Let me know what you think about this – agree/disagree/why
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The Christian presented with an opportunity to make great wealth is obliged to take it; in what clearer way could God say, “You will be the financier of my kingdom.”
Lately I’ve been thinking about how sensitive people and history have been to their own impurity. Even the history of the word “sin” has a striking moment in one of Sophocles play.
Read Oedipus. You know, the guy who killed his father and married his mother. Notice at the moment the full weight of his mistakes is made perfectly clear to him, he twists in a common word we’ve heard so many times and he screams out, “I have sinned such sins that even strangling cannot punish.” This is one of the earliest uses of the Greek word “Harmatia” as a reference to moral wrong and notice how closely it is philologically linked not only with punishment, but with the idea that the acts are so vile they can’t even be fully punished.
In Luke, when the tax collector stands before God in the temple he doesn’t even dare to look towards heaven and he cries out, beating his chest, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
Paul writes of himself as the chief of sinners, as a wretch, as the least of God’s people.
The prodigal son, when he returns, does not have the audacity to saunter back home as a son. Knowing the gravity of what he has done he comes back with the intention not of being received as a son, but as a mere servant.
What saddens me is that I don’t know if I always have this same sensitivity or brokenness over my sin. Not that I want to be burdened with melancholy over my weaknesses; no, I simply want to desire purity with a strong passion and yearning. More importantly, I want to worship God more intimately as I more fully come to understand exactly what I deserved verses what he has so kindly given me.
Though I’ve seen students do some incredibly rude things to teachers, I’ve never actually seen a student scream at and criticize a teacher openly in front of the whole class. That was, until one of my students did it to me.
I started class exactly at 12:30pm – exactly. The clock ticked; I started talking, and we immediately began an activity. In the middle of that activity, about 5-7 minutes into the class, a student walked in, shuffled himself into his seat and loudly asked, “What are we doing?”
I said, calmly, “I’ll let you know in a minute.”
“No,” he explained, “I don’t know what we are doing. Tell me, what are we doing?”
Attempting to be teacherly, I said, “I explained the assignment at the beginning of class, you came in late, so I will explain it in a second when we’re done with this part of the activity.”
“This is the first time I’ve been late; explain to me what we are doing!” The more he talked the louder her got.
I felt bullied; I really didn’t want to cave to a bully. “I don’t want to take up time to explain this again, so I’ll let you know what we’re doing after I’m done with this part of the assignment.”
He broke into an all out roar -
“NO! THIS IS THE FIRST TIME I HAVE BEEN LATE! WHY CAN YOU NOT TELL ME WHAT WE’RE DOING? YOU ARE NOT HELPING ME! YOU ARE NOT TEACHING US!” He was shouting, full tilt, and then he started to stand, “YOU ARE A BAD TEACHER!”
wow… this is weird… this is crazy… is this really happening? What really creeped me out was that he started to stand.
Bewildered, I caved. I raised my hands in peace and calmly said, “Hey, hey, no worries. I’ll explain what we’re doing.”
“Thank you.”
Immediately after class he left and went to the teacher of record with this complaint:
“Ben is not helping me. I think it is my accent and he does not understand what I ask. When I ask something he ignores my question and moves on to something else. You need to talk to him about this.”
John 13:33
“My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come.”
I gotta be honest with you, I don’t think the disciples had any clue what Jesus meant by this. So many of the things that happened subsequent to the crucifixion tell us that the death of Jesus had taken them completely by surprise – Peter denies him, the disciples end any prospect of ministry and go fishing, they recoil at his death and revert back to living their quiet lives.
They didn’t realize what he was suggesting, so when Peter boldly exclaims, “Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you,” I don’t doubt that he means it. He had no idea, even though Christ had explained it many times, that Jesus would suffer and die and that Peter would eventually do the same. He knew Jesus would inaugurate a kingdom – he just didn’t realize how.
And then Jesus says to him what must have been the most discouraging prophesy ever given a man, “Will you really lay down your life for me? I tell you the truth, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times!”
Ouch. I cannot imagine the humiliation and embarrassment, even more, the doubt. I’m sure Peter was thinking it wasn’t possible. But Jesus knew Peter wasn’t prepared for what he was about to see – he knew the disciples didn’t understand – he knew his death would devastate their faith since they could not understand how Christ’s death would have anything to do with God’s economy of redemption.
And after saying what I believe was the most discouraging thing Peter could ever hear, Christ says this:
John 14:1-4
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.”
I love that. Do not be troubled. Trust in God. For you have a future in my Father’s house; essentially, you will be adopted as sons and daughters, and will have you very own rooms and your proper place within the household of God. Amazing!
The disciples needed one piece of advice in order to make it through the horrific scenes they would soon see. The needed to not be troubled. Why? Because they could trust God. No matter what would happen, they could trust God. Regardless of whatever torture would befall either Christ or them, they had a future hope that would be far more glorious than his death would be gruesome.
And remember, in verse 13:36, Jesus said, “Where I am going you cannot follow.” And that is true for all of us. It was impossible to follow Christ to heaven until he had accomplished an atoning work. Notice he said, where I am going you cannot follow, but he then says, “I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.”
It is only when he prepares that place and when he brings us, that we can go where he is going. How did he prepare our place? By dying in our place on the cross. We need an atonement to satisfy justice before we can enter the house and family of God.
As Christ nears the hour of his death, he gives these few brief statements in the upper room:
When [Judas] was gone, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once.
“My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:31-35).
A little odd, huh? We know what event he means; we know he is speaking of the crucifixion, so why on earth does he talk about the most horrific, humiliating experience in human history as “glorifying?” Because this is the moment when Christ hung upon a cross as a substitute for you and me, absorbing the wrath of God in our place.
The single greatest act of grace the universe will ever know, the act for which God wants the most praise and attention, is the moment he kindly, lovingly, and sacrificially offered himself so that we might be cleansed of sin.
That is why Christ can refer to his brutal death as something glorious. This moment is huge; not just for the world, it’s huge for God. We should pay close attention to what he’s saying.
Christ brings up these really intense ideas, says he’s about to go somewhere they cannot follow, and then says, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
“Love” – that might be easy if we could define the word love by our own whims, but we cannot. Christ says we must love AS HE LOVED, and that’s a tall order. Not only does this mean we must love by washing feet and serving, it means we must imitate and emulate the love he showed when he died on the cross. But do we care about others enough to sacrifice that much? To experience so much humility? So much pain?
Can I love someone so much that I would do exactly what Christ did? By that, I mean, could I bear the wrath of God in place of someone else? Can I love them that much?
I’m reminded of the instance in Romans, where Paul writes of his love for Israel, saying “I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, the people of Israel” (Romans 9:2-4).
Paul essentially says, “I love these people so much, I have so great a burden for the lost, that I wish I, myself, could go to hell, losing my salvation, if that meant they could have it.”
If Christ says, “Love as I have loved,” I think Paul is moving in the right direction.
Detail two: Loving one another marks the Christian. This is how the world knows we are his disciples. That means Jesus is including “the world” in the measurement of a Christian. How scary is that? Jesus turns to the world, to the non-believer, and says, “This will be your job, your task, and I entrust this to you – you shall judge whether anyone is a Christian on the basis of his or her love for fellow Christians. That is how you will know.”
Ouch…
Would you pass that test? Do you have brothers and sisters you despise? Maybe you even have good reason to. But here’s my advice: Love every Christian… no matter the cost.
Check it out, let me know what you think : )
Kevin Carter, a famous photojournalist, took this shot when documenting the Sudan famine. He won the pulitzer prize for taking it but killed himself 6 weeks later; his critics said he had lost his humanity for the sake of a picture.
I’m sure we’re all more or less familiar with the Last Night scene – When Jesus stooped to the position of mere servant, washing the feet of his mere disciples, and also cleaned the dirt off his mere enemy (Judas). With that in mind, follow the track of John’s thinking as the story goes along…
“It was just before the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love.
The evening meal was being served, and the devil had already prompted Judas Iscariot, son of Simon, to betray Jesus. Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.”
Did you notice that? It’s almost John meant to say, “In spite of the fact that Judas was going to betray Jesus, Jesus trusted the Father and still stooped down to wash the feet of his disciples – Judas included.”
And if that’s not what John meant to communicate by lining up the event in this order, we do know that even though Christ was cognizant of Judas’ intentions, he STILL washed his feet.
It just baffles me. In all history there is no single act of betrayal that is as infamous or as tragic as this. Judas’ actions give us the archetype of duplicity and deception. It doesn’t get worse than this – to betray God himself for 30 pieces of silver and to do it with a kiss.
Now, I want you to catch this – in spite of this circumstance, despite the impending betrayal of Judas, Jesus still “showed [Judas] the full extent of his love”; he still washed and dried his feet.
Doesn’t he do that for us? Wasn’t he fully cognizant of the fact that he would die, shed his own precious blood on my behalf, suffer the wrath of God in my place because of my sin, and didn’t he do all this knowing that I would STILL continue to sin after the fact? Did he not stoop down and wash me of my filth, fully knowing I would later betray him with the idolatry in my life? This is amazing grace.
There’s more. There is application. After demonstrating this humbling act of love and service, he says to them, “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.”
Advice: Become the mere servant of your mere enemy, and wash their feet though they betray you. And do the same for everyone else.
No joke, I’ve been slightly obsessed with cleaning the past two days. Heather and I listened to a Jonny Mac sermon on “Self-Discipline” and its indispensability in the Christian’s life.
A bit of advice from that sermon – to become spiritually disciplined, the Christian must work towards becoming physically organized. “Be the kind of person who can never put up a mess in your own space,” said Jonny Mac and I’d have to say that cut me deep; I’m a changed man. I see dust; I wipe it up. I see loose reams of paper; I relocate them to the recycling bag. I see dishes encrusted in dried out mushiness; I wash them (of course, I leave Jon’s sometimes).
So I’ve turned to the wonderful product called “Lysol Disinfecting Wipes,” and cleaning, which had once seemed such a waste of my valuable time, has now become a speedy and fulfilling process.
I highly recommend this product – not only will your house look squeaky, you’re soul will feel disciplined. I guarantee it.
We don’t take sin seriously – let’s be honest. Far more often we’re embarrassed that others might find out about our sin than we are broken before the God who always knows of it.
If you struggle with sin, if you live in habitual sin, if you feel convicted to repent of that sin, or if you’re apathetic and feel no remorse for that sin, then I have one piece of advice for you: read John Owen’s book The Mortification of Sin.
Why? Because he will guide your attention to the kinds of verses and Bible teachings that force you think about what your sin is, what effect it has had upon you, and what horrific implications it might have hidden in your life.
It might sound weird, but I appreciate how much this book crushed me and exposed me.
Here’s what I like even more – though the book will create in you the kinds of wretched feelings we’re too kind and soft to experience, its ending will put in you the same kind of joy that was in the prodigal the moment his father threw his arms around him and drew him back into the house for a feast. To know what that is like is reason enough to read this book.
An excerpt from the last chapter:
“My soul has become parched ground, and a habitation of dragons. I have made promises and broken them. I have made vows, but did not keep them. Many times I have been persuaded that I have gained the victory, and that I should be delivered, but I was deceived. Now I plainly see that without some great help and assistance, I will perish and be forced to abandon God.
“But yet, though this is my state and condition, I will lift up my hands that hang down, and strengthen my feeble knees, for, behold, the Lord Jesus Christ has all the fullness of grace in His heart, and all the fullness of power in His hand. He is able to slay all these enemies. There is sufficient provision in Him for my relief and assistance. He can take my drooping, dying soul and make me more than a conqueror (Rom. 8:37)”
