Posture is everything.

“25 And behold, a certain legal expert stood up to test him,” (Luke 10)

This line bolted off the page at me today.  Then a thousand thoughts ran through my mind and onto this page until it became a literary elephant seal which could barely lift its bulk out of the water to bark and make it’s “Port-o-john-at-a-chili-cook-off” noises.  So I clubbed it, skinned it and rendered the blubber down in my oven to what I hope, I hope will be the oil of essence to light a lamp of truth.

Coincidentally, that might be the grossest paragraph I’ve ever written.  Oh well, if you can’t be edifying, at least be provocative.

I hear the “hater” label a lot these days.  Christians are intolerant.  Their God is a baby-killer.  Jesus consigns people to hell because they just happened to live in the wrong country and never heard of him or they’re gay or democrat or what have you.  And all of this is missing the point and no different than what Adam did in blaming Eve or Cain did in saying his punishment was unfair.  Oh poor me, all I did was kill my brother in cold blood and now I have to go live somewhere else.  Boo hoo.  God is mean!

Let’s get something straight and ironed out right here and now.  No one goes to Hell where the worm never dies and the fire is not extinguished or the Lake of Fire that burns with sulphur or the Outer Darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth for any sin, ANY sin except this one…

Self righteousness.

That’s it.  It’s true there will be no gays in heaven, no adulterers, no murderers or pornographers or gossips or slanderers, no liars, fiends, addicts, bigots, racists, prostitutes, traitors, fornicators, perverts, brawlers, drunkards, witches, there will be no thieves, cheats, swindlers or greedy people there, no one who manipulates, no one who has been selfish, rude, arrogant, angry without cause, unfair, mean, or short-tempered, no one who has been disobedient to their parents or legitimate authorities, no one who sins at all will be there.

The new heaven and the new earth will however be full of former gays, adulterers, murderers, pornographers, gossips, slanderers, liars, fiends, addicts, bigots, racists, prostitutes, traitors, fornicators, perverts, brawlers, drunkards, witches, thieves, cheats, swindlers, formerly greedy people, manipulators, people who were formerly selfish, rude, arrogant, angry without cause, unfair, mean, short tempered and disobedient.  Heaven will be full of people who sinned, recognized their unworthiness and fell on God’s love, compassion and forgiveness. 

In former times and in far away lands, faith meant believing God could do this even though one didn’t know how.  How could a God who is fully fair, fully just, just …forgive our sins?  No matter how great?  No matter who I hurt?  He couldn’t!  He would have to punish sin!  He is holy!  Nothing sinful can enter His presence without being burnt down like a French fry shot at the Sun! 

But Jesus!  Jesus, the Son of God, came to earth and took the punishment, the full punishment for our sins!  God took he who had never sinned, never been disobedient and put all our sins on Him and then killed him!  Killing all our sins!  And because Jesus did this willingly, did this perfectly, did this lovingly God raised Him from the dead!  For how could a just God, a fair Judge, a loving Father not reward such sacrifice!?

“21 For just as the Father raises the dead and makes them alive, thus also the Son makes alive whomever he wishes. 22 For the Father does not judge anyone, but he has given all judgment to the Son, 23 in order that all people will honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. The one who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. 24 Truly, truly I say to you that the one who hears my word and who believes the one who sent me has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.” (John 5)

In former times and far away lands, rebellion against God’s mercy, love and sovereignty looked like idolatry.  Which is really worship of self.  God’s of our own understanding.  God’s we control and manipulate.  God’s who give us what we want which is to be our own gods.  Now, since Jesus, it’s exactly the same, only people can be more specific about it if they want.  All of it results in the same thing however, rejection of God’s plan for mercy in the person of Jesus.  Rejection of God’s love.  The Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father.  All things were made by the Father, through the Son, for the Son and the Son has come and purified all things as a gift for the Father.  This has been testified to since the beginning by the Holy Spirit.  Rejection of this testimony is calling the Holy Spirit a liar.  Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.  The one unforgivable sin. 

What does this look like?  Is it just saying you don’t believe once and your done like the kids and fools on a website created for atheists who can’t even be atheists without attempting to biblically insult the God they profess not to believe in?  Is it atheism itself?  Or do you have to be a pagan?  Is it anything in that list of sins at the beginning?

It looks like three crosses.  Jesus in the center with a thief on either hand.  One thief looks at the guiltless lamb of God and mocks in anger and impotent fury.  The other, guilty of the same crime as his brother, confesses his guilt, looks at the guiltless lamb of God and asks for mercy he knows he has no right to receive unless the one in the center is loving.

“Today if you will hear his voice:

8 “Do not harden your heart…” (Ps 95)

“You warned them so that they would return to your law. Yet they acted arrogantly and did not listen to your commandments but sinned against your judgments that a person must do so that they may live. They turned a stubborn shoulder and stiffened their neck and would not listen.” (Neh 9)

Paganism?  Atheism?  Murder, adultery, greed?  No.  Those are just symptoms.  Symptoms of a hard heart and stiff neck.

Johnny Thunder

“12 There is a way that seems right to a man,


    but its end is the way to death.” (Prov 14)

John boy.  I am told John bar-Zebedee is possibly the youngest of the disciples.  He is nearly always referred to in a relationship:  “Sons of Zebedee,” “the brother of James,” as a child would.  He’s not old enough to have a reputation of his own yet.  But he’s eager to make one.  Is this initially what draws him to the excitement of following fringe rabbis?  It’s possible he first followed John the Baptist with Andy.  Then when John directs them to the Lamb of God, he upgrades.  Is it this desire for reputation, desire for greatness that leads this small town fisherman’s kid to Jesus?  Teenagers don’t walk through life, if they move at all, they run.  Odd isn’t it, they with the most time before them move like they have none?  Lace up your running shoes.  Let’s follow Johnny through Luke 9. 

Jesus sends him out with the twelve.

He helps Jesus feeds the five thousand.

He hears Pete confess Jesus is the Christ.

He hears Jesus foretell his death.

He is one of three chosen to see the Transfiguration.

He sees Jesus heal the epileptic.

He and the disciples have their Muhammed Ali moment.

He tells Jesus about them trying to stop a successful, non-disciple demon punter.

Jimbo and he ask Jesus if they can call down fire on a Samaritan village.

Along the way, he sees and hears Jesus give interviews to other disciple applicants.

This possibly sixteen years old young man, I cannot call him a boy for his own people would not unless they were trying to insult him, is one of Jesus’ “inner circle.”  He’s the elite of the elite twelve.  Only Simon, James and John are singled out for many of Jesus’ miracles and praying moments.  Quite the honor considering his age and the stature of the men around him.  Did it go to his head?  Jesus refers to the sons of Zebedee as Boanerges, the Sons of Thunder, Bene reghesh, sons of rage, sons of tumult.  Cool nickname.  If Jesus were a biker, he’d have something like seventy-two bikes in trail, a bevy of biker babes, his twelve immortals and his captains, Rock and the Sons of Thunder.  Let’s ride! 

But Jesus wasn’t a biker.  He wasn’t a son of anarchy.  He was the Son of Man, the Son of God, a shepherd, gently leading this teenager to true greatness.  A teacher who sometimes cried out, “O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you and bear with you?”

So what was Johnny like?  This inner circle disciple captain.  This one of three men who Jesus allowed closer than any.  Brash?  Brazen?  He and his brother ask to sit on Jesus’ right and left when he comes into his kingdom.  Take that Rock!  Vengeful, power mad?  Calling down fire on a village that denies hospitality to them?  Yeah, I’d say so.  Jealous?  Denominational?  Trying to constantly one up Pete and the others.  Trying to stop a man with a successful ministry in Jesus’ name just “because he does not follow with us.”  Safe bet.  Deaf?  Obstinate?  Jesus tells him over and over what it takes to be greatest in the kingdom.  What kind of kingdom he’s setting up.  What it costs to follow him.  What “drinking his cup and being baptized with his baptism” will mean and he still doesn’t get it.  This is not some outsider atheist.  This is Jesus’ friend!  The “disciple whom Jesus loved”!  But for all his boldness, all his big talk, there’s a timidity, a shyness that might betray his tender age.  He does not try and walk on the water.  He falls uncharacteristically silent when Jesus is angry.  He is the first to the tomb but the second to enter.  He is the first to recognize Jesus from the boat after the resurrection but Pete jumps into the water alone.  Hypocritical, hyper-critical, power-hungry John. 

But Jesus…  “43 And all were astonished at the majesty of God.  But while they were all marveling at everything he was doing, Jesus said to his disciples, 44 “Let these words sink into your ears: The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men.” 45 But they did not understand this saying, and it was concealed from them, so that they might not perceive it.” (Luke 9)  Then Jesus dies, just as he said he would.  John is possibly the only disciple to see it.  To stand at the foot of the cross.  To see his own dreams shattered, beaten, bloody and nailed, to watch them die, horribly, painfully, oozing out one drop at a time.  There would be no kingdom.  There would be no places of honor.  He wasn’t a captain leading a revolution now.  He was a fugitive in the mop up of an insurgency.  Days later, hiding behind locked doors, a wanted man.  No longer proud.  No longer boastful.  The thunder had faded, the tumult had passed and a new day had dawned. 

But Jesus… rose.  “25 “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. 26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” (John 14)  I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, people don’t get better, they get worse…. But Jesus!  Without grace our whims become desires and our desires, lusts.  Without grace there is no check on our selfishness.  Without grace there is no force in the universe countering entropy.  Grace is the seed.  Grace is the rain.  Grace is the sunlight.  Grace is the plow, sower, the reaper.  Without grace, dust you are and to dust you return.  But Jesus! 

Johnny does die at the cross!  John the Revelator is born!  Three gospels strive to tell us what happened in Jesus’ life.  John’s agonizes over Why!  Three gospels talk of the kingdom.  John’s hunger for the kingdom died at the cross, now he speaks of Life!  Light!  Love!  Three gospels speak of a man who was the Son of God.  John speaks of God who became a man!  The disciple who wanted a place on Jesus’ throne never again refers to himself at all.  Johnny who personified “live fast, die young,” outlives all the apostles and sees heaven personally before it’s over.  John who spoke like thunder and tumult, “47 But Jesus, knowing the reasoning of their hearts, took a child and put him by his side 48 and said to them, “Whoever receives this child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me. For he who is least among you all is the one who is great.” (Luke 9) turns into John who says, “Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.”  Amen Johnny, amen.

Seven...

i had a nightmare that i'd died and gone to hell.

Then i realized that i wasn't even asleep,

i was just plumbing.