Settling Our Eternal Conflict

Children of Light

Settling Our Eternal Conflict
Studies in the Gospel of John 8:51-59, #18

(58) Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am." (59) So they took up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The Soul that rises with us, our life’ Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home
(Stanza IV, “Ode on Intimations of Mortality” by William Wordsworth)

Each of us, who live in this world, having accepted Christ as Savior and Lord, must appropriate Christ, receive his Word. His life must become our lives, His essence and faith and disposition must become a part of us, if we are to resolve the internal conflicts of our human nature. These conflicts are brought on by life according to our sensory perceptions--what we see, what we think, what we feel, what we hear, what we allegedly know and what we fear. The Word of Christ, on the other hand, must be received spiritually. It only becomes a part of us through the working of the Holy Spirit in us, as we accept this work in faith. Do you thirst to know God – do you know God personally and in the power and depth of his love for you?

Jesus challenged the people of Israel to accept his word as the revelation of God. Christ’s claims challenged the very foundation of their belief and understanding of God. What are these claims?

First, Jesus Christ claims unique knowledge of God. Jesus claims that the only way to full knowledge of the mind and heart of God is through himself, the Christ of God. The only way to know God is through Christ.

Jesus Christ also claims unique obedience to God the Father. He thinks, lives and acts in the knowledge of his Father's Word. To look at his life is to "see how God wishes me to live." In Christ alone we see what God wants us to know and what God wants us to be.

When the Jews asked Jesus “Who do you claim to be? He answered, “Before Abraham was, I am.” This is the timeless God whom Moses encountered on Mt Sinai in the burning bush.

Christ is timeless, and this timelessness is his because of his union with the person of God.

How do we resolve our internal conflicts? We come to know “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews 13:8).” Jesus was a man who came, lived, died, and then rose again. But he was more. He is the beginning and the end. He is the eternal logos, the essence of divinity, the spiritual prince ordained to rule over God’s sons and daughters. He is the immortal timeless One, the Christ of God, who joined in Creation, who appeared and blessed Abraham as Melchizedek, who guided Israel as the pillar of fire by night and cloud by day, who joined Shadrach, Meshack and Abednego in the fiery furnace, who always was and always will be.

In Jesus Christ is the spiritual and physical manifestation of the eternal invisible, immortal God. His death and rising make it possible for us to share in his eternal life. Do you live in the hope and joy of the resurrection?

Through faith Christ enables us to regain our unique knowledge of God, lost in the fall of humanity. Through Christ we are once again able to live in unique obedience to the command of God to love, for God is one, one soul, one heart, one Love. Through Christ we enter into God’s timelessness. There is no past for us, no present, no future. There is only eternity.

As finite we can only understand life as beginning and ending. But in Christ, life is always, it is eternal, it is everlasting, and so are we. These bodies that house our souls are temporary, but they house the eternal.

Through Christ and Christ alone, our internal conflict will be finally resolved—for we having been reclaimed as children of God, sons and daughters of light, will like Jesus, fully embrace the Christ of God, as we are fully embraced by the same. Through him, conflict ends, for love convinces us of our onenesss with each other, and the unity of ourselves as body, mind and spirit. 

Amen.

The Great Transfer: Forgiveness of Sins

Studies in the Gospel of John #17
"The Great Transfer: Forgiveness of Sins"

The flight landed at Cleveland, OH airport. An announcement was made, “All through passengers to Newark International please remain seated.” The flight attendant then went on to list the different gates for destinations other than Newark International. The flight crew left the plane with passengers still sitting there and a new crew came on which we all assumed was flying us to Newark.

After other passengers had boarded the plane, the safety measures were given and we took off. It was only after we had been flying for 30 minutes that the new flight attendant announced: “The skies are clear and we should arrive at the Harrisburg airport in 20 minutes.” Passengers began to look around at each other. The 120 passengers who had gotten on at Cleveland took no notice. That’s because they had gotten on with the express purpose of flying to Harrisburg, PA.

Our worst fears were confirmed during the landing, as we saw the lights blinking on the four cooling towers, which surrounded nuclear reactors TM1 and TM2, on the tract known as three-mile Island. This was ominous for two reasons. In the previous year, 1980 the worst radioactive meltdown in America's history had occurred, and no one knew the extent of the nuclear contamination in the 10-mile area around it, which included the Harrisburg airport. So we were flying into danger because the airport was only two miles from the shut down reactors.

Secondly, of course, it meant that we were in Harrisburg and not Newark. Most passengers took the money offered and the promise of getting to Newark the next day. But since six of us had to be in Newark that evening, the Allegheny Airlines paid ground transport fees of $350.00 to be driven to Newark International. We should have been instructed to transfer planes in Cleveland, but the flight attendant had made a mistake that sent all 95 Newark bound passengers to Harrisburg.

Without making the proper transfer, we ended up in the wrong destination, and a dangerous one at that. We thought we were going to the right place as we took off. Only upon landing was it confirmed that we were not only going to the wrong destination, but a dangerous one.

The Psalmist gives praise to God who is known to Israel as REFUGE, STRENGTH and HELP in time of trouble. A woman had been presented to Jesus. She had been taken in the very act of adultery. In accordance with what Moses taught in Deuteronomy 22:22, she should be put to death by stoning. Ezekiel 16:40 implies that this unfaithfulness to one’s husband required” “They were to be stoned and hacked to pieces with swords.” 

Aren’t we glad God sent Jesus?

The scribes and Pharisees probably thought, “We’ve got him now. If Jesus said, “Stone her,” he would be stepping outside the character of the divine love that made him the Christ of God—the Word made flesh. The Word made flesh means as the writer of Hebrews wrote in chapter 4:15, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way as we are—yet he did not sin.”

The eternal Christ was made perfect through what he suffered. What did he suffer? He suffered living in this world, controlled by the power of the Prince of Darkness, as a human being. The plan of deliverance for us, of salvation for the human race, was not possible until divinity could take on the pain of humanity, and thereby restore us from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of love and light. Jesus could not be made complete without the incarnation.

He could not have accomplished God's great work of salvation had he not become human. He had to have a mother, a father, brothers and sisters who ridiculed him and did not believe in him, neighbors who watched him grow up and could not possibly see him as anyone and anything other that the eldest son of Joseph and Mary--"the Carpenter's son."

He needed to be tempted to abandon God, as we are, for the sensory delights that so easily draw us away from our full spiritual relationship with a loving God. And he had to experience separation from God, as the Christ, in order to take on the humanity necessary to accept and forgive our sin. Sin is indeed, separation from God. That is all that it is, no more, no less. Through Christ we enter into that relationship and resume our place as Children of God and heirs of light, love and life.

If Jesus had said, “Do not punish her,” he would have become for Israel morally irrelevant, relaxing the ethical demands of the Law of Moses. Yet Jesus said he had not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it. By fulfilling it, Jesus indeed made the law irrelevant, because its many restrictions and taboos would no longer be binding.

It would no longer be used as God’s yardstick to measure who was out and who was in. Indeed the dictum from the Psalmist and the Prophet Isaiah would become reality through the Christ, “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” And Jesus demonstrated that truth in what he did next.

We do not know what Jesus wrote on the ground as he stooped down, but I would venture he wrote something like this, “Piddly didly—self-righteous buffoons, majoring in the minors as usual. Missing God’s grace totally: condemning rather than comforting, rejecting rather than rescuing. Nevertheless they continued to ask him: “Well, what do you say Jesus?”

Raising himself up he said to them, “The sinless one among you should cast the first stone.” Only if you are perfect should you be throwing stones, criticizing others, gossiping about other people’s actions, judging the behavior, the motives, and the lifestyle of others.

And if you do believe you are perfect, you have sinned because you are calling God a liar. And if you are not perfect, then why on earth are you focused on someone else, why on earth are you minding someone else’s business, why on earth are you running point on someone else’s faults?

Jesus asked in his great sermon on the mount, “Why are you so skillful at finding the small splinter of wood in your sister’s/brother’s eye, and cannot see the large wooden beam going through the center of your own head?

All of us need to transfer flights if we would reach God’s final destination for us. Some of us will need to transfer many times, but be assured, for every man and woman born to this condition called life, there are no straight non-stop flights.

Life is like a mountain railroad, with an engineer
that’s brave; you must make the run successful, from
the cradle to the grave. Watch the curves, the fills,
the tunnels, never falter, never fail; Keep your hand
upon the throttle, and your eye upon the rail.

Blessed savior, thou will guide us, till we reach that
blissful shore, where the angels wait to join us, in thy
praise forever more.

Where are those who condemn us? Nowhere Lord. Who are those who have the right to criticize others? No one Lord. Who are those who have not tried and failed because of the human condition? Only Christ, the incarnation of God. Christ encouraged her to leave her life of sin. While we have been set free from sin and free from the Law through Christ, Jesus was saying to her and to us: 

Yes, it is true that I came to forgive, to transfer
You to the road of life, to take your sin on myself
So that you might through faith, inherit God’s
righteousness—forgiveness—holiness, but “DON’T
BREAK MY BACK.”

And God continues to make that offer to us. Not that we will stop sinning, but that we through faith may find strength to face what is too frightening, that in the midst of life’s challenges and tragedies we may yet find a Savior—a deliverer, one who will rescue us from the circumstances of life, the dysfunctions of our personality formation, the pains and scar and wounds of others.

YES, that we may find the savior, who in the midst of life’s crises will transfer us from the flight of doom to the pathway of life—through the forgiveness of sins, which is our only claim to fame, and our only source of victory. 

God has indeed rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Through faith the realization of this new life emerges in us and among us. Amen.

Weathering Great Controversy

“Weathering Great Controversy” 
Studies in the Gospel of John, #16

John 7:27-29; 37-39

(27) But we know where this man is from. Yet when the real Christ comes, no one will know where he comes from.” 

(28) Jesus, teaching in the Temple, cried out, “Yes, you know me, and you know where I am from. But I have not come by my own authority. I was sent by the One who is true, whom you don’t know. (29) But I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me.”

(37) On the last and most important day of the feast Jesus stood up and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. (38) If anyone believes in me, rivers of living water will flow out from that person’s heart, as the Scripture says.” (39) Jesus was talking about the Holy Spirit. The Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not yet been raised to glory. But later, those who believed in Jesus would receive the Spirit.

Judges 7:1ff

(7) Then Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon) and all the troops that were with him rose early and encamped beside the spring of Harod (fear-Phobus); and the camp of Midian was north of them, below the hill of Moreh, in the valley. 

(2)  The Lord said to Gideon, “The troops with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand. Israel would only take the credit away from me, saying, ‘My own hand has delivered me.’ (3) Now therefore proclaim this in the hearing of the troops, ‘Whoever is fearful and trembling, let him return home.’” Thus Gideon sifted them out; twenty-two thousand returned, and ten thousand remained.
(4) Then the Lord said to Gideon, “The troops are still too many; take them down to the water and I will sift them out for you there. When I say, ‘This one shall go with you,’ he shall go with you; and when I say, ‘This one shall not go with you,’ he shall not go.” (5) So he brought the troops down to the water; and the Lord said to Gideon, “All those who lap the water with their tongues, as a dog laps, you shall put to one side; all those who kneel down to drink, putting their hands to their mouths, you shall put to the other side.” (6) The number of those that lapped was three hundred; but all the rest of the troops knelt down to drink water. (7) Then the Lord said to Gideon, “With the three hundred that lapped I will deliver you, and give the Midianites into your hand. Let all the others go to their homes.” (8) So he took the jars of the troops from their hands, and their trumpets; and he sent all the rest of Israel back to their own tents, but retained the three hundred. The camp of Midian was below him in the valley.

(9) That same night the Lord said to him, “Get up, attack the camp; for I have given it into your hand. 

Jesus found himself to be the center of controversy. It appeared that the Jesus movement was falling apart. After he preached, “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you,” many and perhaps most of his disciples left him. He decided to stay in Galilee because of death threats against him in Judea. Even his own brothers did not believe in him. This is the first challenge to discipleship. If you get serious with Jesus, you will lose some friends. If you get serious with Jesus, there will be some family members, and even some church members who may be less excited to be in your company. When you get serious with Jesus you become strange and different to most people, because like Jesus brothers, most people’s loyalty is not to God and God’s will but to the world. So when you start living by God’s will, ordering your behavior, your thoughts, your opinions, your decisions by the Word of God, by the leading of God in your life, you will find that family is not so much like family any more, friends are not so much like friends anymore, and the clique and the crowd and the folks who live by “what other people think” will have less and less to do with you.

Even in the church, even among Jesus’ so-called brothers, the family of God, we find that people miss God’s motives. His brothers assumed he wanted to be in the limelight. You need to go to Judea they told him, perform some more miracles if you want to gain a following.

If we are here today because we want to be in the limelight, if we are here because we want our gifts and skills and talents to be recognized, if we are here because we are convinced that the world and the church cannot do without us, then we have the wrong motives, are going in the wrong direction, and may be following one or several idol gods.

This is what the Lord of heaven and earth spoke through Jesus concerning the spiritual mindset:

“If anyone would come after me, he or she must deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me. Whoever seeks to save her or his life shall lose it, but he who surrenders his life for the kingdom of God will find it. For what does it profit a man if he gain the whole world, but lose himself (Luke 9:23ff)?”

We don’t want to end up like Jesus’ brothers. They had heard the word. They had been with Jesus for most of their lives, but they had not received the Christ. They had not taken him in by faith. Jesus said to them, “I’m not going right now. It is not my time. It is not yet time for me to do what God wants me to do, give my life in exchange for your life, so that you, through faith, might inherit the righteousness of God as the child of God. You can do whatever you want and go whenever you want because you have yet to surrender your life to God."

Jesus was guided by God. They were guided by their own self-interests, or the crowd, or what people think is acceptable, or the need to be in the limelight with their brother Jesus. The problem with their time is precisely that it was theirs and not God’s.

As disciples of Christ, we live in accordance with God’s time.

This sermon is very critical for our discipleship, our walk with Christ, because in this chapter Jesus addresses the issues of faith and fear, thinking, seeing, hearing, and feeling verses believing.

To believe on him is to accept his Word, for indeed Christ is the Word made flesh. So the good news, the message of Jesus, the witness of Jesus, the death and resurrection of Jesus, and our believing, our eating this flesh and drinking this blood, is what rescues us from the great storms of life and from the world and our commitment to the world as a storm against our very souls.

We do not get God’s will by thinking, by feeling, by seeing, by following the lead of others. When God called Adam and Eve in the garden they were naked. They did not need anything—they did not need things, because they had God. And if you have God you never need anything.

If you go after things you will go further and further away from God.

If you let your intellect, your thinking be the final authority in your faith you will go further and further away from God.

If you let your experience, your feelings, dictate your faith you will miss God’s will entirely.

Through faith we receive God’s direction in our lives the same way Jesus did, through God’s revelation. God reveals himself to us. No man can come to me unless it is given to him by my Father. For those who believe, all that we receive from God, our guidance, the direction of our prayers, our decisions over the most minute as well as the most profound matters, comes from God.

Gideon had 32,000 men as he led Israel against the great Midianite army. His troops were camped at the spring of Harod. This is a transliteration of the Hebrew, which in Greek means “phobius” or fear. They were afraid. It was not just the number that was the problem, but that they, in spite of having more than enough troops, were still afraid. So what does God do? God tells them that in spite of the storm, the conflict they face, in spite of the fact that they are already afraid, their biggest problem is that they have too many troops.

So God said to Gideon, take a poll. If anyone is afraid, send them home. At that juncture 22,000 left the camp and returned home.

When we stop depending on the physical things, the money, our intellect, our abilities, our good looks, our persuasive speech, and depend totally on God, not only is our faith increased, but our power is increased.

We are no longer depending on our power but on God’s power. Ten thousand troops remained out of the 32,000. God came to Gideon again, “This is still too many. If they win this battle with 10,000 men, they will say that the victory came from themselves and not from God, so take them to the water. Everyone who is well cultured and cups their hands to drink from the spring of fear put them to one side. Then all those who bend down and lap the water with their tongues like dogs put to the other.

Then God commanded, send those who were so cultured and polished in their behavior home. They are too smart, too cultured, too skilled, to be a part of this victory. Keep the 300 bumpkins who lapped water like a dog.”

Verse 9 of Judges 7 tells us: 9 “That same night the Lord said to him, “Get up, and attack the camp; for I have given it into your hand.”

Faith is the only appropriate response the Christ. There is no failure in God. There is failure in fear. Fear will have you depend on how much money you have to deal with the crisis.

Fear will have you depend on how much credit you have.

Fear will have you not even going for job interviews because the devil and perhaps friends and family have convinced you that you don’t have what it takes. And if you do go, not trusting God but living in your fear, you will say with your body language, I’m not good enough to buy this house. I’m not good enough to make a proposal of marriage. I’m not good enough to work at this company. I’m not good enough to try out for this competition. I’m not good enough to apply for this program.

Fear rules when we depend on our own resources and forget that because of our faith in the Christ of God in our lives, we can do all things, because he, and not we, not they, not them strengthens us.

Jesus goes to the Feast of Tabernacles on his own terms, not with his brothers and reveals himself on the last day of the feast. “I am the living water. I am the light of the world. I AM.” The Feast of Tabernacles is a weeklong feast held in September or early October. It is a Thanksgiving feast for Israel. This feast was given to remind them of the need to totally depend on God.

Another feature of the feast was a series of water libations offered each morning, commemorating the provision of water in the wilderness. Jesus gave a new revelation at this feast:

“Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. 38 If anyone believes in me, rivers of living water will flow out from that person’s heart, as the Scripture says.” 39 Jesus was talking about the Holy Spirit.

Similarly, during the feast lamp-lighting ceremonies took place in the temple each day, commemorating God’s pillar of fire which guided them during their wilderness wanderings. Jesus’ gave the new revelation, “I am the light of the world.”

This is the victory that overcomes our fear.

This is the victory that overcomes our dependence on the opinions and acceptance of others.

This is the victory that even overcomes our own doubts.

This is the victory that overcomes the storm.

This is the victory over the turmoil.

This is the victory over the conflict.

This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith.

Amen.

Desertion in the Ranks?

Studies in the Gospel of John #15
John 6:43-71

2 Timothy 4:9-11

“Do your best to come to me quickly, for Demas has forsaken me for love of this present world, he has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica, Crescens has gone to Galatia and Titus to Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you because he is helpful to me in my ministry.”

We don’t get spiritual stuff using our senses. The Bible teaches us that our minds, forever tainted by the Tree of Knowledge, which are filters for what we see, what we think, what we feel, what we hear, what we dream, what we imagine, can and will betray us.

Unaided by the Spirit of God and the mediating revelation of the Spirit known as the Word of God, we are incapable of recognizing and discerning God’s truth. That is why we cannot be moved by what we see, what we think, what we hear, what we smell, what we fear.

If we are to enjoy our inheritance, to live to the praise of his glory, we must be ever guided by the word of truth, the gospel of our salvation. Paul writes to the Ephesian church that it is this and this alone which enables us to be sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise.

Jesus was now in full throttle. He was laying it out on the line for all who would hear. Those who believe in me, who connect with me, have eternal life. He did not say that we would have eternal life. He said if we connect with him in faith, we have eternal life. I am the bread of life--The Living Bread--The bread that does not mold--The bread that does not get stale--The bread that never ends. Jesus flesh and blood--Jesus’ spiritual life.

We cannot have life unless we eat his flesh and drink his blood. The flesh, the bread he offers us is his very life for our life. His suffering and pain to remove our suffering and pain. His desecration on the cross to free us from the sting of death to live an eternal life, whose quality is everlasting. No decay. Only growth. No limits, only possibilities.

His blood is that which cleanses us from sin and guilt, from fear and failure. It is a sign of a new relationship between God and us. So we must eat his flesh, drink his blood; we must appropriate the saving merit of His blood. John Wesley taught and believed that the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is a spiritual reminder, of our taking of Christ into our lives.

Jesus continued to explain to them and to us the importance of feeding on the Christ of God.  (56) Whoever feeds on me shall live because of me. Whoever feeds on me lives in me and I live in her and him (58) Whoever feeds on me shall live forever.

But many missed it. Many tried to understand Jesus words using their natural senses. Many were not in tune, not open, not willing, not ready. The focus on things, on power, on people we perceive to be more important than ourselves--the idolatry of this world, and the things in this world, prevent us from getting the spiritual meaning.

“Demas has abandoned me for love of this present world. Only Luke is with me. Get Mark—because he his helpful to me in my ministry. Those who love the world will desert the ranks sooner or later. They may still appear to walk with Jesus. They may sit in the pews of churches.

In Matthew 15:7-9, Jesus quoted the prophecy of Isaiah 29:13, concerning those who would have a temporary and/or counterfeit response to the Christ:

“Ye hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy of you
saying, ‘This people draweth nigh to me with their
mouth, and honoreth me with their lips; but their heart
is far from me. In vain do they worship me,
teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.’”

Will there continue to be desertion in the ranks? Yes there will. As long as we embrace idols, both in the world and in the church, we will desert our first love, we will miss and ignore the Spirit’s pleading. We will end up forever taking notes, instead of taking note of the savior’s claim and place in our lives.

Living in accordance with dictates and ideas of human beings, of those who think they are power brokers both in the church and in the world, keep us ever separated from the life that is in Christ and Christ alone. Avoid and ignore the clique leaders, the bullies, those who intimidate and threaten for your loyalty both in the church and in the world. They can only bring a sword where there should be peace. They can only produce death where there should be life.

There need be no desertion in the ranks. We just need to know where our food, our nourishment, our life, our living, our joy, our security is to be—on Christ and Christ alone.
(66) And many of his disciples turned back and walked no longer with him. (67) So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” (68) Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, (69) and we have believed, and come to know, that you are the Christ of God.”

Paul wrote to Timothy (2 Tim 1:12) “But I am not ashamed for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that He is able to guard against that day, all that I have entrusted to him.”

On Christ the solid rock we stand. All other ground. All other ground. All other ground is sinking sand.

How to Do the Impossible

Studies in the Gospel of John #14
John 6:16-24; John 6:25-35

John 6:21 They were willing to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the shore where they were heading.
John 6: 29 Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one God has sent.” 34. “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.” 35 Then Jesus declared

, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never grow hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.’

How to Do the Impossible? How to overcome against all the odds? Most of us are familiar with the stories regarding Jesus’ walking on water. I want to suggest that while his walking on the water is indeed miraculous, in that it shows God’s ability to transcend the limitations placed on our human existence, that the real miracle is often missed.

Yes. Walking on the water is a miracle, but there is a more important miracle that takes place here, and it leads us to a more important truth. The disciples were rowing to the other side of the large lake known as “The Sea of Galilee” because of its depth and turbulence. All of the gospel writers tell this story, and Mark informs us that Jesus began to walk across the lake when he was that the disciples boat was in trouble. They had been rowing hard, but making no progress, because a strong gale wind had risen up, halting their movement toward the shore.

When Jesus walked up on them they cried out in fear. Matthew and Mark tell us the source of their terror. They thought he was an evil spirit. The people of Jesus’ time believed that the water was a domain of evil creatures, spirits, dragons and monsters. Because of its depth, there indeed may have been large marine creatures in that lake. Nevertheless, these beliefs were fear-based and mitigated against faith. But it was also believed that squalls and gales were products of demonic activity. So as the wind whipped up, they suddenly saw Jesus walking across the water and cried out in fear. They were afraid because even though it was Jesus coming toward them, they were blinded by fear. Jesus then spoke words of comfort to them, “It is I. Don’t be afraid.” John reports that with these words, “THEY WERE WILLING TO TAKE HIM INTO THE BOAT.”

This is the first miracle that occurs in the story. It is the miracle of FAITH OVER FEAR. The active engagement of our minds, our spirits, with God’s word brings the PEACE that FAITH gives to our souls. God’s Word, God’s speech through Jesus, dispelled their enslavement to fear-inducing myths and stories. With his WORDS, “BE NOT AFRAID. IT IS I,” they were given miraculous courage which followed an act of will. This was the second miracle that occurred on that Lake. Their WILLS CHANGED. They went from crying out in fear at his presence, to a WILLINGNESS TO TAKE JESUS INTO THE BOAT.

John does not tell us that Jesus ever had a chance to get into the boat, because AS SOON AS THEY WERE WILLING TO LET GO OF THEIR FEAR AND INVITE JESUS INTO THE BOAT, the BOAT REACHED THE SHORE WHERE THEY WERE HEADING.

Jesus may not have full access to your boat yet. There may be, and are, many areas of our lives where we have yet to surrender to the LORDSHIP OF JESUS CHRIST. God calls us to live lives of complete devotion and surrender, “Be perfect as God is in heaven.” “Seek to live and bring peace to all human beings, and holiness, without which no human being will experience God" (Hebrews 12:14).

When Jesus said, “Straight is the way and narrow is the gate that leads to life,” he was addressing the Jews, and reminding them that the abundant life, the victorious life, the life of blessing that every Hebrew was promised through Abraham, would not be experienced unless God’s presence was fully alive in their lives. THis required that they embrace "the spirit of the law" rather than just "the letter of the law" which is "the unconditional love of one's neighbor." He was reminding them and us, that the promise of God’s Spirit being poured out on all human beings was at hand, “When no one need say Know the Lord, for all shall know Him.”

Jesus also predicted that the “broad road” to a miserable life, devoid of peace, devoid of the security that comes—not from food, not from having things, not from avoiding difficulties, not from having a trouble-free existence, not from having perfect health—but from failing to put our whole trust in God through Jesus Christ, was already crowded. It is crowded by our fear and unwillingness to invite the Christ into our troubled boat on the restless, turbulent, trouble-filled and dangerous waves of life. This is not what God wants for us, and should not be the fate of those who have connected with Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

The disciples were unaware that Jesus was watching them. They did not realize that he only began to walk across the lake when he was that they were stuck, rowing feverishly and furiously, and yet making no headway.

The Apostle Paul wrote to in his letter to the Philippian Church regarding overcoming turmoil, trouble and adversity:

“Not that I am preferring to being in need; for I have learned to be content with whatever I have. (12) I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances, I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, or having plenty and being in need. (13) I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. (14) In any case, it was kind of you to share my distress (Philippians 4:11-14).

We often quote verse 13 without considering the full context of Paul’s statement. He is thanking the members of the Philippian church for a financial offering they have sent as salary for his labor as a preacher of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But Paul gives a spiritual interpretation to both his needs, their supply of his needs, and what it is that really satisfies our total hunger as human beings.

The Bible does not promise the simplistic prosperity that so many preach of and flock to hear preached in today’s world. The Bible promises total prosperity—holistic spiritual--a mature faith-filled disposition in relation to all needs—body, mind and spirit—to those who walk in Christ, who live the victorious life in Christ, to those who can say as the apostle said in chapter 1:27-28, “Only live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ . . . standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel . . . not intimidated by opponents.” Then he goes on in verse 29, “for he has graciously granted you the privilege not only of believing in Christ, but of suffering for him as well--.

The disciples overcame their fear by taking Jesus into the boat. It is one thing to have faith in Christ for the salvation of our souls in the life to come. But if we would grow in faith, if we would grow in confidence, if we are to experience the total prosperity of God, body, mind and spirit, then we must take on the character of Christ. When we are willing to invite Jesus into our boat, to connect with Jesus regarding every aspect of our lives, the good and the bad, celebrations and disappointments--then we become Christ-like and have a mature disposition regarding joy and pain, suffering and celebration, success and failure, poverty and wealth.

It is then that we benefit from the blessings of our salvation, the gifts of the spirit, and we proclaim boldly, "I have learned to be content, to be at peace, to exercise complete trust in, reliance on, dependence on and courageous boldness with God in whatever state I find myself." It is then that we will discover the blessing of the complete security of living in the perfect will of God.

They learned to overcome their fear of the impossible. They learned to do the impossible, by taking Jesus into the boat. Spiritual prosperity means, I can be in need, I can be physically hungry, and yet I can do this through God who gives me strength through Jesus Christ my Lord.

I can be lonely. I can be sick. I can be unemployed. I can be impoverished. In whatever state I am in, I have learned to trust God. I have learned to rejoice when I suffer criticism and slander. I have learned to count it all joy when others have counted me out, because I have not just watched Jesus walk on water. I have not just been fed by him. I have not just been healed by him. I have taken him into my boat. I no longer seek him because I believe he will satisfy my physical needs, but am learning to live in communion with him, to live a life connected to him, which brings love, joy, peace and satisfaction, beyond anything I can imagine.

God has a perfect plan for our lives, total complete holistic prosperity. As those who embrace Christ as Savior and Lord, we have no business living in the broad way of destruction--misery, uncertainty, envy, anger, fear, hopelessness and nihilism.

God has enabled us, even when everything is crumbling around us, to live in the narrow way of life, the blessed condition of living beyond the challenges, the threats, the maladies, the darts, the onslaughts of Satan to body mind and spirit. God is not finished with us, but in Christ and through Christ, we are off to a good start. We still have the opportunity to abandon fear, and in faith to willingly invite Jesus into our boat. He will still the waves, and then WE CAN ROW OURSELVES peacefully to the golden shore that leads to life. Through faith, let it be so with both me and with you.

More than Enough - Make it Count

Studies in the Gospel of John #13

John 6:5-13
When Jesus looked up and saw the great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” Philip answered him, “Eight months’ wages would not buy enough for each one to have a bite!” Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?”

Each of us who knows Christ in the pardon of our sins, who has come to understand that our righteousness comes from his life, death and resurrection, and not our own goodness, has what the church calls a “testimony.” We have a story to tell about our encounter with Jesus Christ from our own angle of vision. None of our stories are the same. Each of us is unique and different. Even “the very hairs of our head are numbered by God”—even the ones we no longer find on our head. As we come to this next miraculous event in the life of Jesus, it is important to remember that all of the Gospels are a testimony. 

Mark, Matthew, Luke and John are testimonies of early Christian communities gathered around the preaching of these great evangelists. The Council of Nicea, which developed the early Christian doctrine of the “Trinity,” did so to combat the teaching of “adoptionism.” The adoptionists taught that Jesus Christ did not come into the world as the Christ of God, but that he became the Christ of God through his experiences, through his faithful obedience, through his suffering and death, and/or through his resurrection. 

The reason that Nicea condemned this as a heresy, is that if Jesus, or anyone else can be born human and through obedience become the Christ of God, then sin does not restrict human nature, and righteousness and holiness, the total fulfillment of the law and will of God, can be accomplished solely by human effort. 

Most scholars agree that the Gospel of John presented the strongest arguments against adoptionism in presenting their arguments. Yet I believe that even the Gospel of John does present a form of gradualism. Jesus comes into the world as the pre-existent Christ, but as the author of Hebrews pointed out, he did become the savior of the world by appreciating and developing his own humanity in the context of other human beings. 

John begins his first chapter, the Word; the Christ became flesh and dwelt among us. The pre-existent Christ of God came to us in human form, in order to accomplish God’s total, full and free salvation in the human plane.

Jesus first encounter was his Baptism. The Spirit of God coming down in power, the voice of God’s declaration, were not his becoming Christ, but Christ taking on full obedience as a human being. Later when the Pharisees began to gossip in an attempt to create a rivalry between Jesus and John (He makes more disciples than John does, his disciples baptize more people than John’s disciples), Jesus decided to leave Judea and return to his home in Capernaum of Galilee. 

Jesus respected the authority of John’s ministry. AS disciples of Jesus we must always respect the authority of the humanity of those who travel the Gospel road with us. We need to see Christ in each other. We need to recognize and honor the gifts and contributions of one of the other. We must follow the example of perfect humanity that Jesus set and learn not to interfere in someone else’s vineyard, ministry, field of endeavor. So Jesus demonstrated the process of his own developing “incarnation,” because he traveled eighty miles north, so has not to violate the boundaries of John the Baptist, whose ministry of calling Israel to repentance was necessary and important to Jesus’ own ministry, yet very different and unique. 

Jesus only got as far as Cana. There his mother had summoned him to come to a wedding and bring his posse with him. This first miraculous act attributed to Jesus occurred because Jesus had developed a special feature of his humanity, his human personality. Jesus had learned to honor and obey his mother. This speaks to our own experience. “Momma” is central in Black American African culture. Momma is to be respected and adhered to, even when we may not agree that what she wants us to work on or consider has anything to do with our mission, our goals. So when Jesus’ mother told the servants at the wedding feast, “Do whatever he tells you to do,” this was a way in which Jesus continued his “incarnation.”

After the wedding Jesus went home to Capernaum of Galilee, but he wasn’t there long. He was once again summoned to Cana, where there at the pool of Bethesda, he found a man who had been lying on his back for 38 years, a victim of a victim story and a victim mentality. When the man expressed that he wanted to be healed, Jesus told him, “Then get up, take your pallet and go home.” Jesus identified with the humanity of those who suffered—yes, who had even made a culture out of their suffering, out of their perceived inabilities. In this, he demonstrated his “incarnation.” He did not heal, but encouraged the man to accept the healing that he already saw God do for the man, perhaps even 38 years earlier.

John tells us that Jesus was trying to get away from the crowd. They had followed him from Cana to the sea near his hometown of Capernaum—drawn by the miraculous signs. Jesus and his disciples went up on a mountainside and sat down. They were seeking rest. But it was not to be. Jesus looked -- a great crowd was coming toward him.

Now many of us think that since we are retired, life should be easier, but the truth is that since God has blessed us with much more energy at age 65 and 75 and 85 and even 90 than our parents had at the same ages, folks tend to expect more of us. “I know they must be home, because they are retired. Let me ring them up.” The truth is, we don’t retire from life, from our obligations and witness and testimony and ministry as disciples of Jesus Christ, until God says its time to retire. 

While Jesus and his disciples had gone up into the mountain to get away from the people, he found himself in a position on that mountain to see the people coming far off in the distance. Isn’t God wonderful? Doesn’t God have a great sense of humor? He was saying to Jesus by placing him at this vantage point, “You rest when I say its time to rest.” Jesus was learning another lesson of the incarnation. He had to respond to basic human needs. 

What do you think Jesus/ first thoughts were? —“Wow, guess we won’t get any rest now,” or “Really, what do they want now?” No. Jesus first thought was “How will we provide food for them? The people of the multitude weren’t even hungry yet. As they continued to pursue Jesus, they had not even stopped to think about where their food would come from. But God cares for us. God not only provides, God has a plan for how are needs are to be met. God is not haphazard, but rather strategic on our behalf.

We must come to realize, that every situation of need, every crisis, every challenge, every test, is allowed by God because God desires to demonstrate his provision. God has “something else” for us. God has a “deeper life’ planned for us, better use of our gifts and talents, better places to live and work, more relationships for us to engage in. God has predestined us as children of God, sons and daughters of light, to grow, to prosper, and to overcome. God wants our faith to grow until we learn that in every situation, just as Jesus had already telegraphed and made preparation to feed the massive crowd—even when they did not even yet realize they would be hungry, so “there is a way of escape.” There is “light at the end of the tunnel.” No temptation has confronted us but such as is common to the human condition, but GOD has made “a way of escape” for us so that the tempters darts and arrows will not overtake us. In fact, on the other side of our crisis is “God’s better for us.”

So is it ever with us. Before we call, he answers. God’s unconditional love always responds to the reality of our needs, and even anticipates them. Jesus could see ahead. He was not “What miracles can I do to satisfy them?” but rather, “They will need something to eat.” The Apostle Paul wrote to the church of Philippi, chapter 4:19 “And my God will meet all our needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”

The irony is that Jesus asked Philip, Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat? Philip was the pragmatist. When he went to Nathaniel and told him, we have found the Messiah, Nathaniel protested, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Philip’s response was “come and see.” Philip lived at the level of common sense, at the level of “seeing.” It was Philip who responded to Jesus saying, “Lord show us the father and that will convince us.” And so to the man who believed what he could see, Jesus asked, “Where is the bread to come from to feed all these people? 

In Philip’s calculations what Jesus was asking was the impossible. This is why we affirm, “I’m not moved by what I see.” The five senses are important, but they can work against you. Likewise, Christ confronts us as he did Philip, to remind us that we must rise above the material and visible. He wants all of us to remember that what is possible is not bound by the challenge of what we face. Neither is it bound by doubt. Philip was a man of figures, he believed in what could be put into tables and statistics. Philip was leaving out one small essential element in his calculations regarding what was possible. He was leaving out Jesus Christ. Jesus never asks us or expects us to do anything that he has not given us the ability and power to do, in accordance with our faith.

A friend wrote to me recently, “God doesn’t count numbers. God makes numbers count.” Whether it is five thousand, five hundred thousand or five billion, numbers never challenge God for God supplies all our need according to HIS RICHES IN GLORY. The One who created all things will not run short. God’s provisions, God’s resources for every aspect of our lives are inexhaustible. 

God is calling on us to give our all, to give up our enslavement to the five senses, to move beyond counting numbers to making numbers count—even according to our faith in the one who makes our discipleship possible. Amen.

Remember the Deeds of the Lord

"Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of you evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation. If you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel . . . . , the glorious riches of this mystery, Christ in you, the hope of glory (Colossians 1:21-23; 27)."

“I cried out to God for help; I cried out to God to hear me. When I was in distress, I sought the Lord; at night I stretched out untiring hands …. ‘Will he never show His favor again? Has his unfailing love vanished forever? Has his promise failed for all time? Has God forgotten to be merciful? Has he in anger withheld his compassion? . . . You are the God who performs miracles; you display your power among the peoples . . . . Your path led through the sea, your way through the mighty waters, through your footprints were not seen (Psalm 77:1-2; 7-8; 14; 19).’”

We want to see "footprints." As we travel through our “seas” and the “mighty waters” rising threateningly around us as they did around ancient Israel in their “Isra” (striving-contending) with “El” (God), we desire visible signs of God’s presence, God’s hand, God’s keeping power. Yet Jesus was to say again and again, as far as God is concerned, physical signs of security, success and comfort are deceptive, and are natural for the common/ordinary person to want ( —John 4:48 “Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders, you will never believe.”)—but ultimately produce only a momentary, temporary faith experience.”

Paul writes to the church at Colossae, reminding them that they are not "common and ordinary" any more, because God has reconciled, has recovered the relationship between God and us, through Christ’s physical offering of himself on the cross.

It does not matter what we have done to end up in the circumstances we find ourselves in. It does not matter that we were “alienated from God and had our minds conditioned against him resulting in evil behavior.” Through faith in Christ we are presented “holy in God’s sight without blemish and free from accusation.”

I don’t know about you, but that’s good news for me! It is good to know that my success or failure in life is not dependent on my own flawed and faulty moral compass. Sin makes it impossible for me to please God, to live a life of moral rectitude before God. My hope is not in my stellar past, my great moral rectitude in the present. “All have sinned and come short of God’s glory (Romans 3:23-26).”

“If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us, but if we agree with God what we are sinners, God is faithful and just to continue to forgive us, to overlook us, and to keep us cleansed from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:1-9).

Given this truth of the Gospel, it is amazing that we find people who claim to know that their justification in Jesus Christ alone, demanding that others who come to Christ adjust their behavior to the moral code of Moses. Early in Paul’s ministry, (especially evident in 1 Corinthians), it was clear that he still struggled with having Gentiles live according to the Mosaic codes. I am not referencing the actual “Ten Words (commandments),” but rather all the religious rituals, prohibitions, curses and judgments set up for those who belonged to the community of ancient Israel. These were established in opposition to the Gentile communities all around them as they settled in the “land of promise,” so that they would remember who they were and whose they were. I believe that God raised up the legalistic spirit of error called "Judaizers=people who demanded that Christian converts be circumcised and follow all the rituals of the Jews" and the conflict that followed, in order to help the early apostles (including Paul) who were Jews. make the needed transition to "our acceptance before God by grace and grace alone."

The extensive and laborious Law codes of Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy have nothing to do with us, for in Romans that same apostle, informed by his own struggles with those who wanted to turn the faithful back to Pharisaic Judaism, what Paul, himself, had been a part of, writes these words:

“But now a righteousness from God, apart from the law, has been made known, to which the law and prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe (Romans 3:21-22).”

When people saw Jesus feed five thousand men (apart from women and children) with five barley rolls and two fish, when they saw a man healed who had lain on his back for 38 years, when they reasoned that since he was not in the boat when his disciples traveled to the other side of the sea of Galilee and yet he was there with him, concluding that the story of the disciples was true, that he had indeed walked across on the water, they asked him, “What shall we do in order to work the works of God.”

Jesus’ response was clear. “This is the work of God, to adhere to, trust in and rely on the one God has sent (his efficacy, his righteousness, the power he is demonstrating).” It comes through faith. We believe that no matter what our circumstances, as the old Black saints used to say, “God is able.” Jesus had prefaced these events and questions with the following declaration:

I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes
God who sent me has eternal life and will not be
condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.
(John 5:24)

A song I learned many years ago comes to mind:

My heart can sing, when I pause to remember
A heartache here is but a stepping stone
Along a trail that’s winding always upward—
This troubled world is not my final home.

The things of earth will dim and lose their value
If we recall, they’re borrowed for a while;
And things of earth, that cause the heart to tremble,
Remembered there, will only bring a smile.

This weary world with all its toil and struggle
May take its toll of misery and strife;
The souls God gave us, like a waiting falcon—
When it’s released, it’s destined for the skies.

(refrain)
But until then my heart will go on singing,
Until then my joy I’ll carry on—
Until the day my eyes behold the city,
Until the day God calls me home.
(“Until Then” by Stuart Hamblen, 1958)

In Psalm 177, we are instructed to “remember the deeds of the Lord," and the Psalmist responds on behalf of Israel, “Yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago. I will meditate on your works and consider all your mighty deeds (11-12).”

Whatever our trouble, our loss, our disappointment, our failure, our longing—through faith in the power that raised Jesus from the dead, we who have been separated, made not guilty, without blemish and complete through the cross, have another day, another future, miracles to look forward to, deliverance to come, joy to replace sorrow, healing to replace heartbreak and loss, and a glorious reception in God's eternal kingdom of life and light, even according to our faith.

No one, no thing, no situation can bring what God offers us to pass. Nobody but Jesus, the Christ of God. All that God has for our goodness, out of love, comes not from our efforts, our attempts to atone and reconcile, our attempts to improve and make amends. All comes from God and God alone, who is indeed UNCONDITIONAL LOVE to us in Christ, forever and ever. Amen.

Victim No More

Studies in the Gospel of John #12
John 5:1-15

And far away, he saw the skyline of New York…. Broadway, the way that led to death was broad, and many could be found thereon; but narrow was the way that led to life eternal, and few there were who found it. 

But he did not long for the narrow way, where all his people walked;…, close to the filthy ground, where the streets and the hallways and the rooms were dark, and where the unconquerable odor was of dust, and sweat, and urine, and homemade gin.

In the narrow way of the cross there awaited him only humiliation forever; there awaited him, one day , a house like his father’s house, and a church like his father’s and a job like his father’s where he could grow old and black with hunger and toil.

The way of the cross had bent his mother’s back; they had never worn fine clothes, but here (Midtown Manhattan), where the buildings contested God’s power and where men and women did not fear God, here he might eat and drink to his heart’s content, and clothe his body with wondrous fabrics, rich to the eyes and pleasing to the touch.

And then what of his soul, which would one day, come to die and stand naked before the judgment bar? What would his conquest of the city profit him that day? To hurl away, for a moment of ease, the glories of eternity!
(From, Go Tell it on the Mountain, by James Baldwin, 1953, pages 31-32)

5: (1) Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. (2) Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda[a] and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. (3) Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. [4] [b] (5) One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. (6) When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”
(7) “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”
(8) Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” (9) At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.
The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, (10) and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”
(11) But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ”
(12) So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?”
(13) The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.
(14) Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” (15) The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.

Psalm 73
A psalm of Asaph.
Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.
2 But as for me, my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold. 3 For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. 4 They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong. 5 They are free from common human burdens; they are not plagued by human ills. 6 Therefore pride is their necklace; they clothe themselves with violence. 7 From their callous hearts comes iniquity; their evil imaginations have no limits.
8 They scoff, and speak with malice; with arrogance they threaten oppression.
9 Their mouths lay claim to heaven, and their tongues take possession of the earth.
10 Therefore their people turn to them and drink up waters in abundance.
11 They say, “How would God know? Does the Most High know anything?”
12 This is what the wicked are like— always free of care, they go on amassing wealth.
13 Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure and have washed my hands in innocence.
14 All day long I have been afflicted, and every morning brings new punishments.
15 If I had spoken out like that, I would have betrayed your children.
16 When I tried to understand all this, it troubled me deeply
17 till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny.
18 Surely you place them on slippery ground; you cast them down to ruin.
19 How suddenly are they destroyed, completely swept away by terrors!
20 They are like a dream when one awakes; when you arise, Lord, you will despise them as fantasies.
21 When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered,
22 I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you.
23 Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand.
24 You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory.
25 Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
26 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

James Baldwin’s protagonist in his novel, John, is a young Black American African boy struggling with the issue of the goodness of God, the relevance of being devout in his faith in Jesus Christ as the savior of the world, and the call to holiness of life, “Without which no man (or woman) can see the Lord” as expressed by his church.

James Baldwin raises a larger question for us as young teenaged John stands on a hill in Central Park, looking off in the dimness to the lights of Midtown Manhattan New York, site of the “great white way” known to us as “Broadway.” For Baldwin, “Broadway is a triple entendre for Black faith. It is the “broad road that leads to destruction,” it is a metaphor for the antithesis of Black life (the “Great White Way”) and it is also a symbol of the “good life” on earth that seems so elusive to “the saints” of his small world in the uptown community of Harlem.

Is the life of faith one of deprivation, poverty, suffering, sickness and ultimate death and victimization at the hands of those whose comfortable, safe, healthy, well-fed, well-dressed, self-assured life is symbolized by the “Great White Way?” Are these the only choices available to those who choose to take their faith, their heritage and their people seriously? Is the only comfortable, safe, warm and secure reality that of the “white pagans” all around them? Must one sell her/his soul and surrender the claim to the eternal life of God in order to life “the good life?”

The composer and singer of Psalm 73 raises the exact same questions before God in a worship context. But he begins his complaint, his celebration of the paradoxes and contradictions, yes, even the absurdities of life with the affirmation:

“Surely God is good to Israel.” When we understand the name Israel, what it means, and how through the promise of Abraham it can be applied to all who live under its name, we can better unpack this Psalm and respond to Baldwin’s concerns.

God is good, is beneficial, is benevolent, is loving, is full of care and compassion, for all who strive through life following “El” God. Many of my colleagues and friends are highly critical of the so-called “Prosperity Gospel.” Progressive evangelical social activist Jim Wallis has even gone so far as to label it a “heresy.” One of my friends on Facebook pointed out to me that it is a “heresy” because it puts and undue amount of emphasis on one aspect of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the faith of the Judeo-Christian community to the exclusion and lack of emphasis on other critical aspects of that faith.

I believe that Jim Wallis and some of my colleagues have a valid issue which those who adhere to “Prosperity Theology” need to grapple with. And yet I do believe that we need to understand why the Black American African community has so eagerly embraced this message. Its major proponents in our community, Revs. Creflo and Tammy Dollar and Rev. Frederick Price, Sr. have received much criticism, but I do believe that while they may indeed overemphasize money and success to the exclusion of God’s sovereignty and exclusive claim (Lordship) over our lives, their message can be a much needed corrective to the “victim mentality” and “victim theology” of slave religion.

The idea that because we belong to Christ, we have nothing to hope for in this world, no earthly blessings to anticipate, but rather poverty, suffering, disease, oppression, failure and death is no more an authentic feature of the Gospel than the idea that if we are truly faithful God will bless us with riches and material prosperity. If God is “surely good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart,” then surely there needs to be some positive expectations about our future, our well-being, our health, our plans, etc.

Imagine, that just as Israel was about to go into seventy years of exile, an exile and oppression, which God had prophesied and brought upon them because of their stubborn resistance to him—their desire to worship idols, to be just like the Gentiles around them, to have what they have, to look like them, talk like them, dress like them, eat like them, enjoy what they enjoyed, worshiped what they worshiped, go to their schools and rank each other on the basis of standards they have set, positions they had created as well as art and music and organizational tools and formulas they had created, God also assured them through the same prophet—

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11).”

Oppression, suffering, hardship can so break us down that we can sometime substitute it for the reality of life. The life of a victim is not God’s will, it is not God’s intent, and it is not God’s plan. God’s plan for us, no matter what we may presently be going through, and no matter how long we may have been going through it, is to give us hope, to give us a future, to prosper us, to be good to us--because GOD IS LOVE. God is good to us because WE ARE pure in heart.

Baldwin’s own father is portrayed in the aforementioned auto biographical novel as abusive, using his own beaten, defeated situation in life to enforce a theology of failure on his family. Only when his sister seems broken and contrite and in fear of death is he happy. He hates John because John believes in himself, his innate abilities, and his gift to right and create and to think beyond the limitations of “Black existence” in Harlem.

Too often the righteousness of the so-called people of God is not God’s righteousness, but our own. Our own censorious sense of who we are and what God expects of us is substituted for that purity and righteousness which comes from God alone, through the offering of his son Jesus on the cross for us. It is not OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS, but GOD’S RIGHTEOUSNESS that we are to depend on, celebrate, give praise for and seek to share with others.

When Jesus came upon the pool of Bethesda, the hundreds of people who lay on pallets around it were all laid prostrate, not by their ailments, but by their victim mentality. There was even a twisted, victim-oriented theology associated with healing at this pool. God was said to send an angel to trouble the water, and the first person to get into the pool while the water was troubled would be healed.

Of course this is a victim-oriented story. What kind of vengeful, vindictive God would only make it possible for one to be healed, if someone would get her or him into the water? This kind of works-righteousness religion is the man-made, not of God. God is love. God would never have set up such a scenario. I would suggest the story was developed in the context of a victim mentality. No one could ever be healed because no one could “get up” to get themselves into the water when the pool was troubled.

Because a culture of victimization becomes comfortable, and even is accompanied with such absurd theological rationalizations, it is difficult to break through. So before Jesus said or did anything he asked the man point blank, “DO YOU WANT TO BE HEALED?” This is a very important question. Do you want to be free of your victim mentality, your victimization, of always seeing yourself as a failure and a loser? “Can you really contemplate seeing and understanding yourself as anything other than a victim?”

The man answered “Yes, but . . . .” Jesus did not ask him to repeat the absurd victim story; he did not make any reference to it, but the man did anyway. So Jesus annoyed with his response simply said to him, “Get up, pick up that smelly, musty, urine- stained symbol of your misery and victimization, and walk away with it. Get away from this pool and away from the victim mentality that has trapped you here for 38 years. The man picked up his bed and walked away.

Low and behold, before he could get a few feet away, here came the keepers of victim theology, the works-righteousness crowd of the church. Where do you think you going boy? Why are you carrying your pallet on the Sabbath instead of laying on it? You can see that their theology of the Sabbath was a victim theology. However miserable you find yourself on the Lord’s Day, however sick, however broke, however hungry, however homeless, remain that way. This is God’s will. Imagine how petty, how stupid, how seriously stuck with “majoring in the minors” self-righteous proponents of poverty theology, suffering theology, deprivation theology and failure theology can be.

Jesus had authority to tell him to carry his sick bed on the Sabbath because the Sabbath was made for us to REST. We find our rest in God when we let go of all that would hold us down, hold us back, paralyze us and give us a sense of hopelessness, frustration and failure. Jesus was not a victim. He was victorious.

Jesus was not victimized by Satan’s schemes, by the challenges of loneliness, by the challenges of the cross, by the challenges of being misunderstood, by the threats of Rome or the traitorous machinations of Israel’s so-called leaders. Likewise neither do we have to be to walk the straight and narrow road that leads to life. We are, through Christ, through the incarnation of God’s unconditional love, “victims no more.”

On Up the Road—Far in the Distance

Studies in the Gospel of John #11; John 4:46-54
September 29, 2013

Isaiah 42:16
I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do. I will not forsake them.

Ephesians 1:11
In him we were also chosen (made heirs of God), having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will.

On up the road, far in the distance
We can see the light, shining in the night
It’s penetrating, life’s heavy fog
Oh, it’s Jesus, He conquers all
His light shineth brightly, as we move close to Him
Yes in Him the light shall never grow dim
For there’s a brighter day, brighter day, brighter day ahead, A brighter day ahead.
(by the late Margaret Aikens-Jenkins,
“Brighter Day Ahead” 1958)

Keep your finger on these verses for a moment. Jesus had arrived in Cana of Galilee. He was in a safe place. Now he could rest. But, of course, Jesus had not come to rest, he came to save. Jesus did not come to hide. He came to give light. Jesus did not come to be searched for, he came to search us out, and guide us on the way to life. So before he could get comfortable in a chair, a nobleman from Jesus hometown, Capernaum, a Jew connected with one of the royal households came knocking. "Come back with me now to Capernaum and heal my son. He is about to die." The air of authority in the demand was obvious. This man spoke with a false consciousness, which he nevertheless believed, about his power and authority to get Jesus to do what he wanted him to do. But Jesus did not jump at the chance to please the royal or the crowd.

The distance by foot between the two towns is about 15 miles. This would mean that Jesus who had already traveled a distance of some 80 miles from Jerusalem over several days, would have to get up and go another 15 miles northeast with the royal. Jesus addressed him with another kind of authority--that of the Son of Man, the New Human Being, the Christ of God. In verse 50 we read that Jesus said to him, “Go, your son lives.”

“That’s it?” Is that all Jesus was going to do or say? He didn’t wave his arms. He didn’t cry out to God. He didn’t fall on his knees and call everyone in the room to an immediate intercession. All he said was “Go, your son lives?”

The NIV tries to soften it with the paraphrase, “Go, your son will live.” But that is not what Jesus said in the actual Greek. He just said, “Go! Your son, he lives.” We know that Jesus was tired but how could he be so insensitive? How could he not take this man’s need—to save his son’s life with the utmost urgency? How could Jesus ignore the authority and social station that this man had in Jesus' own home town, Capernaum? Why would Jesus not do what he wanted him to do--go back to Capernaum with him. No. Jesus looked at him and said, “Go—Your son lives.” Really?

As the crowd around him listened, Jesus seemed to respond with irritation, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” And then instead of doing what the man wanted him to do, Jesus did what God wanted him to do. Claiming his own authority and power from God, far beyond that of the royal official, Jesus sent him home in faith. "Go on home, God has acted already, God is way ahead of our needs, our desires, our situations."

What does God want us to do? God wants us to exercise and live in our power. God wants us to send people in faith. Let them know that God has made a river for us in the deserts of life. Let them know that God has turned the rough wildernesses of our lives into highways of blessing. Let the world know that—
I will lead the blind by ways they have not known,
along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn
the darkness into light before them and make the
rough places smooth. These are the things I will do.
I will not forsake them.

I believe Jesus sent him home to Capernaum with the truth. Jesus said literally, “Go, your son, he lives.” When did the fever leave his son? The servant said “at one in the afternoon.” He remarked, that was the exact hour that Jesus said, “Go, your son lives.” We too easily conclude that John is trying to get us to believe that when Jesus spoke these words the boy was healed. I do not believe that to be the case.

Jesus did not say, “right now, I will heal him.” Jesus did not say, “Right now I will save his life.” Jesus said, “Go! Your son, he lives.” There is a double meaning here as in all prophetic utterance in God’s word. I believe John was affirming the resurrection of life that would be experienced in God’s raising Jesus from the dead. At the same time, John let’s us know that the man’s son was healed as the man traveled to Cana of Galilee to find Jesus to heal his son.

It was the royal official’s faith that God could heal his son that removed the fatal illness and restored his son to life. It was in the exercise of his own faith in the power of God that saved his son. Jesus was proclaiming the fact that his son had already recovered, and the fact that God is the God of the resurrection. God’s son lives. God’s children live. The children of life cannot die, will not see corruption, because through the Christ, God has decreed everlasting life, life eternal upon all who believe.

When Margaret Aikens wrote this song in 1958 she was a young woman. She had cut her musical teeth in the blues and jazz world of that time, so her lyrics and rhythm were crude and unacceptable for much of the Black American African churches. Many Black American African churches at the time were trying to have worship music that reflected our assimilation into white America. But I believe that God raised her up, and Sally Martin, and Albert Tindley and Charles Price Jones and Prof. Thomas Dorsey (“Precious Lord”) and hundreds of other musicians in the Spirit to give us the “songs of Zion,” the music of worship in our own cultural context.

I believe that God raised these musicians and this music up so that we would understand that if you come to God in truth, you don’t have to sing like the oppressor, those who think and that we in our former idolatry thought, were to be emulated and worshiped). Isaac Watts, Fanny Crosby and Charles Wesley and countless other poets and musucians did the same thing in the 18th and 19th Centuries, putting the words of the Gospel and their experiences in Christ in the music of English taverns, pubs and American folk songs like Azmon and Duke Street. We still have these songs in our hymnals, but God has raised up musicians in our own culture to give these words new life through our own Black American African cultural forms and expressions.

We discovered through songs like “A Brighter Day Ahead” and “Walk in the Light” and “The Only Hope we have is in Christ Jesus” and “Beams of Heaven,” and the works Magnolia Lewis-Butts, Lucie Campbell, Kenneth Morris, Roberta Martin, M. C. Hammer, Walter and Edmond Hawkins and Andre Crouch and many others, that we do not need to copy the culture, the expression and the witness of another culture, another people, just because they happen to have the natural power in this world.

Through this new breed of Gospel musicians and those who were to follow, God proved that the words of Jesus to the woman at the well were true—“The time is coming when those who worship God will not have to copy the worship of the Jews, or the worship of the Samaritans, or the worship of the majority culture, but those who truly worship God will worship God IN SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH.”

Her words are simple but powerful:
There’s a brighter day ahead, for Jesus has said,
if by him we will be led, There’s a brighter day ahead.
There’s a brighter day ahead, in God’s word we read,
if we trust him he said, there’s a brighter day ahead.
There’s a brighter day ahead, on the cross he bled,
and his blood for us he shed., there’ll be a brighter day
ahead. (And then the chorus): “On up the road . . . .”

Margaret Aikens-Jenkins went to glory in 2009, but her words inspired Dottie Peeples and Kiera Sheard as they have rewritten her song for new generations to come.

On up the road, far in the distance
We can see the light, shining in the night
It’s penetrating, life’s heavy fog
Oh, it’s Jesus, He conquers all
His light shineth brightly, as we move close to Him
Yes in Him the light shall never grow dim
For there’s a brighter day, brighter day,
brighter day ahead A brighter day ahead.

The royal returned home to find his son had recovered. He asked, when did he begin to recover? When did the fever leave him. His servant replied, “Yesterday, the seventh hour.” The royal remembered that it was exact time Jesus had said, “Go! Your son, he lives.” At that moment, he believed. His household believed. God was glorified. God had gone ahead of him. While he was on his way to Jesus, God had already accomplished the healing in his son. God went ahead of Israel, preparing manna in the wilderness, water from the rock, long before they felt hungry and thirsty, long before they had started to complain, long before they realized that they had needs that seemed to be unmet, God had supplied all their needs according to His riches in glory.

God has gone ahead of us. He has prepared the road we are yet to travel. He is doing a “new thing” in our lives and he is just getting started. Today we celebrate our past, with faith that the God who brought us this far on the way, is waiting for us “on up the road, far in the distance” with an eternal weight of glory.

We need do nothing more than get on the road of life, live in his power and will through faith, and in faith our travels on the road of blessing and power and honor and wisdom, in will begin anew even as they continue.