Sunday, March 20, 2011
Sermons are now on the Church of the Good Shepherd Website
Please go to the Church of the Good Shepherd Website to read further sermons. Hey, we're paying for that site! May as well move the new sermons there! I may eventually move the older sermons there, too, if I figure out how to backdate entries. Blessings, Fred+
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Work and Idleness
Delivered at Church of the Good Shepherd on March 13, 2011.
Genesis 3 is a fascinating chapter in the Bible, because there are so many things to find in it. Here's something new that I wondered about this week when I read through the Genesis passage. In Genesis 2:15 we read that God put Adam in the garden to cultivate it and keep it. He put Adam to WORK. Now, some of us think that work is something we have to do because life will just eat us up if we can't make ends meet—if we don't have security. We think of work as a punishment—something that we HAVE to do. Oh, I wish I were rich, so I could goof off all the time! I think of the song from Fiddler on the Roof: If I were a rich man, all day long I'd biddle biddle bum. A perfect life would be all leisure, right? Well, look at Adam and Eve in the garden. We've got images of them all frolicking all naked and goofing off, playing with all the animals. Children's picture books have strategically placed bushes and branches that hide the nudity, so that Adam and Eve look like hand puppets behind a screen. And the animals are behind the bushes, too, usually a giraffe and and elephant poking their heads out, being all entertaining.
In reality, it wasn't all frolicking. Adam was put to work, before the fall, not as a punishment, but because that is something God does. He works and he rests, and that is what people do, we work and we rest, because we are made in the image of God. Work is good. Cultivating the Garden was Adam's ministry.
Work is good because it focuses our minds. Sometimes it's easier to pray when working. I find that my most active prayer time is when I am doing the dishes each night. Also, work keeps us from being idle. When I say “idle,” I'm not talking about rest that is required. I'm not talking about the sabbath, the important rest. I'm talking about being idle, the time in our lives when we can get into the most trouble. The outer banks is a prime location for idleness. We have a flurry of work during the on season, and when then off season hits, we rest. Often we've made money to help us for the rest of the year. Everything shuts down for the off season, and we have lots and lots of idle time. That's when we can get into trouble.
What kind of trouble? Let's look at Genesis 3:6. Eve gives Adam the apple to eat—because he is standing right there! She doesn't have to go hunting for him. He is sitting there at her heel like a faithful dog. He didn't lift a finger to prevent her from breaking the one rule God had given them. And my new thought this week, reading the scriptures was, “Isn't he supposed to be working?” Adam is idle. And I don't think this is Adam's sabbath, because I think God would have been there if it had been Adam's sabbath. They would have rested together. No, this is goofing off time from work! This is playing on the Internet time—surfing the Web, cutting up. They're surfing the garden. Hey! What's under this rock over here? Oooh a snake! This happens to us. We get idle, temptation comes in, and we can't resist.
Now let's flash ahead to our Gospel reading: Matthew 4:1-11. Here we have Jesus' temptation, and this is not to say that this is the only time that Jesus was tempted in his ministry. Like us, he was tempted every day of his life, but this scene is important because it is the beginning of his ministry. He is about to get to work. This is really Satan's big opportunity. Jesus has not begun yet, and there is only a little window! Get in there and get tempting! Now, let's look at the temptation itself. The temptation of Jesus is the same as the temptation of Adam: a false ministry. Isn't it interesting that temptation hits us when we are idle, when we are away from work, and the temptation itself is work, or more specifically a false ministry. Adam's real ministry was cultivating the garden of Eden. The false ministry that the serpent offered to him was being like God. Adam accepted the offer, and we've been paying for it ever since. Jesus' work, the ministry that he was about to undertake, was being God! It was saving the world—through teaching and healing and then ultimately his own death on the cross and his resurrection at Easter: this was the most amazing work possible. The devil offered Jesus a false ministry of politics, worldly power and values, and miracles that would give himself the glory instead of the father.
Now, these temptations in this passage are good warnings for the church. They all look good to the church, and they look like they will help. We can feed the hungry, we can heal the sick, we can be influential in the world! Giving into these temptations may win a lot of people to the church, yes, but they are won in ways that Jesus rejected, worldly ways like using lying and trickery. Like when we we put on a good performance, or when we tell people what they want to hear instead of the truth, or when you pretend to reach out to someone but all you're trying to do is influence them to do what they want you to do. That's all politics is. We ally with the worldly powers to get what we want quick, and we can look at history to see what state-run churches look like. We must look at the false values like politics and hold them up to the true values like submission and suffering. The temptations that the devil presented to Jesus and what he rejected and what the church also must reject is this sort of false ministry.
If Jesus had accepted that offer, the devil actually would have been in charge of things forever. Sometimes it seems today like Satan is in charge, doesn't it? But the reality is, Jesus won the battle on that cross. He cleaned up the mess that Adam had allowed into the world. How Satan is no longer in power but seems like he is—that's another sermon, but we have faith that Jesus has done the work that the Father commissioned him to do, and it was successful, and he has undone the damage that Adam did.
Now, we may have heard before how Jesus is the second Adam, but exactly what is the connection between the two? Well, Jesus is regaining what Adam lost for all of mankind—a relationship with God. Adam lost this relationship through idleness, and Jesus regained it through work: his ministry, up through his crucifixion and resurrection, is geared toward putting us right with God.
George Muller is this great missionary who relied entirely on prayer to run an orphanage. I'm reading a biography of George Muller to Rose, and this week we had an Adam/Jesus story. George is in school. His job, his work, is to study and get good grades. He does this, but he also used to lead a life of drinking and gambling. He has put it all behind him, and he is now studying all the time. However, in this chapter of his story, all it takes is just one person to invite him out to a bar, and then it's all downhill. You've heard the phrase falling off the wagon? He somersaulted off that wagon, and he was losing money, and borrowing money, and getting in debt all over the place.
What it took was someone else inviting him to a bible meeting. He came to the meeting for fun, so that he could tell some funny stories to his drinking buddies, but when he went to the meeting, the gospel message hit home—right between the eyes. He didn't just get back onto the wagon, he got onto a brand new wagon with reinforced sides and Jesus Christ at the reigns. It took only one man to lead George Muller astray, but it also only took one man to bring him into a relationship with God.
It took one man, Adam, to bring sin into the world—into our world—because we are born into sin and with sin comes death. But it only takes one man, the God-man Jesus Christ, to defeat death and take our sins away. As our passage in Romans says, we share in Adam's sin. What do you think about when you hear that? You know what I think? I think, No Fair! We didn't do anything wrong! Why do we all have to share in the sin of one guy, just because he screwed up?
But when we hear the other side, that we also share in Christ's life, his defeat of death, do we ever hear anyone saying, No fair! Why not? We didn't do anything to deserve it, either. We always say “no fair” when we are told we share in Adam's sin, but we never say “no fair” when we are told we share in Christ's gift. There is a difference, though. Adam's sin is like a curse or a disease, extending to all mankind whether we like it or not. The result of this disease is death. Christ's everlasting life is a gift, extended to all, but it must be accepted, accepted by each individual like a gift. The result of this gift is life.
Adam's sin is like the trunk of an enormous tree with billions of branches. Think of Adam being the trunk and we are all those little twigs and branches, all attached to that family tree of sin. Now, your everyday lumberjack would say that to stop this spread of sin, you hit the trunk, but that would kill the whole tree. That would be like God giving up on us all. Think of a world-wide flood where not even Noah and his family were spared. God has that option, yes, he could wipe everything out tomorrow, because he created it, he can destroy it. But God decided from the beginning that destroying everything and starting over was never an option.
What God chooses to do instead is astonishing, and Paul's letter shows us the amazing universal range of the power of the Gospel. Jesus' death and resurrection does not hit the trunk of the family tree of sin, it hits every single one of those billions of branches. Jesus' ministry is so powerful that it touches every single individual who ever lived and who ever will live. It's not the easy fix of cutting down the whole tree, wiping out the whole Earth. No, Jesus' is the hard work of healing every scrape and scratch of the human condition on an individual basis. He cares as much about the sin you committed this morning as the world-shattering sins that change the face of history.
Jesus worked really hard on this gift that he wants to give everyone. He worked on it with his two hands, and he worked on it with his feet, too. Those are the places where the nails were driven. He worked on this gift with his life, with his death, and with his life again. The world is his garden, and he still cultivates it today, working for each person to grow in Him. You may remember that cultivating a garden was Adam's work. Adam dropped that work, and Jesus Christ picked it up again.
As the church, let's think about how we can help Christ in his work, and as individuals, let's think about how we can accept the gift Christ has given us.
Genesis 3 is a fascinating chapter in the Bible, because there are so many things to find in it. Here's something new that I wondered about this week when I read through the Genesis passage. In Genesis 2:15 we read that God put Adam in the garden to cultivate it and keep it. He put Adam to WORK. Now, some of us think that work is something we have to do because life will just eat us up if we can't make ends meet—if we don't have security. We think of work as a punishment—something that we HAVE to do. Oh, I wish I were rich, so I could goof off all the time! I think of the song from Fiddler on the Roof: If I were a rich man, all day long I'd biddle biddle bum. A perfect life would be all leisure, right? Well, look at Adam and Eve in the garden. We've got images of them all frolicking all naked and goofing off, playing with all the animals. Children's picture books have strategically placed bushes and branches that hide the nudity, so that Adam and Eve look like hand puppets behind a screen. And the animals are behind the bushes, too, usually a giraffe and and elephant poking their heads out, being all entertaining.
In reality, it wasn't all frolicking. Adam was put to work, before the fall, not as a punishment, but because that is something God does. He works and he rests, and that is what people do, we work and we rest, because we are made in the image of God. Work is good. Cultivating the Garden was Adam's ministry.
Work is good because it focuses our minds. Sometimes it's easier to pray when working. I find that my most active prayer time is when I am doing the dishes each night. Also, work keeps us from being idle. When I say “idle,” I'm not talking about rest that is required. I'm not talking about the sabbath, the important rest. I'm talking about being idle, the time in our lives when we can get into the most trouble. The outer banks is a prime location for idleness. We have a flurry of work during the on season, and when then off season hits, we rest. Often we've made money to help us for the rest of the year. Everything shuts down for the off season, and we have lots and lots of idle time. That's when we can get into trouble.
What kind of trouble? Let's look at Genesis 3:6. Eve gives Adam the apple to eat—because he is standing right there! She doesn't have to go hunting for him. He is sitting there at her heel like a faithful dog. He didn't lift a finger to prevent her from breaking the one rule God had given them. And my new thought this week, reading the scriptures was, “Isn't he supposed to be working?” Adam is idle. And I don't think this is Adam's sabbath, because I think God would have been there if it had been Adam's sabbath. They would have rested together. No, this is goofing off time from work! This is playing on the Internet time—surfing the Web, cutting up. They're surfing the garden. Hey! What's under this rock over here? Oooh a snake! This happens to us. We get idle, temptation comes in, and we can't resist.
Now let's flash ahead to our Gospel reading: Matthew 4:1-11. Here we have Jesus' temptation, and this is not to say that this is the only time that Jesus was tempted in his ministry. Like us, he was tempted every day of his life, but this scene is important because it is the beginning of his ministry. He is about to get to work. This is really Satan's big opportunity. Jesus has not begun yet, and there is only a little window! Get in there and get tempting! Now, let's look at the temptation itself. The temptation of Jesus is the same as the temptation of Adam: a false ministry. Isn't it interesting that temptation hits us when we are idle, when we are away from work, and the temptation itself is work, or more specifically a false ministry. Adam's real ministry was cultivating the garden of Eden. The false ministry that the serpent offered to him was being like God. Adam accepted the offer, and we've been paying for it ever since. Jesus' work, the ministry that he was about to undertake, was being God! It was saving the world—through teaching and healing and then ultimately his own death on the cross and his resurrection at Easter: this was the most amazing work possible. The devil offered Jesus a false ministry of politics, worldly power and values, and miracles that would give himself the glory instead of the father.
Now, these temptations in this passage are good warnings for the church. They all look good to the church, and they look like they will help. We can feed the hungry, we can heal the sick, we can be influential in the world! Giving into these temptations may win a lot of people to the church, yes, but they are won in ways that Jesus rejected, worldly ways like using lying and trickery. Like when we we put on a good performance, or when we tell people what they want to hear instead of the truth, or when you pretend to reach out to someone but all you're trying to do is influence them to do what they want you to do. That's all politics is. We ally with the worldly powers to get what we want quick, and we can look at history to see what state-run churches look like. We must look at the false values like politics and hold them up to the true values like submission and suffering. The temptations that the devil presented to Jesus and what he rejected and what the church also must reject is this sort of false ministry.
If Jesus had accepted that offer, the devil actually would have been in charge of things forever. Sometimes it seems today like Satan is in charge, doesn't it? But the reality is, Jesus won the battle on that cross. He cleaned up the mess that Adam had allowed into the world. How Satan is no longer in power but seems like he is—that's another sermon, but we have faith that Jesus has done the work that the Father commissioned him to do, and it was successful, and he has undone the damage that Adam did.
Now, we may have heard before how Jesus is the second Adam, but exactly what is the connection between the two? Well, Jesus is regaining what Adam lost for all of mankind—a relationship with God. Adam lost this relationship through idleness, and Jesus regained it through work: his ministry, up through his crucifixion and resurrection, is geared toward putting us right with God.
George Muller is this great missionary who relied entirely on prayer to run an orphanage. I'm reading a biography of George Muller to Rose, and this week we had an Adam/Jesus story. George is in school. His job, his work, is to study and get good grades. He does this, but he also used to lead a life of drinking and gambling. He has put it all behind him, and he is now studying all the time. However, in this chapter of his story, all it takes is just one person to invite him out to a bar, and then it's all downhill. You've heard the phrase falling off the wagon? He somersaulted off that wagon, and he was losing money, and borrowing money, and getting in debt all over the place.
What it took was someone else inviting him to a bible meeting. He came to the meeting for fun, so that he could tell some funny stories to his drinking buddies, but when he went to the meeting, the gospel message hit home—right between the eyes. He didn't just get back onto the wagon, he got onto a brand new wagon with reinforced sides and Jesus Christ at the reigns. It took only one man to lead George Muller astray, but it also only took one man to bring him into a relationship with God.
It took one man, Adam, to bring sin into the world—into our world—because we are born into sin and with sin comes death. But it only takes one man, the God-man Jesus Christ, to defeat death and take our sins away. As our passage in Romans says, we share in Adam's sin. What do you think about when you hear that? You know what I think? I think, No Fair! We didn't do anything wrong! Why do we all have to share in the sin of one guy, just because he screwed up?
But when we hear the other side, that we also share in Christ's life, his defeat of death, do we ever hear anyone saying, No fair! Why not? We didn't do anything to deserve it, either. We always say “no fair” when we are told we share in Adam's sin, but we never say “no fair” when we are told we share in Christ's gift. There is a difference, though. Adam's sin is like a curse or a disease, extending to all mankind whether we like it or not. The result of this disease is death. Christ's everlasting life is a gift, extended to all, but it must be accepted, accepted by each individual like a gift. The result of this gift is life.
Adam's sin is like the trunk of an enormous tree with billions of branches. Think of Adam being the trunk and we are all those little twigs and branches, all attached to that family tree of sin. Now, your everyday lumberjack would say that to stop this spread of sin, you hit the trunk, but that would kill the whole tree. That would be like God giving up on us all. Think of a world-wide flood where not even Noah and his family were spared. God has that option, yes, he could wipe everything out tomorrow, because he created it, he can destroy it. But God decided from the beginning that destroying everything and starting over was never an option.
What God chooses to do instead is astonishing, and Paul's letter shows us the amazing universal range of the power of the Gospel. Jesus' death and resurrection does not hit the trunk of the family tree of sin, it hits every single one of those billions of branches. Jesus' ministry is so powerful that it touches every single individual who ever lived and who ever will live. It's not the easy fix of cutting down the whole tree, wiping out the whole Earth. No, Jesus' is the hard work of healing every scrape and scratch of the human condition on an individual basis. He cares as much about the sin you committed this morning as the world-shattering sins that change the face of history.
Jesus worked really hard on this gift that he wants to give everyone. He worked on it with his two hands, and he worked on it with his feet, too. Those are the places where the nails were driven. He worked on this gift with his life, with his death, and with his life again. The world is his garden, and he still cultivates it today, working for each person to grow in Him. You may remember that cultivating a garden was Adam's work. Adam dropped that work, and Jesus Christ picked it up again.
As the church, let's think about how we can help Christ in his work, and as individuals, let's think about how we can accept the gift Christ has given us.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Holiness as Otherness
Delivered at Church of the Good Shepherd on March 6, 2011.
A couple weeks ago, we talked about rethinking the words righteousness and holiness and how they are active words, actually quite dangerous to us, because we are neither righteous nor are we holy. If we were to interact with the Father directly, we would be incinerated. Jesus is the way we can interact with the Father in a personal way. I went on to talk about what meekness means, but this is Transfiguration Sunday, which forces me to back up and explore this holiness, which is referenced in today's readings.
Now, righteousness is only one aspect of what it means to be holy. The other, more primary meaning of holiness is “otherness.” When we say that God is Holy, we are not just saying that he is righteous, but we are saying that he is “other.” You know those forms where they give you three options and then a fourth option that says “other?” You then have a blank to write in what your “other” is. With God, we can't write anything in. We leave it blank. He is truly other. Have you heard the word Xenophobia? It means the fear of foreigners. God is so foreign to us, that we have this deep-seated fear in our very bones. When we read about people having the fear of God or that they were fearing the Lord, this is what this means. God is so “other” that we may have awe of God, but we also have this intense fear, because he is unknown.
The biggest fear is the fear of the unknown. We may have day-to-day fears, like fear of our children getting hurt, but the fears that really rattle our bones is that fear of the unknown. If you were in a room and someone told you there was a tiger in the next room, you'd be a little scared, but the tiger is contained in the next room. If someone told you that a GHOST was in the next room, you'd be seriously creeped out! Ghosts fall into that category of the unknown. It's unpredictable, it may be able to walk through walls and get us for all we know.
Cathi and I love ghost stories, not just because they are told in a creepy way but because what is happening is the storyteller is tapping into a virtually unknown realm—the supernatural realm. We go to the movies to be scared. Many people like to go see horror movies, but the scariest horror movies are the ones with that unknown element—that otherness—that tapping into the supernatural. You have your slasher flick, where there's a mad killer on the loose, but what makes those movies really scary is when there's a supernatural element. The killer won't die—he just keeps getting up and attacking again. The scariest of these horror movies are the ones about demonic possession or ghosts. These movies tap directly into a supernatural realm that exists and that we are already terrified of. This is the otherness in art.
In Exodus, we have Moses going up alone to the top of the mountain to talk with God. No one else is allowed to go. They aren't even allowed to touch the mountain. This is to protect the Israelites from God's holiness, which has settled on Mt. Sinai. A cloud is also there, to protect Israel's eyes, because looking at God is like looking at the sun. The people down below are terrified, because of God's otherness, and the scripture at this point describes God's holiness as a devouring fire, consuming everything. Think of those wildfires in California that cannot be put out. When will my house be next? It's frightening. In a way, fire is supernatural. First there's nothing, then there's fire! We can control it sometimes, but we can't control what is happening in California. Think about the tiger and ghost in the next room: if there were a fire in the next room...we have a terrifying danger. Fire is unpredictable, too. What's interesting is that God allows Moses to live. Moses and God the Father have a special relationship, but it says many times in Exodus that Moses was filled with fear.
There's another scene in the Old Testament that I find interesting. When Elijah wins the battle with the priests of Baal, Jezebel threatens his life, and he flees to Mount Horeb, which is Mount Sinai, the mountain of God. There on the mountain he has a conversation with God. It's a famous scene, because God passes by! Just like with Moses, the top of the mountain becomes a cacophony of fires, earthquakes, and hurricanes. It's frightening stuff. Like Moses, Elijah is spared death from witnessing the Father's glory. In the midst of all this terror, God speaks to Elijah in a gentle whisper, as if to say, “my holiness may destroy you, but I love you, Elijah. I will let no harm come to you.” The supernatural realm may be the most frightening thing imaginable, but God himself is gentle.
I find it fascinating that both of these men climbed to the top of Mount Sinai at two different times to speak with God. What is even more fascinating is when I read our Matthew 17 passage—the Transfiguration of Christ. In this passage we stand with Peter as he witnesses this incredible, supernatural event, and we read, “Jesus' face shone like the sun.” That is probably not just a metaphor: Peter and James and John probably couldn't look directly at his holiness. If only there were a cloud there to help shield their eyes. Oh wait, the cloud comes in verse five.
Now, what is most amazing is that Jesus is not alone. He is speaking with Moses and Elijah. Being stuck in time myself, I always assumed that Jesus was communing with the two prophets after they had already lived their lives on earth. They were in heaven, and they came out of heaven, and stood on that mountain with Jesus, with Peter and James and John watching.
However, knowing God is not hindered by paltry things like TIME, there is a possibility that we're looking into a wormhole, a hole opening up in time and space, and perhaps Jesus is talking to Moses as he stands on Mount Sinai in Exodus 17 and to Elijah as he is standing on Mount Sinai in first Kings 19: three different events in human time, but one conversation in God's time. However, no matter how much Jesus Christ glows, no matter how much he shines like the sun, we can still interact with him, whether its Moses and Elijah in the midst of consuming fires on Mt. Sinai or Peter, James and John on the Mount of Transfiguration. Like I said before, God has made a way for us to have a relationship with him.
In Hebrews 12 we read that Mount Sinai cannot be touched, but Mount Zion can be touched. Sinai was our relationship with God the Father without Jesus, and Zion is our relationship with God the Father through Jesus. Jesus is the way we can look upon God's glory without being blinded, without being incinerated. This is probably the reason that Moses and Elijah are not consumed into ashes, because they are encountering Christ on that mountain.
This is something people do not just make up, and Peter tells us this in his second letter. He actually uses his eyewitness testimony of the Transfiguration to prove that the gospel is not a cleverly devised myth. As C.S. Lewis has said in the study series we have been going through in our home groups, Christianity is just complicated enough to be true, because truth is stranger than fiction. Here's what C.S. Lewis writes: “Reality, in fact, is usually something you could not have guessed. That is one of the reasons I believe Christianity. It is a religion you could not have guessed. If it offered us just the kind of universe we had always expected, I should feel we were making it up. But, in fact, it is not the sort of thing anyone would have made up. It has just that queer twist about it that real things have.”
In other words, it has time travel, holes in the space time continuum, and human bodies that are leagues beyond what we are used to. One of my favorite verses is John 21:4: Jesus stood on the beach, but the disciples did not know that it was him. He has a post-resurrection body. He is different, but he is the same. He can eat food, but he can also walk through walls, and at the end of the forty days, he ascends into heaven. He flies straight up like a rocket. It sounds incredible, but it is something we could not have guessed. It has that twist, as C.S. Lewis says.
Let's look at this strange transfiguration again. In Christ, two realities meet. One reality is the material world, creation, fallen in sin, disconnected from the creator, in need of redemption. This fallen world includes people and it includes chronological time. But in Christ there are two realities meeting. Our world intersects the world of the Father, which includes the supernatural realm, and redeemed creation—the new heaven and new earth. In Jesus Christ our world and the Father's world collide. That is what we are seeing in this transfiguration scene. We are seeing the Father's world spill into ours for a moment, and Jesus embodies both worlds—he is fully human and he is fully other—he is fully God. This scene in the gospels is here to show us the two worlds intersecting, and the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to these two realities, and when we finally see it, we can't UNSEE it.
We are going into Lent, a time of repentance and fasting. Over the weeks we have talked about not just giving up things, like we always learned Lent was about as children—I'm giving up chocolate! No, we have been talking about asking Jesus to replace an aspect of our human nature with his righteous nature, whether it's something sinful, like anger, lust, or pride, or something that we think we need in our lives—something that controls us—like a critical attitude or a worldly value. Lent isn't just about self-denial, it's about casting our human spirit onto Jesus and asking Jesus to give us his Holy Spirit.
God has given us this amazing gift in Jesus. We are able to commune with the Father through the Son, but the Spirit is what fills us and opens our eyes to this good news. Just as the disciples had their eyes opened on the Mount of Transfiguration, so they could see who Jesus really was, so we have the eyes of our hearts opened when we read scripture and see who God really is.
This Lenten season, spend time with the scriptures. Stay quiet, listen, read the Word of God. The Spirit will connect you with something you have not connected with before. We have our own Mount of Transfiguration in our hearts, and when the Spirit opens our eyes, we see Jesus for who he really is, the savior of the world. We see that all of time and space cannot stand against God's will. And we see that it is possible to live in God's holiness when we accept Christ as the way, the truth, and the life.
A couple weeks ago, we talked about rethinking the words righteousness and holiness and how they are active words, actually quite dangerous to us, because we are neither righteous nor are we holy. If we were to interact with the Father directly, we would be incinerated. Jesus is the way we can interact with the Father in a personal way. I went on to talk about what meekness means, but this is Transfiguration Sunday, which forces me to back up and explore this holiness, which is referenced in today's readings.
Now, righteousness is only one aspect of what it means to be holy. The other, more primary meaning of holiness is “otherness.” When we say that God is Holy, we are not just saying that he is righteous, but we are saying that he is “other.” You know those forms where they give you three options and then a fourth option that says “other?” You then have a blank to write in what your “other” is. With God, we can't write anything in. We leave it blank. He is truly other. Have you heard the word Xenophobia? It means the fear of foreigners. God is so foreign to us, that we have this deep-seated fear in our very bones. When we read about people having the fear of God or that they were fearing the Lord, this is what this means. God is so “other” that we may have awe of God, but we also have this intense fear, because he is unknown.
The biggest fear is the fear of the unknown. We may have day-to-day fears, like fear of our children getting hurt, but the fears that really rattle our bones is that fear of the unknown. If you were in a room and someone told you there was a tiger in the next room, you'd be a little scared, but the tiger is contained in the next room. If someone told you that a GHOST was in the next room, you'd be seriously creeped out! Ghosts fall into that category of the unknown. It's unpredictable, it may be able to walk through walls and get us for all we know.
Cathi and I love ghost stories, not just because they are told in a creepy way but because what is happening is the storyteller is tapping into a virtually unknown realm—the supernatural realm. We go to the movies to be scared. Many people like to go see horror movies, but the scariest horror movies are the ones with that unknown element—that otherness—that tapping into the supernatural. You have your slasher flick, where there's a mad killer on the loose, but what makes those movies really scary is when there's a supernatural element. The killer won't die—he just keeps getting up and attacking again. The scariest of these horror movies are the ones about demonic possession or ghosts. These movies tap directly into a supernatural realm that exists and that we are already terrified of. This is the otherness in art.
In Exodus, we have Moses going up alone to the top of the mountain to talk with God. No one else is allowed to go. They aren't even allowed to touch the mountain. This is to protect the Israelites from God's holiness, which has settled on Mt. Sinai. A cloud is also there, to protect Israel's eyes, because looking at God is like looking at the sun. The people down below are terrified, because of God's otherness, and the scripture at this point describes God's holiness as a devouring fire, consuming everything. Think of those wildfires in California that cannot be put out. When will my house be next? It's frightening. In a way, fire is supernatural. First there's nothing, then there's fire! We can control it sometimes, but we can't control what is happening in California. Think about the tiger and ghost in the next room: if there were a fire in the next room...we have a terrifying danger. Fire is unpredictable, too. What's interesting is that God allows Moses to live. Moses and God the Father have a special relationship, but it says many times in Exodus that Moses was filled with fear.
There's another scene in the Old Testament that I find interesting. When Elijah wins the battle with the priests of Baal, Jezebel threatens his life, and he flees to Mount Horeb, which is Mount Sinai, the mountain of God. There on the mountain he has a conversation with God. It's a famous scene, because God passes by! Just like with Moses, the top of the mountain becomes a cacophony of fires, earthquakes, and hurricanes. It's frightening stuff. Like Moses, Elijah is spared death from witnessing the Father's glory. In the midst of all this terror, God speaks to Elijah in a gentle whisper, as if to say, “my holiness may destroy you, but I love you, Elijah. I will let no harm come to you.” The supernatural realm may be the most frightening thing imaginable, but God himself is gentle.
I find it fascinating that both of these men climbed to the top of Mount Sinai at two different times to speak with God. What is even more fascinating is when I read our Matthew 17 passage—the Transfiguration of Christ. In this passage we stand with Peter as he witnesses this incredible, supernatural event, and we read, “Jesus' face shone like the sun.” That is probably not just a metaphor: Peter and James and John probably couldn't look directly at his holiness. If only there were a cloud there to help shield their eyes. Oh wait, the cloud comes in verse five.
Now, what is most amazing is that Jesus is not alone. He is speaking with Moses and Elijah. Being stuck in time myself, I always assumed that Jesus was communing with the two prophets after they had already lived their lives on earth. They were in heaven, and they came out of heaven, and stood on that mountain with Jesus, with Peter and James and John watching.
However, knowing God is not hindered by paltry things like TIME, there is a possibility that we're looking into a wormhole, a hole opening up in time and space, and perhaps Jesus is talking to Moses as he stands on Mount Sinai in Exodus 17 and to Elijah as he is standing on Mount Sinai in first Kings 19: three different events in human time, but one conversation in God's time. However, no matter how much Jesus Christ glows, no matter how much he shines like the sun, we can still interact with him, whether its Moses and Elijah in the midst of consuming fires on Mt. Sinai or Peter, James and John on the Mount of Transfiguration. Like I said before, God has made a way for us to have a relationship with him.
In Hebrews 12 we read that Mount Sinai cannot be touched, but Mount Zion can be touched. Sinai was our relationship with God the Father without Jesus, and Zion is our relationship with God the Father through Jesus. Jesus is the way we can look upon God's glory without being blinded, without being incinerated. This is probably the reason that Moses and Elijah are not consumed into ashes, because they are encountering Christ on that mountain.
This is something people do not just make up, and Peter tells us this in his second letter. He actually uses his eyewitness testimony of the Transfiguration to prove that the gospel is not a cleverly devised myth. As C.S. Lewis has said in the study series we have been going through in our home groups, Christianity is just complicated enough to be true, because truth is stranger than fiction. Here's what C.S. Lewis writes: “Reality, in fact, is usually something you could not have guessed. That is one of the reasons I believe Christianity. It is a religion you could not have guessed. If it offered us just the kind of universe we had always expected, I should feel we were making it up. But, in fact, it is not the sort of thing anyone would have made up. It has just that queer twist about it that real things have.”
In other words, it has time travel, holes in the space time continuum, and human bodies that are leagues beyond what we are used to. One of my favorite verses is John 21:4: Jesus stood on the beach, but the disciples did not know that it was him. He has a post-resurrection body. He is different, but he is the same. He can eat food, but he can also walk through walls, and at the end of the forty days, he ascends into heaven. He flies straight up like a rocket. It sounds incredible, but it is something we could not have guessed. It has that twist, as C.S. Lewis says.
Let's look at this strange transfiguration again. In Christ, two realities meet. One reality is the material world, creation, fallen in sin, disconnected from the creator, in need of redemption. This fallen world includes people and it includes chronological time. But in Christ there are two realities meeting. Our world intersects the world of the Father, which includes the supernatural realm, and redeemed creation—the new heaven and new earth. In Jesus Christ our world and the Father's world collide. That is what we are seeing in this transfiguration scene. We are seeing the Father's world spill into ours for a moment, and Jesus embodies both worlds—he is fully human and he is fully other—he is fully God. This scene in the gospels is here to show us the two worlds intersecting, and the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to these two realities, and when we finally see it, we can't UNSEE it.
We are going into Lent, a time of repentance and fasting. Over the weeks we have talked about not just giving up things, like we always learned Lent was about as children—I'm giving up chocolate! No, we have been talking about asking Jesus to replace an aspect of our human nature with his righteous nature, whether it's something sinful, like anger, lust, or pride, or something that we think we need in our lives—something that controls us—like a critical attitude or a worldly value. Lent isn't just about self-denial, it's about casting our human spirit onto Jesus and asking Jesus to give us his Holy Spirit.
God has given us this amazing gift in Jesus. We are able to commune with the Father through the Son, but the Spirit is what fills us and opens our eyes to this good news. Just as the disciples had their eyes opened on the Mount of Transfiguration, so they could see who Jesus really was, so we have the eyes of our hearts opened when we read scripture and see who God really is.
This Lenten season, spend time with the scriptures. Stay quiet, listen, read the Word of God. The Spirit will connect you with something you have not connected with before. We have our own Mount of Transfiguration in our hearts, and when the Spirit opens our eyes, we see Jesus for who he really is, the savior of the world. We see that all of time and space cannot stand against God's will. And we see that it is possible to live in God's holiness when we accept Christ as the way, the truth, and the life.
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