This Bread is My Flesh

                               

“I am the living bread that came down from heaven.  If anyone eats of this bread he will live forever.  This bread is my flesh, which I give for the life of the world.” John 5:51

 

A couple of weeks ago when I was writing my blog, Why Did You Doubt? I had an “Aha!” moment.  It happened when I was reading John chapter 6 where Jesus was talking to the people who had hunted him down after his feeding of the five thousand with just five loaves and two fish, because they were enamored with the idea of having a king who could provide food as needed.  They compared Jesus to Moses who had provided “bread from heaven” for their forefathers in the desert, and urged Jesus to show them what he could do for them.

Jesus, who was never particularly concerned about his popularity, took that opportunity to so completely alienate and disgust the crowd that, by the time he was finished, even his devoted followers were appalled and some stopped following him altogether. 

What did he say that was so outrageous?  He began by telling them that Moses didn’t give them bread from heaven, it was his Father who gave them the true bread from heaven, and he was that bread.  They began to murmur in disapproval at that point, but Jesus was only warming up.  He told them, “Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died.  But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die.  I am the living bread that came down from heaven.  If anyone eats of this bread he will live forever.  This bread is my flesh, which I give for the life of the world.” (John 6:49-51)

Now the people were offended! Why in the world would someone talk about eating his flesh, they wondered?  That was just repulsive.

Undisturbed by their grumbling, Jesus continued, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, you have no life in you.  Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.  For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.  Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.  Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.  This is the bread that came down from heaven.  Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever.” (John 6:53-58)

Now, those of us who are familiar with the concept of communion and the bread and wine are a bit desensitized to how this must have sounded to the people who were hearing him say this for the first time.  But, even with the advantage of our perspective, you have to admit that Jesus went straight for the shock value in that speech.  He took no pains to carefully choose words that were lovely and flowery and inoffensive.  He not only said to eat his flesh, he said we should “feed on” him.  I don’t know about you, but for me that conjures up images of lions ripping apart a bloody gazelle.

I’m pretty sure that was the effect he was going for.  His aim was never to win over the people as if he was running for office, but, because of humanity’s Action/Consequence way of evaluating everything, the people felt he had given them some pretty compelling reasons to make him their leader. This speech was his way of “throwing the election” while telling them the real story. He had bread to give them all right, but it was his own flesh. 

And, for me, that’s where the “Aha!” moment came in. If you’re like me you’ve probably heard a lot about Jesus’ blood (e.g. Romans 5:9 – We were justified by his blood; Ephesians 1:7 – We received redemption, forgiveness of sins through his blood; Ephesians 2:13 – We are brought near by the blood of Christ; Colossians 1:20 – He made peace for us through his blood; Hebrews 9:22 – Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness); we even sing a lot of songs about the blood; but, I’ve never given much thought to Jesus’ flesh.  As a matter of fact, I’ve always just sort of lumped them together—flesh and blood.  To me they simply represented the fact that Jesus died for us.  When I took communion, I wondered in passing about what it meant to ingest Christ’s body.  I thought it must represent each of us being a part of the universal Body of Christ--the Church, and let it go at that.

But this passage, and many others, has a lot to say about flesh.  In the Greek, the word used is “Sarx”, and in addition to its meaning of ‘the flesh of a living creature, as opposed to a dead creature’, it is used to refer to the corrupt nature of man.  Jesus uses it that way in Matthew, Mark and Luke in the context of the Garden of Gethsemane when the disciples kept nodding off, even though Jesus had asked them to give him some prayer support.  Finding them sleeping, Jesus asked, “Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?” Then he said, “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.  The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

In John 3:6 Jesus indicated that the reason we need to be born again is because, “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.”   At the end of the story in John 6, when everyone had left in disgust, Jesus was alone with the twelve and he said, “The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing.” (John 6:63). In Romans 7:18, Paul says, “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.  For I have the desire to do what is right but not the ability to carry it out.”  And again, in Romans 8:6-8 he says, “The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.  The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.”

From these scriptures, we can deduce that in our corrupt nature, referred to as “flesh”, we have about as much chance of being good enough to please God as the Ethiopian, referred to in Jeremiah 13:23, had of changing his skin or the leopard had of changing his spots, both of those things having to do with something inherent in their flesh.  In Ephesians 2 Paul tells us that, because we were all living in our Action/Consequence infused flesh, we were, by nature-- i.e. by virtue of simply being human--objects of God’s wrath; or in the common vernacular, going to hell.  We had no hope.

For that very reason, as John tells us in chapter 1 verse 14, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth”.  Paul says, “For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh”. (Romans 8:3);  and, again, in Colossians 1:21-22 Paul says, “And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him”.

Jesus came “in the flesh”, so that, in his flesh, he could live a perfect life and give us the credit for it. In our own contaminated flesh we were hopeless, but he gave us his perfect flesh in replacement. He applied to our account all of the obedience he accomplished in the flesh, erasing all of our fleshly disobedience.  

The word “Sarx” refers specifically to the flesh of a living creature, not a dead one.  Jesus referred to himself as the Living Bread, and said that as we are nourished by him we remain in him--covered in his righteousness; and he remains in us, giving us his life, daily reminding us of his finished work on our behalf.  “If anyone eats of this bread,” he said, “he will live forever.” 

The next time I partake of the communion bread, I will say with Paul, “The life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 3:20)

What's in a Name?

There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.  For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.  For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.  Romans 8:1-4

When I get hold of a concept that opens up a whole new world for me, I can’t seem to shut up about it!  Coming  to believe that there is one universal way of viewing and relating to life which has been common to man since the fall, and is the only way we can view and relate to life unless God helps us, has been one of those things. Although we may each express this world view uniquely, the chief characteristics remain the same: Self-gratification, self-glorification and self-salvation. 

Self-gratification looks for pleasure and escape in things like food, sex, drugs and alcohol; or, money, possessions and power.  Consciously or unconsciously, we even view people as a means to an end; when they stop meeting our needs, they are disposable. If you no longer make me happy, if I think of you as too much trouble, I won’t want you around. The focus is always on ourselves.  Even when we think we have shifted the focus toward making someone else happy, if that person doesn’t cooperate we become upset because, underneath, our real motivation was self-gratification.

We evaluate everyone and everything on the basis of our own happiness; Happiness is King.  We view the pursuit of it as our inalienable right and have even put that in the U.S. Constitution!

By self-glorification I am referring to our need for recognition, adulation, validation, etc.  This desire is a driving force behind everything we do.  We often applaud it in ourselves and others and give it names like ambition, responsibility, commitment, drive, focus, determination.  We admire and encourage the aspiration to ‘be the best’.  We view it as character building.  In the process of striving to be the best we reason that we can learn to be gracious losers as well as gracious winners.  However, because the driving force is self-glorification, the goal is inevitably to be’ better than’, which necessitates others being ‘lesser than’, and involves competing, comparing, judging and ultimately condemning someone to the ‘lesser than’ status. This need for self-glorification thrives on someone being ‘lesser than.’  We love having someone to look down on.

I come from a line of drinkers, so I will use that as my illustration.  The person who doesn’t drink looks down on the person who does drink; the person who does drink looks down on the person who drinks too much; the person who drinks too much looks down on the person who drinks too much and can’t function; the person who drinks too much and can’t function looks down on the person who drinks too much, can’t function and lives on the streets. I’m sure it goes on from there.  We all do this in our own situations. Self-glorification is always at someone else’s expense.

Self-salvation is closely related to self-glorification.  It is not specific to salvation as in ‘being saved’, or ‘going to heaven’, although that is definitely a part of what I am talking about.  However, self-salvation in general is about justifying our existence, proving that we are worthy, demonstrating that we are good enough, showing that we are deserving.   Where self-glorification is more about arrogance and pride, self-salvation is more about the fear of not measuring up.  Its ‘do more, try harder’ mentality comes from the need to earn recognition.  The ways we attempt to do this are endless.  We try to be beautiful, smart, funny, interesting, thin, super-employees and students, super-moms or dads, super-religious or even super-bad.  There is a part of each of us that believes if someone else does not recognize us, we do not exist.

Even In the context of Christianity we struggle with this intrinsic need for self-salvation because it is the way everything else with which we are familiar operates.  We earn, we prove, we demonstrate, we justify.  That is what we do.  Anything else is foreign.  And, that is my point.

 In my recent blogs I have frequently talked about what I have called Action/Consequence and Death/Resurrection as the two ways of viewing the world.  I settled on those names because, to me, they best described the characteristics of the two world views; but the idea represented by the names is not new or mine.  What I have called Action/Consequence, some have called human nature; in Romans 7, Paul uses the term ‘sin’ in that context.  In Romans 8:5-17, he contrasts the ‘way of the flesh’ with the ‘way of the Spirit’. I choose to use different names because those are so fraught with other meanings.  But why do I think this idea of two world views is so important?  Why do I feel the need for names at all?

It seems to me, if we do not acknowledge this innate universal way of viewing and relating to life, we will not understand it is something over which we have no control.  We will want, instead, to blame our culture, our society, our government, our parents, our churches and ourselves, for what is simply our natural state.

Once we understand that it is our natural state, we can stop being constantly surprised that we, and everyone else, are the way we are.  The world thinks in only one way, characterized by self-gratification, self-glorification and self-salvation.  If we see anything we believe is not motivated by those things, we are wrong.  Even in ourselves.  Even at our best.  We are all in the same boat.

The problem is, on our own we cannot reason our way to the conclusion that we are all in the same boat. We are blind to our true condition.  It has to be revealed to us. We have to be given something with which to compare ourselves that would show us our need for something different; so God gave us the Law.

Romans chapter 2 says that even those who weren’t given the benefit of the Law have its requirements written on their hearts.  “Look,” God said, “this is the standard.  This is what I am like.  Compare yourselves to it.  There is no room for even a hint of self-gratification or self-glorification.  This is what I demand and require from you and it is impossible for you to do.  I will require the impossible from you until you recognize that you are not capable of giving it to me.  Your efforts at self-salvation will never be enough to satisfy my demands. You are helpless. And when you recognize that, you will finally be ready to hear that you need to be rescued and that I already have a plan.”

Only God can draw us and enable us to see that there is something other than who we naturally are; and that this “other” is something we can never be.  Only Jesus could be the “other”; so, God sent him to earth to be what we could not be, to do what was impossible for us and to give us the credit.

Once God reveals this amazing truth to us, it is helpful to have names to differentiate between our natural state and our rescued state.  I have chosen to call them Action/Consequence--because our natural way of viewing and relating to life is based on the foolish idea that we deserve something for what we do—that the consequence of our actions should be a reward; and Death/Resurrection--because we are rescued as a result of Christ’s death and resurrection and because we were completely dead, and God resurrected us.  We brought nothing to the table but our messed up way of thinking and relating; we did nothing because we could do nothing, so God did everything for us through his Son, Jesus Christ, who had to pay the price for the consequences of our actions.

The names are only a tool for purposes of communication and discussion, what is important is the concept behind them.  Even in our rescued state, we still retain our natural way of viewing and relating to life. It is still our default way of thinking.  When we were rescued, it was not removed.  Every day we must be reminded that there is another option, a foreign way to view and relate to the people and circumstances in our lives; a way that is based solely on our continued acknowledgment that we are all in the same boat and are helplessly and utterly dependent on the grace of God alone.

Why Did You Doubt?

 “While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is my body.”  Matthew 26:26

 A snippet of a sermon I was listening to the other day referenced the story of Peter walking on the water, which led to my deciding to write a blog about that story.  We have all heard it so many times, but I thought I could give it a different slant by telling the story first from the angle of Action/Consequence and then retelling it from the viewpoint of Death/Resurrection.  Simple.

The Action/Consequence story, being the “This is what you do; this is what you should do instead” version, goes like this:  Jesus told Peter to get out of the boat.  Peter obeyed and was able to walk on the water until he took his eyes off of Jesus and immediately began to sink.  Jesus, then, had to rescue Peter and rebuked him for having such little faith, asking him why he doubted.  The moral of the story is, when you keep your eyes on Jesus, you can do anything.  Don’t take your eyes off of Jesus.  Don’t doubt.  Have faith and everything will be all right.

Easy enough.  I could do that without even looking it up!

However, to prepare for the Death/Resurrection version, I turned to Scripture.  Even though the story of Jesus walking on the water is told in Matthew, Mark and John, only Matthew includes Peter in the story.  This immediately struck me as odd.  Most Bible scholars agree that the book of Mark is actually Peter’s version of Jesus’ life.  Why would Peter leave himself out of the account?  I tucked that question away.

I wanted to look at the context of the story and I had to go back a ways to find it.  The story actually began with Jesus sending the twelve disciples out two by two, giving them authority over evil spirits.  Mark 6:12-13 says, “They went out and preached that people should repent.  They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.”  What heady stuff that must have been for this band of unknown tax collectors, fishermen, etc. who had no formal rabbinical training!  When they returned from their journey they got back together and sat down with Jesus to tell him all about what had happened.  Mark, chapter 6 verse 30 says, “Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, ‘Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.’”

Matthew Chapter 14:13 tells us that Jesus had just heard about the death of John the Baptist and he, too,  wanted some time alone.  Have you ever been physically and emotionally depleted and simply needed a quiet place to regroup and recover your equilibrium?  It doesn’t matter whether it is from a good situation, like a successful ministry trip, or a bad situation, where you have received word that a loved one has died tragically; sometimes you just need to spend some time with God, apart from the demands of your life, to re-center.  So, Jesus and the disciples took a boat to a “solitary place” to do just that.

The problem was, word about the secret location leaked out, and by the time they arrived, a crowd had already gathered to meet them.  There was no solitude and no time for rest!  Matthew 14:14 says, When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.”  Mark 6:34 says, “…he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd.” 

So, Jesus healed, taught and ministered to them until it was late in the day, but then a problem arose.  This was not a location in the heart of a city; this was a remote, solitary place.  There were no merchants nearby selling fast food.  A discussion ensued between Jesus and the disciples about how to deal with this matter.  The people needed to eat.  The disciples suggested Jesus send the people away at that point so they could go find something. In Mark 6:37, Jesus offered another suggestion, “You give them something to eat.”

The disciples were appalled.  I’m sure they imagined the whole unlikely process of trekking off to find some place to buy enough food for five thousand men, not to mention the women and children; then handing over eight months wages to pay for all of it, and finally, somehow managing to haul it all back to the remote location in a timely manner, to feed the restless, hungry mob approximately one bite each (John 6:7).

Jesus then asked them how much food they could find in the crowd itself.  Andrew reported that a child had five small barley loaves and 2 fish, and insightfully asked the obvious, “…but how far will they go among so many?” (John 6:9)

Undaunted, Jesus calmly directed the disciples to seat the people in orderly groups, then he simply looked up to heaven, gave thanks and started breaking up the loaves and passing around the food.  As we know, not only was there plenty to eat, but Jesus directed that the leftovers be picked up afterward so that nothing would be wasted, and twelve baskets full of bread and fish were collected.

Matthew’s account in chapter 14 verse 22 then says, “Immediately, Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd.”  Mark says almost the exact thing in chapter 6:45.  There was no transition.  Jesus fed the crowd, collected the remains, and immediately made the disciples leave.  The Greek word translated “made” is “Anankazo” and it implies compelling by force or external violence.  In no uncertain terms, Jesus insisted that the disciples leave right then.  There was no room for argument!

John gives us a glimpse into the reason Jesus was so adamant the disciples had to be separated from the crowd immediately.  Chapter 6 verse 15 says, “Jesus, knowing that they (the people) intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.”  Jesus was well aware that the disciples, still high on the success of their missionary journey and now having witnessed this miraculous event, were quite likely to agree with the crowd and join them in their quest to make Jesus their new king, by force if necessary; so, he initiated a type of force himself, and made the disciples get into the boat and go.  Jesus remained behind to disperse the crowd, and then to finally spend that alone time with God for which he had come in the first place.

The disciples, on the other hand, were about to spend some alone time they had not anticipated. All of the accounts in scripture say it was about evening when the disciples set out.  The winds were strong and the disciples strained at the oars because they were rowing against the wind.  The waves buffeted the boat.  Progress was slow and made with great effort.  Scripture seems to indicate that Jesus was aware of their circumstances throughout the night.  Mark says Jesus saw them.  Whether he could physically see them from the mountainside where he had gone to pray, or whether this was divine sight, we don’t know, but either way, he knew exactly where they were, because in the “fourth watch of the night”, which is about three to six in the morning, typically the darkest part of the night, Jesus finally determined it was time to come to them.

Imagine for a moment that you are one of the disciples in the boat.  It is dark, and you have been struggling and straining for hours to row against the fierce winds, making very little headway.  You were already very tired before the day began, and now you have reached the point of utter exhaustion and you are still far from your destination.  Then, you look across the waters and see something coming toward you, but you can’t quite make it out.  It’s not another boat.  You squint and peer through the darkness and spray of the waves.  Suddenly you realize this thing appears to be a person, but your mind tells you that no person could be walking on top of the water.  Logic then tells you that, if it appears to be a human form, but it is approaching on top of the water, it must be a spirit, or ghost.  You’ve never seen a ghost before, but within the framework of your circumstances and your physical and mental state, this is the only conclusion you can draw.  Your response to that conclusion is abject terror.

Have you ever experienced abject terror; where your mind sort of disconnects from your body and you become paralyzed?  It was right at that point Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take courage! It is I.  Don’t be afraid.”

The disciples recognized Jesus’ voice. John’s account said that once they heard him they were willing to take him into the boat; in other words, once they knew it was Jesus and not a ghost, they decided it was safe to bring him aboard. But in Matthew’s version, as soon as they heard Jesus’ voice telling them not to be afraid, Peter shouted out, “Lord, if it’s you, tell me to come to you on the water.”

And Jesus said simply, “Come.”

I can’t say with any authority what Peter’s motivation was.  It seems safe to assume he didn’t have much doubt that it was Jesus because once the invitation was issued he climbed right out of the boat.  My suspicion is that Peter’s adrenaline was still pumping after the ghost fright; and Peter, always ready to act or speak first and think later, felt a need to do something with all that fight-or-flight energy and walking on water seemed to be just the thing!  Jesus was willing to go along. 

Because I’d read this story of walking on the water so many times, the idea had lost some of its awe for me; but, years ago I read Richard Bach’s book, Illusions, and in it there is a scene where the messiah figure swims in the earth.  The land maintained its solid earthiness, but he was able to breast-stroke, back float, etc., in the ground.  That passage opened up the wonder of this scene for me again. 

Peter, however, didn’t need anything to stimulate his sense of wonder! I can almost feel his amazement and exhilaration as he walked toward Jesus.  He must have thought, “I’m actually walking on water!” Then, the adrenaline began to wane and reality set in.  “Wait! I’m actually doing what? I can’t walk on water!”  I imagine it as someone waking up from sleep-walking.  Suddenly the same fierce wind he had been battling when he was in the boat was much more real than this crazy idea that he could walk on water.   He became terrified once more, and right away he began to sink.  Fortunately, he knew where to turn for help, and cried out, “Lord, save me!”  And, of course, Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him.

As Action/Consequence oriented beings, we cannot initially read the words which Jesus says next without hearing them in the context of a rebuke. We just can’t.  “You of little faith,” Jesus said, “why did you doubt?”  But, it occurs to me that there is another way of reading these words: as a simple description and a genuine question for Peter to ponder.  In my last blog, Connect the Dots, I talked about the fact that the disciples were only able to view the events during their time with Jesus through the lens of Action/Consequence until after the gift of the Holy Spirit was given to them at Pentecost.  Because of that, I imagine Peter, too, was only able to hear those words as a rebuke when they were spoken to him; but Jesus knew a time would come when Peter would be able to hear them from a different perspective.

In every version, when Jesus climbed into the boat the wind instantly died down and the disciples were once more astounded at his power. They worshipped him, and declared that he was “Truly the Son of God.” In Mark, which I mentioned earlier is thought to be primarily Peter’s own account of Jesus’ ministry, we don’t know why Peter left himself out of the story (maybe embarrassment, maybe humility?) but he includes an insight at the end of his version that holds the key to answering the question Jesus asked him; an insight he could only have come to after the Holy Spirit opened his eyes to the Death/Resurrection perspective. Through Mark he says, “They were completely amazed, for they had not understood about the loaves, their hearts were hardened.”  The key, then, is understanding the true meaning of the loaves.

John, who loves to focus more on the inner meaning of the events than the events themselves, sheds some light on the cryptic comment in Mark.  He picks up the story the day after the feeding of the five thousand and the water walking incident.  The crowd had discovered that Jesus had somehow slipped away and they scouted him out once again.  “Rabbi,” they asked, “when did you get here?”

Jesus, who was already wise to their desire to make him king, didn’t play along with them.  “I tell you the truth,” he answered, “you are looking for me not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill.”

The word for “miraculous signs” in the Greek is “Semeion”.  It is a word that conveys the idea of a true miracle, which is primarily about the grace and power of the Doer; not about the miracle itself.  In other words, Jesus knew the people weren’t looking for him because they acknowledged the grace and power of God and had grasped the meaning behind what he had done; they were looking for him because they were excited about what he was capable of doing for them.  Their hearts and the hearts of the disciples were hardened, in the same way that all of our hearts are innately hardened--on our own, we are only capable of understanding through the filter of Action/Consequence, and through that filter everything is ultimately about us and what we can get for ourselves.

The disciples were thrilled to be followers of someone who could give them power over demons and the ability to heal the sick.  The crowd was ecstatic at the thought of having a king who had the power to feed them or give them whatever they wanted.  Peter was excited about having a master and friend who made it possible for him to do something as amazing as walking on water.  Then the disciples were awed at the prospect of knowing they had access to one who could rescue them from every danger.  They saw unlimited potential for Jesus as King, for themselves as his trusted friends and for the nation of Israel. The future was bright!

But the real meaning of the loaves was missed completely, and Jesus began to tell them that meaning.  “I am the bread of life” he said.  “Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died.  But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die.  I am the living bread that came down from heaven.  If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.  This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

The meaning of the loaves was not that Jesus can give us everything we think we need.  The true meaning of the loaves is that Jesus himself is the all-sufficient provision for everything we need.  Everything we need we already possess in Jesus.  Our hope is not found in how Jesus can provide for our temporal needs or even what he can enable us to do, but in what he has already done for us.

Why did Peter have so little faith? Because his faith was focused on what Jesus was allowing him to do. Why did he doubt? Because when we focus on ourselves and how we are doing, we will always see our inadequacies, the reality of the wind will always overwhelm us, we will always be afraid and we will always sink.  And when we sink, we will do what he has wanted all along—cry out, “Lord, save me!”  And he will immediately reach out his hand and catch us. Every time.

Connect the Dots

                               

But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.  John 14:26

I had a troubling thought this week: Why is it that spending copious amounts of time with Jesus had very little transformative effect on his disciples? They were with him day in and day out for three and a half years, watching him perform miracles, listening to him teach publicly and privately. They were by his side as he lived out his perfect life. They witnessed his communion with his father. They went on missionary journeys and performed miracles themselves. And yet, despite all of that, their thinking was Action/Consequence to the very end of Jesus’ time with them.

What do I mean by that?  Action/Consequence is humanity’s natural, default way of thinking. It is me-centered; about what I do and what I expect to achieve or receive as a result. An Action/Consequence life is focused on seeking our own gratification, recognition, glory, honor and praise. As a result, we will view others as competitors and opponents. We compare and measure, judge, condemn and blame in an effort to magnify our own achievements and avoid any association with failure or personal disgrace. We do this to validate our existence; to generate our own worth. This world view is the one from which the disciples operated during their time with Jesus.

Throughout that time, the twelve disciples frequently argued and fought over who would be the greatest in Jesus’ earthly kingdom. The mother of James and John, two members of the trio with whom Jesus developed an even closer relationship than he had with the other nine, came to make the case for her sons to be his right and left hand men when he came into power. The other disciples were appalled and angry at the power-grab. Peter, the third member of the trio, after realizing that Jesus’ earthly Kingdom wasn’t about to be established after all, took the politically prudent route and disavowed any association with Jesus in an attempt to escape guilt by association. The rest of the disciples also fled.

After spending forty days with Jesus after his death and resurrection, literally seconds before they watched him disappear into the clouds, the disciples asked Jesus if he was finally ready to restore the kingdom to Israel. Even at this point, they were still thinking about Jesus in terms of his temporal impact on their lives and the world; that is, in terms of Action/Consequence.

My questions are, why were the disciples not changed by their extremely close relationship with Jesus? It seems obvious that they were changed later, but what made the difference?

As Jesus was approaching his death he began to speak more and more frequently about the Holy Spirit. In John 16 Jesus tells his disciples it is actually good that he is going to leave them, because, unless he does, the Counselor, Advocate, or Holy Spirit, will not come to them. He goes on to explain that there is much more he wants the disciples to understand, but that they are not ready. He tells them that the Spirit will guide them into all of the truth. He says that the Spirit will bring glory to him (Jesus) by taking from what belongs to him (Jesus) and making it known to them.

We also find that Jesus, during the forty days after his death and resurrection, commanded the disciples not to leave Jerusalem until they had received the gift of the Holy Spirit. The final words he spoke to them, as he disappeared into the clouds, were regarding the fact that they would receive power when the Holy Spirit came on them, and that then they would be his witnesses to the ends of the earth. His point was that they were not to run off and try to talk to anyone about anything until the promised Holy Spirit came.

We know that, according to Acts chapter 2, this was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit came and filled them; and quite suddenly, those same disciples who had remained steadfastly Action/Consequence oriented throughout their entire time with Jesus, were miraculously given the ability by the Spirit to finally see everything they had experienced with Jesus for the last three and a half years through the brand new lens of Death/Resurrection; and that new perspective changed everything!

At last all of the dots were connected; dots the disciples were entirely incapable of connecting themselves. Only through the Death/Resurrection lens were they finally able to see who Jesus actually was, what he had come to do and why he had to do it; and when the sheer magnitude of it hit them, they could not keep quiet! They began immediately to shout the news from the roof tops. They were instantly witnesses who began to testify not only about the facts of what they had seen and heard, but what those things meant; and they told those who were listening that they too could receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, and he would then open their eyes and hearts so they would be able to understand the meaning as well.

Without the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit opening our minds to this unnatural Death/Resurrection way of thinking, no one would ever be able to comprehend the meaning behind who we are in relation to God [dead in our trespasses and sins], and what the only solution is to our condition [resurrection, through Jesus Christ our Lord], we would remain in the same blinded state as the disciples were prior to Pentecost.

Without that divinely given understanding of Death/Resurrection, we will even view the work of the Holy Spirit through the lens of Action/Consequence! We will believe that the Holy Spirit is given to us primarily to make us into good moral people whose exemplary behavior will shine a light into a darkened world; as if our good behavior could save anyone! Only Jesus' good behavior is able to save, and not because we emulate it, but because his obedience is credited to our account.

The primary work of the Holy Spirit is to bring glory, not to us, but to Jesus, by taking what belongs to him and making it known to us. (John 16:14) It is only as the Holy Spirit graciously reveals to us, day by day and minute by minute, the truth of what God has done for us through the life, death and resurrection of his son, Jesus Christ, that we begin to be transformed by the renewing of our Action/Consequence saturated minds.

Spiritual Amnesia

The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying:  “I have loved you with an everlasting love, I have drawn you with loving-kindness.”  Jeremiah 31:3

 

 

I’m a sucker for a love story, especially one with a happy ending.  One of my favorite movies is 50 First Dates. Henry falls in love with Lucy, a girl who suffered an accident which caused permanent damage to the part of her brain controlling her short term memory.  Every morning Lucy, who only remembers life before the accident, must be informed of her situation and all that has happened since that fateful day.  Moving forward in life is almost impossible for her because no new memory is retained.  The determined Henry woos Lucy, winning her heart day after day.  Eventually, Lucy decides that Henry should not have to bear the burden of her disability and pushes him away.  However, even though there is no hope of Lucy recovering her short term memory, Henry discovers he has touched something deeper in Lucy than her memory; love has imprinted his image on her heart.  In the end, love triumphs and they live happily ever after.

I’ve come to believe that every good love story is based on our intuitive desire for grace; for unconditional love that overcomes every obstacle in its relentless pursuit of the undeserving beloved.  50 First Dates follows that pattern, but it is the obstacle itself which intrigued me as I thought about it this week.

I’ve been writing lately about the two ways of viewing all of life: Action/Consequence and Death/Resurrection.  Action/Consequence is our natural, default way of thinking.  Its focus is on me and what I do.  If I do this I will get that.  If I don’t do this, I won’t get that.  This gives us the illusion of control.  We view others as competitors, opponents.  We compare and compete. We measure and judge. We condemn others, and ourselves.  We seek to avoid failure and achieve personal glory, and we make it the basis of our identity. This is the foundation of all human thinking.  When Christianity is viewed through the Action/Consequence lens, Jesus is mentioned only in passing; the idea of his dying for our sins is used only as a springboard for the real emphasis, which is about us and what we are to do.

Death/Resurrection, on the other hand, is completely unnatural and counterintuitive. Its way of viewing life is upside down and backward from the way we instinctively think.  This viewpoint is not something we can manufacture on our own.  It is a gift from outside of us, through the ministry of the Holy Spirit.  In this paradigm, the focus is not on what we do or don’t do, it is always and only on what has been done for us by God, through his son, Jesus Christ.  It is based on the biblical understanding that we are dead in our transgressions and sins (Ephesians 2:1) and incapable of doing anything for ourselves.  Our only hope is resurrection, which must come from outside of us. Ephesians 2:4-5 tells us that is exactly what God did, “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.” In this world view we are all dead men brought back to life. There is no one better than another; no basis for comparing and competing, judging or condemning.  The only glory goes to the One who has done everything for us.

When God comes to us and opens our minds to Death/Resurrection, we receive the news with great joy and relief.  Possibilities open before us.  Wonder fills our hearts at the amazing news that we are God’s beloved, not because we earned it or deserved it, or that we must earn it or deserve it in the future, but simply because he saw us just as we are, and he desired us to be his own.  His unreasonable love pursues us and overcomes all obstacles!

Then, we go to sleep, and in the morning we have reset to Action/Consequence. 

I have berated myself so many times for how quickly I forget God’s grace.  I have been appalled at my ability to be so grateful and trusting one minute, and in the next so ungrateful, anxious and ashamed.  I am exhilarated by the good news I find in scripture one day and the following day I can only see my failure and God’s disapproval, and question whether any of the good news was true.  I have trouble imagining how God could possibly keep putting up with my stupidity and obvious lack of appropriate response to his love.  Why can’t I retain the gospel?  How is it that the concept of grace seems so illusive; first clear then obscure?

This week, God patiently made me aware that Action/Consequence is all that we have on our own.  We will inevitably reset to our default.  Death/Resurrection is not an understanding at which we can arrive through our own efforts; it is always a gift, doled out daily like the manna was to the Israelites.  It is by revelation only.  It is new every morning.

We may forget, but God’s love has imprinted his image on our hearts.  Rather than being angry with us, he dazzles us anew with the miracle of grace.  He brings us from despair to hope again.  He woos us and wins our hearts day after day. It’s Christmas every day, with the excitement of receiving the best present ever.  The relief and reassurance never gets old; the child-like delight never goes away.

Every morning, God tells us our story again.  He opens us to the possibilities and revives our joy and sense of wonder.  He is well aware of our reset disability, and he assures us that his love for us will always triumph and we will move forward together until we live happily ever after.  That’s the best love story of all!