Text for the upcoming sermon/discussion: John 11
"I am, right now, Resurrection and Life."
That Jesus, he's such a good guy, isn't he? I mean, he walks around the Judean countryside healing folks, saying nice things to them, offering peace to all people, singing Kumbaya with his disciples...
No wait... re-wind. He did heal people... he did come (ultimately) to bring peace... he did give those without hope something real and lasting to cling to... but Jesus was no dope-smoking hippie seeking free-love and world peace. He was a radical, extremely outspoken, in-your-face opponent of the religious status-quo. He knew that real love is costly. The Jewish religion had evolved into a human institution with God as nothing more than an excuse to beat people down... and an institutional puppet to establish power and control over the masses. But Jesus was passionately, stubbornly... even violently committed to revealing the truth of God's grace, and power, and compassion, and agape love to the world He created - a world so long stained by the ugly pervasiveness of sin. Only God could fix this... and it was time... whatever the cost.
But how do you convince such a paranoid creature that they are eternally loved and forgiveness is possible? If healing the sick wasn't enough to reveal the Father through the Son... and if power over the weather and nature itself wasn't enough of a "sign" to make people believe... and if his amazing arguments against the Pharisees and teachers of the law (even as an "unlearned" peasant from Nazareth) weren't enough to blow them away... then perhaps this little episode would reveal those who seek to align themselves with God (and those who don't). He raised his friend, Lazarus from the dead. Not someone who died an hour ago... not someone who died yesterday or the day before... no, Lazarus was truly dead. A rotting corpse. After four lifeless days in Israel's desert heat, his physical body was well into the process of deterioration. He wasn't gonna be getting up anytime soon... that is, until Jesus came along and emphatically demonstrated that he and he alone is the "Resurrection and Life."
"Lazarus, come out!" Do you believe Jesus did that? Do you want to believe he still can do that to our spiritually lifeless bodies? If you are seeking to know the Truth about God (and life), have you decided to put your faith in Jesus yet? or are you still looking for signs that He really is the Most High God? Dude, I'm thinking it doesn't get much clearer than power over death itself.
WOW, nothing like throwing it all out there! Maybe its not that people don't believe but rather do not know how to believe. It is not natural to have blind faith. This is bigger than big. If people see miracles, they can always attribute it to something. Maybe its something that must be learned? How can we teach the truth to those that seek it? Maybe it needs to be in more forums than the spoken word in the bible?
ReplyDeleteJeff, I am someone who is seeking and seeking and seeking, still don't know how to put my faith in Jesus. Heck, I don't even know how to pray..... see what i am saying, there is more too it, at least for me.....
Still on the quest!
Glenn
John 11:53 So from that time on, the Jewish leaders began to plot Jesus’ death.
ReplyDelete...even faced with evidence that could not be denied (lazarus alive and well, back from stinky death), the pharisees missed the fact that Jesus might be from God...and most definitely they missed the God-in-human-flesh part. this brings into brilliant focus that seeing is not necessarily believing...the question is not only a matter of "what is the evidence?" i think the issue is more along the lines of "how will i interpret the evidence i see...in our passage, many believed...many did not...pretty sticky...kinda sounds like today...
knowing God is not so much an "ah-ha" moment, after which "everything makes sense"...i believe knowing God is much more like a captivating conversation...a no-holds-barred, down-and-dirty grappling with our Creator...an ongoing journey with a constant companion...there are a lot of things i don't get about God...i just don't...but that is not my goal. i think that it is impossible to fully get God...i guess that is one of the reasons that Jesus came into our realm of existance and showed us what the Kingdom of God is all about...not so much that we could exhaustively know all things "God", but rather, that we could get a clue that God desires to know us in a day-to-day kind of way...and wow!!! what a wonderful way to explain His interest in us by letting us know that even death does not have the power to close out our conversation with God...
glen, i get that you are on a quest...seeking and seeking...but having everything fall into place or to come to a place where everything makes sense...well, i've been in my conversation with God for over fifty years...still haven't found "IT"...if you know what i mean...but God has found me, and there is no end to things we talk about and there seems to be no end to the extent that He loves me...just think for a second, if you found the "thing" you are seeking, when you found it, would you recognize it? i am sure that i wouldn't be able to...so until my ability to understand gets dramatically better, i will keep on talking with God...kind of an open ended thing...
I just posted a LONG comment to Glenn that got washed away in cyber-space, and I'm so peeved I could rip someone's head off! (Deep breath)... But I'll try to reform my thoughts and try again. (Deep breath.)
ReplyDeleteGlenn,
ReplyDeleteLooking over my original post, I have to say I can understand why you think I was picking on you, and people like you who are seeking to believe in God. Perhaps a part of me was... but let me assure you, non-believers are not my issue as a pastor... religious game-players are.
Of course I want you to believe... I want you to experience the joy of revelation, and the confidence in eternal love that transcends the (comparatively) pitiful human experience in this lifetime. But by no means do I want to guilt you into the kingdom. God has his hand on all of us, and when we really seek to know him and live in relationship with him... he will make it happen whenever he deems the appropriate time.
As I said, my problem is not with people who honestly and hungrily seek to know him... my struggle as a pastor is to build a ministry that challenges "believers" to take God more seriously. For some reason, there's a pervasive mindset among Christians that believing is enough... as long as we're "in" there's no need to stay hungry for more of what God has to offer - and demand of - us.
The church, according to the New Testament, is not a place to be lazy and half-hearted... it's meant to be a place of passion, prayer, justice, and Christ-centered love. Maybe you've never come to the place where you "believe" Glenn, because you haven't seen in actual practice what you read about in the Scriptures.
The "modern" approach to community is roughly this: A lost person who wants to be found by God must first BELIEVE, then he or she can BECOME part of the church community- then, as they follow the rules of Christian living , they will BE like Jesus. But that's not what I read about in the New Testament, and certainly not what this culture seems to respond to. God is not rational... he is relational. He wants your heart more than your intellect and/or "blind" obedience.
I don't really care if people have come to the point of belief or not... that will come as they spend time with God's people... ideally, people who demonstrate God's love, passion, and activity in the world. People committed to righting wrongs, sharing the love of Christ, and (perhaps most importantly) loving one another deeply, even when we do or say stupid things to one another. So our hope is to show real hospitality to those who either KNOW God, or SEEK to know God... and let the Spirit of God have his way with us... compelling us to live out the resurrection life of Jesus Christ together. In other words, come to our house of worship... BECOME one of us if your heart is drawn to God. Then, as you experience Truth personified in Jesus, eventually you will BELIEVE. Faith ain't blind (as you have suggested). To the contrary, faith is seeing in ways we're not able to accomplish in and of ourselves. Faith is nothing more than response to God's revelation... and true faith can not be bought, coerced, manipulated, or rushed... it can only be nurtured.
When (not if) that finally happens, Glenn, you'll BE like Jesus... and hopefully, you won't ever become an overly religious, pompous, lazy "believer" who sits around and judges people for not being as enlightened as you are (i.e., a Pharisee).
Believe me, it's harder to fight that urge than you might think... that's why we need to continually be in committed relationship with Christ and with one another.
But in the meantime... just continue to seek Truth... continue to ask questions... continue to air your doubts and fears about this wild and wacky thing called "Christianity." You'll get there someday... that is, as long as the seed of Christ continues to lie in good soil... soil that embraces the miracle and the mystery of God's revelation.
@Glenn: Perhaps the reason it's hard for you to believe is because you haven't seen real faith even among "believers." That's something I've struggled with my whole life, being around religious people, and witnessing their judgmental attitudes towards others. I used to think all Christians must be like that, apathetic hypocrites. To me being a Christian was only for show, because it looked good to other people. My duty. Jesus has been reaching for me my whole life, i just had to reach back. That doesn't mean forgetting about my questions, fears and criticisms, it just means opening my heart up to let God in. When I did, I still had a million questions, and becoming a Christian only raised a million more, but i had a profound sense of peace within my soul, telling me this is the TRUTH. It's a journey Glenn, one that won't end anytime soon, a daily struggle, but it's so worth it.
ReplyDeleteDo you beleive... In the story of Lazarus, it's interesting that 'others' believed in Jesus' healing qualities and exercised their belief by calling (urgently) for Him to come. At their request, He came, a little late, but he came.
ReplyDeleteIn this story it was the faith of others who worked on Lazarus' behalf. I wonder, do I have friends who would act on my behalf if they observed spiritual lifelessness in me? Are there close brothers and sisters who know me well enough to see the inner processes that cause spiritual lifelessness? Or, to turn it on me, do I know brothers and sisters in Christ well enough to excercise my faith in Jesus' healing power on their spiritual lifelessness?
This story is a good illustration of the importance of community and how the faith of others can invoke the healing of Jesus.
Do I believe... Not always, but I've read and heard about Jesus' healing power. There's a part of me that believes; however, I'm not sure that I would call on the name of Jesus during times of spiritual lifelessness. Is there an Aaron out there?
Belief vs. Faith: I agree with how you put it today in your sermon. I think you were saying that faith in something that is really an succession (or product) of one's beliefs. I think we all have beliefs (true or untrue) that we learned from our parents, teachers and others but these beliefs don't evolve into faith (or become a knowing) until it becomes a part of our very being. Many times we can take a belief and change it into a faith just by taking action. When I was a kid I may have had a belief that I could ride a bicycle but I didn't really know it until I actually got on a bike and rode it.
ReplyDeleteIt can be the same thing with God. I can say I believe in God but I don't really have faith in God until those beliefs becomes a part of me. I think prayer, reading the bible and meditating on the scriptures helps that process along..