The Lamb

 

“Now before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour had come that He would depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.” John 13:1.

 

The first image we have of Jesus in the Upper Room is that of knowing and loving; He was knowing that “His hour had come” and He was loving “His own.” The words “that He would depart out of the world to the Father” seem to be an understatement, in that the avenue of His departure would be betrayal and crucifixion.

 

It was Passover and He was the Passover Lamb. All week Jerusalem was proclaiming, “It is Passover!” Visitors to Jerusalem filled the streets, the atmosphere charged with anticipation, the priesthood and its supporting players geared up for the great event, the merchants catering to the wants and needs of the observant, the motels overflowing.

 

There were many lambs in and around Jerusalem that week, but only one Lamb of God. Did anyone recognize Him? How many people passed Him by that week, giving Him no notice? What about those who, on what we call Palm Sunday, welcomed Him with shouts and rejoicing and the red carpet? What did they see that day? What did they think of Him throughout the week, if they thought of Him at all?

 

Consider that the red carpet of Palm Sunday will turn into the Way of Sorrow within hours of the supper of John 13 – much can change within a week. One day Jesus is welcomed into the city, another day He is pushed out of the city to Golgotha. One day the crowds are shouting, “Hosanna!”, another day, “Crucify Him!”

 

Are we any different than the crowds? Is the professing church any different today than the scribes and Pharisees and religious crowds of two thousand years ago?

 

In the first chapter of John’s Gospel, John the Baptist cries, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29).  Then the following day John says it again, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” (John 1:36). What kind of language is this? It must be figurative…or was it? Certainly it is figurative, how could it be otherwise? How could a man be a lamb? How could a lamb be a man?

 

How could anyone or anything take away the sin of the world? Why if a man cannot take away his own sin, try as he might, how can we contemplate one person taking away the sin of the world?

 

But if, but if, John’s cry is true in a sense other than figurative, then we have the unthinkable, for against the backdrop of the Torah, in the context of the sacrificial system of the Mosaic priesthood…lambs are sacrificed, lambs are slaughtered, blood is shed – most especially at Passover when every household offers a lamb and feeds on it. A lamb, until it is sacrificed, is but a lamb – but once it is sacrificed at Passover it becomes something else…something that we can experience but not comprehensively define…much like the Lord’s Table – and since holy Communion subsumes Passover and transposes it upward into the heavens, we should not be surprised at our inability to partake of Him but not explain Him.

 

After all, the Tabernacle and its offerings were reflections of realities in the heavens, they were “a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, just was Moses was warned by God when he was about to erect the tabernacle; for ‘See,’ He says, ‘that you make all things according to the pattern which was shown you on the mountain’” (Hebrews 8:5).

 

Passover requires a lamb, and the Lamb requires a Passover. But which Passover will it be?

 

I wonder if we have not reduced the forgiveness of sins to a transaction in which we say a few words and get on with our lives? Have we depersonalized the holy Lamb of God?

 

In the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in the Gospel of John, Jesus goes up to Jerusalem for the Passover, during which He says, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19). People did not understand that “He was speaking of the temple of His body” (John 2:21). Do we understand Him today? Have we packaged and marketed Jesus into our culture wars and worldviews and religious self-righteousness to the point where we no longer understand Him any more than the Pharisees of His time understood the Law of Moses and the prophets of God, anymore than they understood the Scriptures which testified of Him – the Lamb? (John 5:39).

 

When Jesus was twelve years old, He went with His family to Passover in Jerusalem. His parents, thinking He was with others in their group – a group that must have been large – left Jerusalem without Him. When they couldn’t find Him they returned to Jerusalem and after three days found Him in the temple, “sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard Him were amazed at Hus understanding and His answers” (Luke 2:46 – 47).

 

How many times do we go to Jerusalem and leave without Jesus? How many Sundays do we “attend church” but do not attend to Jesus? How many times is He not with us, but unlike Joseph and Mary, we don’t even know it – so accustomed are we to living without His Presence?

 

Consider Jesus’ words to Joseph and Mary, “Why is it that you were looking for Me? Did you not know that I had to be in My Father’s house?” Or, as the NASB margin tells us, literally “in the things of My Father.”

 

What about us? Are we so distracted by headlines and culture wars and the values of the present age that we can’t imagine devotion to the affairs of the Father? Are we so enamored with our own tribe within the Kingdom that we insist that the King and His Kingdom must center around us, and the further we get from Him and the New Jerusalem the more natural this thinking becomes?

 

How likely are we to wash the feet of those around us, just as Jesus did in the Upper Room at that ultimate Passover in John Chapter 13?

 

When Jesus was twelve and in Jerusalem at the Passover, He was there under the shadow of the Passover of Holy Week, a week yet to come. There was the Lamb in the temple, speaking with the teachers. The Lamb would be back, and back, and back again – until on one Passover, a Passover declared in eternity past, He would be sacrificed on the altar of the Cross for the sins of the world. The Lamb would be both our High Priest and Sacrifice and the veil of the temple would be torn in two, from top to bottom – making the way into intimate fellowship with God open for us all, for truly the Lamb of God was taking away the sin of the world (see Hebrews 10:19 – 22).

 

 I wonder how often Jesus walked by the building with the Upper Room during His visits to Jerusalem and thought, “One day I will be up there, in that room, with My disciples…one day My hour will fully come.”

 

Well, to be sure, “departing out of this world to the Father” begins, in a sense, in the Upper Room for us – what began in John Chapter One takes on a new character in John chapters 13 – 17 as we learn to “follow the Lamb wherever He goes,” having His name and the Father’s name written on our foreheads, written in our minds and hearts and in our souls (Rev. 14:1 – 5; 3:12).

 

Are we beholding the Lamb today?

An Inclusio of Identity

 

“Now before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour had come that He would depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. During supper, the devil having already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, to betray Him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come forth from God and was going back to God, got up from supper, and laid aside His garments, and taking a towel, He girded Himself.” (John 13:1 – 4).

 

“I came forth from the Father and have come into the world; I am leaving the world again and going to the Father.” (John 16:28).

 

Can we see the story? Can we see the scene? Do we breathe the atmosphere?

 

John gives us an inclusio to bracket this most holy invitation of entering into the Koinonia of the Trinity, we find the first bracket and sign in 13:1 – 4, the enclosing bracket in 16:28. But then, he extends the theme into the Holy of Holies of Chapter 17:

 

“I am no longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to You.” (John 17:11a).

 

This begins and is completed in Jesus Christ; if we fully enter into the Upper Room we will find ourselves before the foundation of the world, in the Incarnation, and in the transcendence of koinonia with the Triune God. We will see the unfolding of John12:24, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”

 

In John 13:1 – 4 we see that Jesus Christ was living deep in His union with the Father, “that He had come forth from God and was going back to God.” Then in 16:28 Jesus articulates this reality to His disciples, “I came forth from the Father and have come into the world; I am leaving the world again and going to the Father.” Here is our inclusio in terms of Jesus’s words and actions toward His disciples in the Upper Room.

 

Then in Chapter 17 the veil is drawn further back and we see and hear Jesus in intimacy with the Father, and in this Holy of Holies we hear Jesus say, “I am no longer in the world…and I come to You.”

 

First Jesus speaks to the disciples, then Jesus speaks to the Father.

 

Do we see that Jesus confers His identity upon us? Do we see that Jesus invites us into koinonia with the Father? This comes out again and again in wave after wave as we meditate on John chapters 13 – 17. Do we also see that just as Jesus is not of the world, so we are not of the world?

 

“If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world…” (John 15:19). “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” (John 17:16).

 

As we ponder this, it is little wonder that in his first letter John writes, “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.” (1 John 2:15 – 17).

 

Our propensity is to make exceptions to all of this, to find an element of the present world system to love, and hence to deny our core identity in Jesus Christ, to deny that in Christ we have come from the Father and are going to the Father. We have come from the Father in that we have been born of the Holy Spirit (John 3:1 – 21; Romans 8; 1 John 4:4, 13), and we are going to the Father in that seeing the Face of God is our destiny in Christ (Revelation chapters 21 – 22).

 

Consider that we are not called to accommodate ourselves to the world, but to overcome the world:

 

“For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world – our faith. Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” (1 John 5:4 – 5).

 

But is this really the way we think of the world system? Is this the way we think of our relationship with the cultures around us?

 

Our entertainment? Our politics? Our economics? Our vocations? Our education systems? Our sports? Our arts? Our church gatherings?

 

Are we living as citizens of heaven? (Phil. 3:20).

 

What exceptions have we carved out in our personal, professional, and church lives?

 

What can we learn from the Inclusio of Identity in John 13:1 – 4 and 16:28?

Fawns Are Obedient Unto Death

My friend George Bowers, pastor of Antioch Church in Woodstock, VA, writes a weekly column for the Northern Virginia Daily. Here is a piece from a week ago, shared with his blessings and permission.

Bob

 

It’s time to make hay while the sun shines! These warm June days are filled with haymaking for farmers all around our valley as evidenced by giant green marshmallows and smaller green cubes peppered throughout the fields.

 

One of the hazards farmers face in mowing hay this time of year is the possibility of inadvertently hurting or killing young fawns. Every spring, some of these baby whitetails are unintentionally harmed as farmers harvest their forage to feed our future steaks and burgers.

 

 Why don’t these fawns scamper off when they hear the machinery approaching? Because their mothers placed them there. These newborns have no scent and make no noise, so they are virtually undetectable by coyotes and other predators shopping for dinner. When the doe plants her fawn in the tall grass, she can enjoy her own lunch with reasonable assurance her young’n is safe.

 

 This strategy wired into doe and fawn by their Creator is normally very successful in protecting the defenseless youngsters. Even when predators stroll nearby, as long as the fawns lay completely still, their spotted brown camo prevents potential disaster.

 

When the Israelites were trapped between the Red Sea and the Egyptian Army, Moses told them in Exodus 14:13 to stand still and see the salvation of the Lord! Standing still is often the most difficult strategy since most of us like to devise our own methods of escape. Instead of relying on God’s plan, we concoct our own plans that usually lead to pain.

 

 Except for the occasional Haybine or sickle bar, God’s plan for fawns works exceptionally well. Their discipline to remain completely motionless even when they have to be bursting with fear is amazing.

 

Although this effective response is likely due to instinct rather than the doe’s instruction, it can certainly instruct us. Those little fawns trust their mothers so much that they are obedient even unto death.

 

 How often we fail to trust our Heavenly Father. We commit to obeying Him and to resting in His care. We promise to submit fully to His leadership while testifying of His infinite wisdom and power. Then, at the first sign of trouble, we spring up and run like a scared rabbit thinking God has somehow failed or forgotten us.

 

Ultimately, God is much wiser than any animal or human. His ways are higher than our ways and beyond our understanding. Instead of human reason, obedience requires faith and trust, sometimes even in spite of what appears to be impending danger. Even then, God’s plan is always best.

 

Paul tells us in Philippians 2:8 that “[Jesus] humbled Himself and became obedient to death — even death on a cross!” Resisting the temptation to flee the Garden or run from Golgotha, He submitted to God’s plan, allowed Himself to be arrested, tortured, and crucified that we might be saved. Instead of jumping up and running away as death approached, He remained faithful.

 

 Later in the New Testament, we read about Stephen who was also obedient unto death as well as James the Apostle. Peter, Paul, and many others were certainly willing to die if necessary. Eventually many of those early believers resisted the urge to abandon God’s clear directives and paid for it with their lives.

 

Still today, Christians in Nigeria, North Korea, Afghanistan, Somalia, and many other countries display the same faithfulness of our valley fawns by remaining obedient even unto death. Like Jesus, Stephen, and all the others, they know that to perish obeying Christ is eternally better than surviving by disobeying Him.

 

Thankfully, most Christians in this country don’t face the threat of martyrdom. Nevertheless, we are challenged by social and cultural pressures which tempt us to bolt from Biblical standards and God’s morality. May we learn a lesson from these tender fawns and remain obedient to Jesus and His Word, even unto death. Blessings, George

O Oswald!

 

Sometime around 1976 I was driving through a small town, if it could be called a town, by the name of Intercession City, FL. I say, if it could be called a town, for I recall it as simply a few streets, and those streets with few houses and those houses with few people. One of those few people was Mildred Norbeck, more correctly, Sister Mildred Norbeck.

 

I had occasion to meet Sister Norbeck because I had occasion to drive my car to Intercession City, and once there I had occasion to drive to Sister Norbeck’s domicile, where I had occasion to park my car, get out of my car, and then knock on her door. For her part, Sister Norbeck had occasion to be home that day, not taking a nap at the time I knocked on her door, and consequently she had occasion to open the door and greet me.

 

We are told, by those who tell us they know such things, that Paul’s New Testament letters were “occasional” letters. Now to those of us with good sense, we might naturally think that they were “occasional” because Paul didn’t write that often, that is, we might think that Paul wrote letters only occasionally. This is along the line of me only occasionally sending a card or note to people I think about and tell myself, “You really should send them a card to tell them how much they mean to you.”

 

But those who tell us they know such things tell us that we are mistaken if we think Paul’s occasional letters were such because he seldom wrote, they will tell us that Paul wrote his New Testament letters because occasions arose in which he had to write; occasions which required that he encourage, scold, correct, warn, and articulate the sound teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

This being the case, those of us with good sense ought to possess enough good sense to pay attention to the occasions of our lives, for God meets us not occasionally – as in rarely or not often – but rather in the daily occasions of our lives and those of us who pay attention to our occasions throughout the day will be those who have koinonia with God throughout the day.

 

Do we not have an irony here? To pay attention to our occasions is to have continuity and fellowship with God and man – for we do not occasionally have occasions, occasions come to knock on our doors throughout the day and, if we are not taking naps and if we will answer our doors – well now, we will find Jesus coming to us.

 

Or, as in my visit to Intercession City, I knocked on the door and Jesus answered it. Sometimes we knock on doors and sometimes we answer doors, I do not understand this mystery and will look to those who know such things to explain it to me. In the meantime, let us not despise occasions for without them we would not have a good part of the New Testament, nor would we daily meet Jesus.

 

During my visit to Sister Norbeck I learned that she was a retired missionary, living among other retired missionaries, all of whom were associated with the Wesleyan Methodist Church. Intercession City had once been a thriving center of revival and Bible training and…of course…intercession. Despite its rundown appearance, Intercession City was still thriving the day of my visit, thriving in the sense that eternal springs were living in Mildred Norbeck and her neighbors, intercessions were still being offered for God’s People and mankind. Had Sister Norbeck and her friends been there in Ponce de Leon’s time perhaps he would have discovered the true Fountain of Youth.

 

Mildred was thin, a whisp of a woman, soft spoken, with a light in her eyes. She had a presence about her and within her, and to connect with her was to touch the “communion of saints” spanning ages and generations. My spirit was stirred and my heart was encouraged by Sister Norbeck on a day in which I needed uplifting, in a season in which I needed a renewed sense of God’s love.  I did not know that Jesus was going to answer my knock on her door.

 

As my visit was concluding and I was saying my goodbyes at her door, she asked, “Do you have a copy of Chambers?”

 

“No,” I replied.

 

“Just a moment,” she said. She went to a bookshelf and returned with a familiar 4” x 7” brown volume. Handing it to me she said, “Please, let me give you this.”

 

Opening the volume, just inside the cover, was her name, Mildred Norbeck.

 

That copy of My Utmost for His Highest remained with me until two years ago, when I gave it away, along with boxes of books, to a pastor who was starting a library in his church. I still have a copy of “Chambers,” given to me by a friend with an inscription to me in it, dated June 2, 1994.

 

When I was 16 years old George Will, an older student at Bible College, gave me my first copy of Chambers. Mildred Norbeck gave me my second copy. Buddy Childress gave me my third copy. George, Mildred, and Buddy are saints that have touched me and others – each influencing my life. While Mildred’s influence would seem to have been brief, the fact that I am writing about her almost 50 years since my occasional visit indicates otherwise – for I have never forgotten her nor Intercession City, to have touched Mildred was to touch the transcendent in Jesus Christ.

 

I titled this piece, “O Oswald!” because I intended to write about Oswald Chambers and the disconnect between Chambers and much of what passes for Christianity today, instead I have written about Mildred Norbeck. But perhaps I have written about Chambers, for Chambers came to me through first George Will, and then Mildred Norbeck, and later still through Buddy Childress – and through Chambers came the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ. Chambers has been a companion of mine since I first opened My Utmost for His Highest in 1966, and meeting Sister Norbeck was to meet not only another friend of Oswald’s, but more importantly, it was to meet another friend of Jesus Christ’s.

 

We just never know what an occasion will hold for us…we just never know.

 

What occasions might be in your future today?

Thoughts On Preaching From David Palmer

 This is continued from the previous two posts and is the conclusion of David's thoughts:

The seven questions I ask along the preaching preparation journey:

1.      “Who is the Lord revealing himself to be in this passage?”

2.      “What does He require of me individually and of us as a church?”

3.      “What is the canonical contribution of this passage of Scripture?” 

4.      “Why do I need to pay attention right now?” 

5.      “What am I preaching about?”

6.      “How will the Devil be defeated by this sermon?” 

7.      “What is Christ calling me, and us, to do in this text?”

Preaching is the hardest, most humbling, and most rewarding experience in my life with Christ.  It usually takes me twelve to fifteen hours to prepare for a thirty-minute sermon.

Thoughts on Preaching from David Palmer (2)

This is continued from our previous post: 

6.       Make sure that you can answer in one sentence this question: “What am I preaching about?”  This is harder than it seems.  If you are not absolutely clear about this, then your hearers have no chance.  You cannot preach two sermons at the same time.  You should be able to give one sentence with a subject and a predicate.  It should be closely connected with your passage.  I usually am able to articulate this sentence about half way through my preparation and then it guides how I structure the sermon. 

7.       About three quarters of the way through my preparation, I am ready to ask this important question: “How will the Devil be defeated by this sermon?”  I have enough exegetical content in my blood and have waved the sword in my study so that I am ready for battle.  The battle is between you as the representative of Christ and “the strong man” who struts confidently around Christ’s people trying to keep them under guard and in the grip of lies.  The battle is not between the preacher and the congregation!  Asking this question will keep you from being too nice in the sermon.  People are living out of lies that hurt them and those around them.  The Word of Christ comes to set them free.  This is often unexpressed directly when preaching, but you must be conscious of the fact that you are seeking to take enemy territory in every message.  This will give you urgency as you preach Christ.

8.       I don’t mind the word “application”, but I find it too tame.  The sermon is not a moral lesson to be applied.  It is a call to action.  This takes prayer and knowing your people to call them forward concretely unto what Paul calls the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among the nations (Romans 1:5). “What is Christ calling me, and then us, to do in this text?”

 9.        Illustrations should advance not decorate the sermon.  Don’t let a good story overtake the text about Christ. Be intentional in spreading your sources of illustration across the centuries, from global voices in the church, from people who are like you and those who are not.  Make sure some illustrations about yourself illustrate also where you fail.  Make sure to ask people in the congregation (and your own family) for their permission to use an illustration about them.      

10.       Never assume an overfamiliarity with the text.  Even in a passage like John 3:16, preach as though you yourself had been there.  This is communicated with the use of the present tense and the regular use of the first person “I” or “we” rather than the third person “he” or “they.”