit of Truth will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

We can’t handle the Truth, but the Truth is handling us and will bring us all home to Him. He broke the bread and blessed the cup, saying, “Eat of it and drink of it, all of you.”

This is the Revelation of sin: Each and all took His Life. And when you see it, it is utterly devastating. This is the Revelation of righteousness: To each and all He gave His life, and when you see it, it is equally devastating…to your ego. This is the Judgment of God: You cannot make yourself God, but God is making you Himself with Himself, that you would sit with Him on His throne and will the Universe into existence.

Not ONE verse, but billions and trillions of verses, joined as One in one symphony of Love called Life — wherein you will never be alone. I Am that I Am is entirely NOT alone.

“Don’t be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you,” writes John in 1 John 3:13. In our text from the Gospel of John, Jesus just tells his followers, “The world hates you.”

This raises some questions: “Why does the world hate me? And why have I found it to be surprising?” I thought of four occasions upon which I was genuinely surprised to be hated. The first was about 51 years ago playing basketball in P. E. in seventh grade.

I genuinely loved shooting hoops with my friend David after school. But playing basketball in school was another matter. For some reason, someone passed me the ball, and I didn’t immediately pass it away which was my normal tactic (I had learned this from Matt L. in the second grade — Matt from our last message). For some reason, this day, a lane just opened up — nothing between the basket and me. And so, I seized my opportunity for glory; I dribbled down the court, shot a layup, and it went in; it was beautiful! I turned around, ready to receive adulation and congratulations . . . and all I received was hate, absolute disdain.

I thought that the name of the game was shooting baskets, but apparently you have to shoot them for a particular team; I had scored for the wrong team.

John 15:16-20: Jesus says, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit... If the world [kosmos] hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.”

Thirty-two years ago, when my church was the fastest-growing church in my denomination, I wrote this in my journal: “I’m more respected than Jesus was. I’m more honored than He. People speak better of me, and I live in a far nicer house than He. I’m more popular than Jesus was when He hung on that cross for me. And that ought to concern me. Because a servant is not better than his master. And He said, that if the world hated Him, they’d hate me.”

“The world will hate you.” I used to think “world” meant drug dealers and pornographers, but those persecuting Jesus were actually his “church,” Israel. And “world” meant more than tax collectors and sinners, or even priests and pharisees. John uses the Greek word “kosmos,” which means cosmos. He already told us, “In Him (the Word) was Life, and the Life was the Light of men... [He] was coming into the cosmos. He was in the cosmos, and the cosmos was made through Him, yet the cosmos did not know him.” The cosmos is all of space and time.

In Scripture (see Gen. 2:4), time is like six days of chronological time on a timeline surrounded by an “eternal” seventh day, the unveiled presence of “I Am.” And space is like an explosion of nothingness in the somethingness of “I Am” that is currently being filled with “I Am” as He speaks His Light into the Void as a Word. Space and time are like a womb in Yahweh (I Am that I Am). The cosmos is nothingness being filled with the somethingness of God; it’s the realm of “becoming” encased in “Being.” “In Him we live and move and have our being.”

The Cosmos is a temporal thing surrounded by eternity, and yet that eternity already exists in every human soul like a seed. In the message, I shared a great picture of my 10-month-old grandson, James. When he was born, I held him in my arms and he didn’t know that I, or he, existed. Now he recognizes me, and I recognize the eternal in James. In the picture, he’s looking under a park bench for me, delighted to find me, and see himself reflected in my eyes. I pray they speak the Truth: “No matter the choices you make in space and time, you are God’s choice, and all His choices are Good. You are the Choice of God, the Chosen.” James hasn’t done much, but he is much. He is the presence of I Am in a pile of dust named “Adam,” and becoming “the last Adam,” Jesus.

“You didn’t choose me; I chose you.” As we preached last time, “I am God’s choice or nothing.” So maybe the point of “election” is not that some are chosen and others are not chosen but that God is the Chooser and each of us are the chosen... or we are nothing — incapable of any actual choice at all. From Scripture, it seems clear to me that we are all chosen to experience the illusion of not being chosen, to then awaken to the reality of being the Eternally Beloved, The Chosen One, in whom we are all chosen — the Eschatos Adam. It’s only in a cosmos like ours, where one moment in space and time can be hidden from another moment of space and time, that we could be tricked into believing a lie and so trap ourselves in the illusion that we are each our own creator.

John 15:21: “All these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.” His name is literally, “Yahweh (I Am) is Salvation.” “Beingness” is salvation. So, what does He save us from? Non-being. In other words, ALL SALVATION is CREATION. He just told us, “Apart from me, you can do nothing.” Evil is a nothing that we think is a something. So, if we think we have created ourselves, that self is evil and an illusion from which we must be saved.

John 15:22: “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of [the] sin (So much for the idea of inherited guilt!), but now they have no excuse (no cloak, no fig leaves) for their sin... Now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. But the Word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: ‘They hated me without cause.”

Jesus is the Torah (Law or Way): He is the knowledge of Good and evil. God is the Good, and His apparent absence is the evil. Jesus is the Good in flesh, hanging on a tree in a garden; He is “The Way” and “The Life.” To take the fruit to make yourself God is evil. But to receive the Fruit, for God is making you Himself, is something else entirely. It’s Grace revealed as Faith. It’s His Choice.

John 16:1-2: “I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away [scandalizo: being scandalized, being offended]. They will kick you out of the synagogues.” And that reminds me of the second time that I was utterly surprised to be hated.

In 2005, in a sermon, I asked if we had been trying to capture Jerusalem in the very way that Jesus refused to do so. Then I suggested that we are the New Jerusalem and True Israel. It utterly infuriated a Christian man of Jewish descent. I told him, “I’m not anti-jew. I am a Jew. The King of the Jews is my husband. His Dad is my Dad. His blood is in my body. I’m not taking anything away from Jews; I’ve just been grafted into your family tree.” Then he would really get furious. I thought he might try to kill me. Synagogue means “assembly” or even “team.” He didn’t want me on his team.

John 16:2-3: “Indeed the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor Me” — Yeshua, Jesus, Yahweh is Salvation.” And that reminds me of the third time that I was utterly surprised to be hated... I never expected to be hated by “Christians” for preaching that Jesus wins.

Reading Romans 11, I realized that “all Israel” would be saved, but I kept reading and realized that “God consigned all to disobedience (Bad choices) that He may have mercy on all (His Choice).”

Jesus means “God is Salvation,” which means “Me is NOT salvation.” I had to realize that when I preached Jesus, I was crucifying “Me-sus.” Of course people hated me: I was insulting their idol, and they assumed that I was evil, because they thought that I was scoring points for the wrong team. They didn’t know that God is the Good who saves us from our own evil, that it’s His Good Choice that saves us from our bad choice, that Salvation is Creation, and we are still being created. They didn’t know that Salvation is always the name of His game, at least until all of space and time is filled with Love, and we are all one team.

Imagine that you’re playing in the NBA championships, and Jesus is on your team. Nobody can shoot baskets like Jesus. You’re down by one, five seconds are left in the game, and you pass to Jesus.

He plants, and just as He’s about to shoot, He spots someone on the other team that’s sad, and so He passes the ball to them . . . or maybe He turns and makes a half-court shot for them. Would you be offended? Would you yell at Jesus? “What the hell Jesus? You sacrificed the game! Beating our opponents is the name of the game?!” And what if He said, “I’m sorry, I don’t play that game.” Would you still want to be on His team? Or would you judge yourself out of His Vineyard?

John 16:4: “I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you.” A couple of hours after preaching the last sermon, You are God’s Choice or Nothing, I said to my wife, “You know, while I’m preaching about Jesus, looking at Jesus, I feel so good. But within a few minutes of stopping, I feel like I’m dying. What’s wrong with me?” And without skipping a beat she responded, “You hate yourself.” That surprised me....

I think she’s right, but in a weird way. I hate myself, because I love myself, but I can’t save myself. I’m trying to say that I’m just like my grandson James, EXCEPT that I’m trying to be me. I am God’s choice, but I’m trying to make myself the Savior, unaware that the Savior is constantly making Himself me.

You know, little children learn and grow in a way that’s very different than older children and adults. James looks at me, sees himself in me and me in himself, and so does whatever I do without even thinking about what he’s doing. When I try to learn and grow, I take knowledge of Jesus and then hate myself for not being Jesus and then try to be Jesus without Jesus. And I hope you recognize that for what it is: It’s evil. “Take the fruit, and make yourself in the image of God.” It’s the work of the devil, whom Jesus called “the ruler of this cosmos.”

I hate myself when I strive to make myself in the image of God and so surrender myself to the ruler of this world — the devil. But I lose myself and find myself when I make my home in Jesus as Jesus makes his home in me, and I look out of His eyes into the eyes of our Father and hear Him say, “You are my beloved son in whom I am well pleased, the Chosen.”

Don’t be surprised when the cosmos hates you, but be grateful. For you will be born out of this cosmos into a New Cosmos. And when you open your eyes in the New One, you’ll realize that the New One is this old one, except filled with Love, the Choice of God that is God. Love is not your choice; it’s God’s Choice in you. And when you receive it, you will be overjoyed that it’s given to all.

One for all and all for one. That’s not a game; that’s a party! That’s The Kingdom of God.