This Is What Victory Looks Like

Psalm 118 is a Psalm of victory. We did not read it today, but we should all read it and meditate on it this Holy Week, because it is a Psalm of victory. Jesus was treated as victorious as he entered Jerusalem (it is called the “triumphant entry”), and Jesus actually IS victorious when he dies on the cross on our behalf. This is what victory looks like.

Psalm 118 has one of the most important verses in all of scripture, and it is quoted by Paul and other New Testament writers, and the early church fathers and all the saints up to this very day: “the stone the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.” Jesus came, we rejected him, we killed him, and in doing so, we have made Jesus the foundation of the entire Christian faith. The most precious seed fell to earth and died, and then a forest of fruitful trees has sprung up in its place. As the song says, “like a rose trampled on the ground.” Jesus took the fall for us. This is what victory looks like.

A verse that is not quoted but is just as important as the previous one: “Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord.” Just as Jesus is the cornerstone, the foundation of the church, Jesus is the gate of righteousness. We cannot give thanks to the Lord, we cannot be in relationship with him, unless we enter through these righteous gates—unless we come to the father through the son, through Jesus. This is what victory looks like. God has created a way for us to live in relationship with him. Once there was no way. Now there is a way.

Jesus Christ, having been at the creation of everything, when we were suffering under sin and death, emptied himself and took the form of a servant, and he died on our behalf. We rejected him, we crushed him under our heels, and in doing so, we enabled him to defeat death. He descended to the dead and defeated death. Then he rose from the dead and became the cornerstone of our faith. He rose from the dead and became the gate of righteousness, through which we can enter and be with him forever. This is what victory looks like.

Let us meditate on the victory this Holy Week.

Don't Forget the New Time/Location

Just reminding everyone that this is the big launch Sunday! We will be meeting at His Dream Center (205 E Baltic St, Nags Head) at 11am, out in front of the building for the Liturgy of the Palms, and then we will process into the building to "All Glory, Laud, and Honor". Don't forget the new time and the new place. We will see you there!

The Precious Seed

There is a Hindu parable from the Upanishads, and it goes like this:

A father tells his son, “Bring me a fig.” The son gets one. The father then asks him to break it open and tell him what he sees inside. The son responds, “Some rather tiny seeds, father.” The father asks the son to break one of them open and tell him what he sees. The son responds, “Nothing at all, Father.” The conclusion: “From the inside of this tiny seed, which seems to be nothing at all, this whole fig tree grows. That is the Real.”

This is an example of Penentheism, or God inside everything. Many religions believe that God is in everything, that even cancer can be God if we look at it from a different point of view. What about the Bible? Does not Christ also say similar things? Indeed, many Hindus will take the following saying of Jesus and claim that Jesus was a Hindu. Luke 13: 18-19: “Jesus said, “What is the kingdom of God like? And to what should I compare it? It is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in the garden; it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.”

Sounds similar doesn't it? Why am I bringing this up? Because I want to point out a fundamental difference between two religions, because we are in the season of Lent, and because in order to turn away from the world and toward Christ this season, we have to be able to do things like take two similar ideas and really delve into them, discovering the difference. These things really effect our lives, and I'll show you how.

Is Christ saying the same thing as the Upanishads? Here's another “wise” Hindu quote: “Inside this seed is a tree as big as this one. Vishnu can squeeze a whole banyan tree into such a tiny seed.” Let's put our thinking caps on. Does God squeeze an entire tree into a seed? No. Let's look at Jesus' mustard seed quote again. The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in the garden. It grew and became a tree. THAT IS THE REAL. The tree is not inside the seed. God is not IN everything. God is the author of creation, separate from it. And he authored a process in which we plant a seed in the ground and it grows and BECOMES a tree.

Well, so what? You say to-may-to and I say to-mah-to. The genes, the DNA, for the tree are in the seed, so aren't you just splitting hairs? No, this is important stuff for our spiritual development, because if we believe that God is IN everything, we are going to have a different view of reality, and we will act differently, than if we believe that God is the author of a PROCESS in which a seed becomes a tree. If we think that the Kingdom of God is like a whole, complete tree inside a seed, then what are we going to do? We are going to continually search for God inside ourselves. We are going to try to unlock the God potential in everyone. We will eventually think that we ARE God. Who else thought that? Oh, yeah! Adam and Eve. We know what happened there.

And yet, that thinking is prevalent throughout the world. You are the master of your own destiny remember? Not God—YOU are the master. You find the God in you and unleash it. Now, we do believe that Holy Spirit is in our hearts, but the Holy Spirit is not us. He is an independent person of the Trinity, who communicates directly with our souls and helps guide us down the right paths in life. But he is not US. He is not our conscience. He is not our potential. He is not our human spirit—you know that thing that has to triumph in every feel-good movie. God is separate from us. He has a relationship with us, and he communicates with our souls, but he is God and we are us. We are not the same.

In our gospel reading tonight, we get another piece of this puzzle about God's relationship with us. This Lenten season, these deeper details are important. The verse is verse 24 of chapter 12 in the Gospel of John, and it reads, “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat FALLS into the earth and DIES, it remains just a single grain; but if it DIES it bears much fruit.”

Once again we have moved far away from the inaccurate concept that a tree is inside a seed. We once again return to the planting in the ground and growth details of the mustard seed parable. But now we have a very astonishing detail that the seed must DIE in order to bear fruit. In the context of the passage, Jesus is not only telling us that we must metaphorically DIE to this world in order to gain everlasting life—which is knowing God (here is our Lenten theme), but that he is actually going to die and in doing so, produce the greatest kind of fruit: drawing all people to himself. Everyone, Jew and Gentile, Slave and Free, Man and Woman. Everyone.

Jesus goes so far as to say that if this death does not happen, the seed remains alone—isolated. In other words, the other religions and the secular world that teach us to look inside ourselves for the answer end up isolating us, leaving us alone, without community, without the kingdom of God. Isolated.

Burial and death make a wondrous change in the seed. It is no longer alone. It grows and multiplies. More seeds fall to the earth—more death—and more life springs forth. More fruit. Our life in Christ comes from dying. Through God's grace, our worldly, old nature decays and dies, and the new nature comes out of that death. It is a life in Christ. It is a life that turns to scripture for answers. It is a life that prays before doing anything. It knows the truth. It abhors the false. It praises God in beauty and holiness.

Jesus Christ might have chosen to remain a seed. He was with the father already and had been with Him from the beginning. He would have been quite pleased to remain with the Father and the host of angels for the rest of time. But God would be alone. This was not true happiness. His very nature demanded that he abhor the solitary life, even as a trinity. He therefore fell to earth and died. This was fueled by joy. God will never be alone. He has drawn and is continuing to draw all people to him. The renewal and new life of all things in existence springs out of the fall of that one precious seed into the earth.

Stations of the Cross Next Friday

A week from today, Friday, March 30th, Good Shepherd will join together at Holy Redeemer Catholic Church for their Stations of the Cross and Soup Supper. Here is what Holy Redeemer has to offer: "During Lent we are all invited to discover the true purpose of our beautiful Stations of the Cross as an inspiration for prayer and contemplation on the journey of Jesus to his cross, death and resurrection. Each Friday during Lent (February 24 to March 30), our faith community will gather in Church at 6:30 pm to prayerfully remember Christ's journey to Calvary. Immediately following the Stations, we will share a light supper of soup and bread prepared each week by a different Parish group. This supper of the poor will put us in mind of our less fortunate brothers and sisters. An offering will be taken up to help feed those whose plates are empty." We will meet up at Holy Redeemer on the 30th. Call 207-4050 if you need directions.

Snakes on a Plain

Charlotte does this cute thing with her hands. She cups them together, comes to a member of the family, and says, “go ahead! Open it!” We uncup her hands and we get a surprise. They stared out as hugs and kisses, but then they became tickles, and then they became strange things like monsters, spiders, and now—snakes!

Very cute when it comes to a 2-year-old's play, but in the book of Numbers, the snakes that come into the camp are very dangerous—poisonous and deadly. I've said this before, but it bears repeating. The Old Testament is the living word of God, just like the New Testament, but God spoke through human authors—divinely inspired human authors—but human authors nonetheless. Man's interpretation of things that God does is based on how we treat each other. In other words, what God SEEMS to do and what God actually does are two different things.

A good example is God threatening to wipe out all of Israel and Moses pleading with him and getting God to change his mind. Arguing with God and convincing him to relent are things that we think are possible, because Moses did it! But knowing that God is good all the time—that he is patient and he is kind—theologians have worked on these seeming contradictions in scriptures for thousands of years and have concluded that God never intended to destroy Israel. The discourse between Moses in God was all about Moses being tested in his faith. This is what God does. Moses thinks he is arguing with God and changing God's mind when what is really happening is Moses is discovering how God thinks and arriving at God's mind through a well reasoned argument with himself.

Another great example is Pharaoh's heart being hardened. After the first plague, he is willing to let Moses' people go, but “God hardened his heart.” We think, “hey God! He was going to let everyone go, what, do you just want to torture Egypt some more, so you can show off?” What God was really doing was not hardening Pharaoh's heart, but releasing Pharaoh's heart to its natural tendency. He relaxed his grip on Pharaoh, and Pharaoh responded by being wicked. The only reason Pharaoh had enslaved Israel instead of just slaughtered Israel was that God wouldn't let him. From Moses' point of view, it seemed that God had hardened Pharaoh's heart, and so that is what he wrote.

The world is evil, not God, so when something Good happens, we can be assured that it was due to God's influence, and when something evil happens, it is because God allowed the world to do what it naturally does.

So Serpents! Israel complains and so God punishes them angrily but siccing serpents on them. That sounds mean and evil. BUT knowing God is good, we have to have faith that what happened was something different. Picture the devil and his minions poised outside the camp of Israel in the darkness with serpents, just itching to release them into the camp. God will not allow this. He is all powerful, and he physically keeps Satan from acting. Then Israel complains. They are impatient. They set themselves against God. They are essentially saying to God, “stop protecting us. We don't like you. You have not acted like a genie in a bottle, giving us all our wildest dreams, and therefore we reject you.” That is what impatience and complaining tells God: “we don't want you.” So, God obeys. He loves us to the point of obeying. He says, “you don't need me anymore, I see. On your command, I will relax my protection of you.” Suddenly, the devil realizes that God is no longer stopping him from releasing snakes into the camp, and so he does.

Once we get our minds around that, we can see how this passage in the bible relates to God and life and healing. Here's what we learn. First, we are impatient. We always want God to act immediately, and when he doesn't, we complain. Second, by complaining, we place ourselves against God. Third, when we place ourselves against God, he is unable to protect us from the poisons of this world, the cancers in life. When I say God is unable, of course, I mean that he allows our will to be sovereign. As C.S. Lewis writes, we either pray the Lord's prayer and say to God, “THY WILL BE DONE,” or we reject that notion, and God says to US, “THY WILL BE DONE,” and our wills are not pretty. Our will is that snakes be allowed in the camp. Our will is death and destruction. God's will is everlasting life.

So, sickness and death come through those three things. Remember the three things: we're impatient, we place ourselves against God, God allows our will to reign, and our will is poison. We lose health, as a society, as individuals, and we die.

But then what happens in the Numbers narrative? Israel confesses its sin, and as a result of the confession, God provides a way of salvation, in this case, a serpent symbol on a staff. This is true for us today, too. If we confess our sin, we find that God has provided us a way of salvation, something which we can all look upon, turn to, have faith IN, and live. What is that way of salvation for us?

Jesus tells us himself in our Gospel reading. It is himself. Throughout the Gospel of John, Jesus compares himself to things in the Old Testament and reveals each time that he is that way of salvation. In John 3, he tells Nicodemus that he is the serpent on the staff. Furthermore, Jesus is not just the symbol of life, he IS life. This is the passage where we get John 3:16, probably the most famous verse in all the bible. We all know it by heart:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” We all know it by heart, but how many of us think about the serpent on the staff when we say it? Nobody. Yet, that is the context for this verse. We should have a picture in mind of what God did for Israel in Numbers when we think on this verse. How many of us even think of the book of Numbers? How many of us have forgotten that Numbers is even a book in the Bible?

In context, John 3:16 is expounding on this passage in numbers. As the verses go on, we read that God did not send Jesus into the world to CONDEMN it but to SAVE it. In other words, Jesus is not a poisonous serpent bringing death, but God's bronze serpent on the staff, bringing salvation and life. Our wills bring the poisonous serpents into the camp but God's will brings the bronze serpent. God lifts up Jesus onto the cross, so that the world can see him and live, just as Moses lifted up that bronze serpent on the staff.

It's not just looking at the son or the bronze serpent. It believing in the son or the serpent. It's having faith that the serpent is going to work. It's having faith that the son is going to save. It's not magic. God is not a genie. It's not a computer program. If I look at the serpent then I will have life, and so I can go right back to complaining and being impatient with God. No, repenting of the sin and accepting wholeheartedly the lifted up son is essentially the turning away from the world and turning toward God that we have been practicing this Lent. It is the path to true healing and everlasting life.

Belief includes repentance. There can be no true belief without it. Without repentance we are not willing to look on the bronze serpent. Repentance allows us to humble ourselves enough to gaze upon the symbol. Without repentance we still have the poison in our veins, we are still on the wrong path, turned away from God's provision, moving toward darkness, away from the lifted up serpent, the lifted up son.

You may have heard that the Old Testament is Christ predicted and the Gospels are Christ revealed. Well, the New Testament letters are Christ explained, and no one was better at explaining Christ than the apostle Paul. Our reading from Ephesians explains it all. Think of the bronze serpent as I read this. Think of Jesus telling us that he IS the bronze serpent. Think of Jesus being lifted up on the cross as I read and embellish this:

“You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world,” being impatient and complaining, “following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient,” also known as the devil, who through our will is allowed to release snakes into our camp. “All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses,” and we had the serpents' poison coursing through our veins, killing us, “made us alive together in Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him,” like the bronze serpent, like the man on the cross, “and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us.” For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Paul just said in seven verses what it has taken me twenty minutes to preach. As we come forward for blessing and healing today, let us think about the bronze serpent, the cross, and the object of salvation and healing for the whole world: Jesus Christ.