To Glorify and Be Glorified

 

“Glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You” (John 17:1).

 

As we enter into the Holy of Holies we encounter the glory of God, a glory that flows from the Father to the Son to the Spirit, from the Spirt to the Son to the Father; indeed it flows within the mysterious Godhead in Divine Oneness and Unity and Koinonia – beyond what we can understand, but not beyond what we can touch and in which we may participate. Indeed, this is our destiny in Jesus Christ. We will have occasion to touch on “glory” more than once in the Holy of Holies – see for example 17:22 – 24.

 

“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” (12:23).

 

“Father, glorify Your name” (12:28).

 

“I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again” (12:28).

 

The Name (Nature, Essence) of the Father is glorified in the Son, and the Name of the Son is glorified in the Father.

 

The Son’s glorification of the Father is found in the Son giving eternal life to those whom the Father has given Him:

 

“Even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life” (17:2).

 

Here is a thread of the tapestry of the Holy of Holies, that of the Father giving men and women and young people to the Son:

 

“I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave me out of the world” (17:6).

 

“Those whom You have given me” (17:9).

 

“They also, whom You have given me” (17:24).

 

The Holy of Holies, this intimate communion of the Son and the Father in John 17, includes you and it includes me, it includes us; it encompasses those whom the Father has given to Jesus, those to whom Jesus gives eternal life. This prayer is not only about the Father and the Son, it is about us in the Father and the Son and about the Son and the Father within us (17:21 – 23).

 

This is not about information my dear friends, nor is it about right doctrine (though make no mistake, what we believe is vital), it is about relationship, friendship. Sonship, intimacy, and eternal life in the Trinity and the Trinity in us. Right doctrine that does not lead to intimacy with God is amiss, it has gone awry, and we must ask whether it is truly “right” in a Biblical sense, in a holistic healthy sense. Let us not forget what Jesus says in John 5:39 and 6:63.

 

“Glorify Your Son, that the Son many glorify You,” is not only the destiny of the Firstborn Son, but it is the destiny of all the sons and daughters of God, indeed, it is the destiny of the corporate Son, the Body of Christ. We see in Hebrews 2:10 that the Father is “bringing many sons to glory” through Jesus Christ. In 2 Thessalonians 1:10 and 12 Paul writes of Jesus being “glorified in His saints” and that “the name (the Essence, the Nature) of our Lord Jesus Christ will be glorified in you, and you in Him.”

 

In Romans Chapter 8 we read of being “glorified with Him,” of the “glory that is to be revealed in us,” of the “freedom of the glory of the children of God,” and of the Father having “glorified” us. To be sure, we can only experience glory, we can only be glorified, in Jesus Christ, only in Jesus Christ.

 

If Jesus glorifies the Father by giving eternal life to those whom the Father has given Him, then ought not we also to glorify the Father by sharing eternal life with others? In fact, does not Jesus give eternal life to others through His Body, through the unity of Word and deed through His Body?

 

If you know Jesus Christ, it is because someone has prayed for you, talked to you about Jesus in some fashion, demonstrated grace and love to you, translated Scripture for you – somehow and some way the Body of Christ has communicated Jesus and His eternal life to you – you did not encounter Jesus Christ in a vacuum. Shall you and I not continue to glorify the Father by giving (in the sense of sharing) eternal life with others?

 

It is also likely that, even beyond the glorious death and resurrection of Jesus, that somewhere along our spiritual genealogies others have suffered and possibly died that we might know Jesus. People have been paying a price that we might know Jesus in generation after generation, ought not we to be a people who also pay a price for others to know Jesus?

 

The Father glorifies the Son that the Son may glorify the Father. The Son which the Father glorifies is both the Firstborn, Jesus Christ, and also His Body.

 

Has the hour arrived in our lives in which we are glorifying the Father?

 

Are we living as the sons and daughters of the Living God?

 

Are we living in John Chapter 17?

 

NOTE: The Upper Room, and especially John 17, is so foreign to our thinking and religion and experience that it can be disorienting, after all, intimacy with God and with one another is not something we are accustomed to thinking about and living within. We are accustomed to being oriented to our great ongoing need, rather than God’s grand provision and call to live as His saints today, sharing the Life of the Trinity with others. The Gospel is truly “Good News,” if we will only believe it. I hope you will read and reread and reread the Upper Room (John chapters 13 – 17), and that you will especially meditate on John 17 and allow your Father to draw you into His Presence. As you learn to live within John 17, you will hopefully know the joy of inviting others to come along with you.

 

Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship Part II – Reflections (15)

 

 

As Bonhoeffer concludes his chapter on the Body of Christ, he tells us that the Body is the fulfillment of prophecy concerning the temple of God in the Old Testament. The promise that God gave to David, that David would have a son who would build God a house, was fulfilled only as shadow in Solomon, but truly fulfilled in Jesus Christ. The true temple is to be found in Jesus. “The temple which the Jewish people expect is the body of Christ. The temple of the Old Testament is merely a shadow of the body of Christ (Col. 2:17; Heb. 10:1; 8:5)” (page 204).

 

“In this house God truly dwells, as does the new humanity, the church-community of Christ” (page 204).

 

As always, Bonhoeffer looks to Scripture for his vision and teaching. On page 205 he cites 1 Peter 2:5ff, Ephesians 2:20 – 21; 1 Corinthians 3:11,16; 6:19; Revelation 21:22.

 

“In whom [Jesus Christ] the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit” (Eph. 2:20 – 21; see also Eph. 4:16).

 

Note that leading up to Ephesians 2:20 – 21, Paul makes it clear that there is now “one new man” in Christ, that Jew and Gentile have been made one in Christ. One new man, one Body, one Temple. This theme is carried into chapters 3 and 4, and how we can miss it is a mystery to me. The idea that God wants to build again what He has brought to an end by establishing another physical temple not only has no basis in the Bible, it blinds us to the glorious reality of our One New Man in Christ, and of our calling to be God’s Presence in the earth today.

 

As Paul writes, “The Jerusalem above is free; she is our mother” (Gal. 4:26).

 

I have watched, more than once, people in Sunday school and small group studies read Ephesians 2:11 – 22 and it never occur to them what they are reading. They never question whether what they believe about a physical temple being rebuilt and even animal sacrifices being reinstituted might be terribly amiss. They never see the contradiction between the Bible and the idea that God somehow has two distinct people groups with two distinct purposes and destinies. They never see that God has made us all One in Christ, that Christ “broke down the barrier of the dividing wall” (Eph. 2:14).

 

This is a particularly American blind spot, with vestiges in the UK, but Americans can generally take credit for this distraction which diverts us from Jesus Christ and our calling and identity in Him.

 

While Bonhoeffer did not address this distraction, it is likely because it was not an issue in Germany, in Europe, or in the Anglo – American circles with which he was associated. It was not the full – blown religious industry it is today, raking in its millions of dollars.

 

I am bringing this to our attention because it is likely that many readers have never critically thought about what the Bible really teaches about the One People of God in Christ, the One Body of Christ. If we believe what Bonhoeffer writes, which is based on Jesus Christ and Scripture, then we ought to be honest enough to realize that most of what passes for “end times” teaching is without foundation in Christ and the Bible.

 

“You also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Pt. 2:5).

 

“The temple of God is the holy church-community in Jesus Christ. The body of Christ is the living temple of God and of the new humanity” (page 205).

 

As we conclude Chapter 10 of Discipleship, Part II, I hope we will review and ponder what Bonhoeffer has written, for it is far and above what most of us have encountered in our lives, and it is deeply grounded in Jesus Christ and in His Word. I hope it challenges you; it most certainly challenges me.

 

If you have not yet actually read Discipleship (traditionally known as The Cost of Discipleship), I hope that you will do so. I recommend the Fortress Press reader’s edition.

 

In our next reflection in this series we’ll turn to, the Lord willing, Chapter 11, The Visible Church-Community.

 

Much love,

 

Bob

The Already, Not Yet Hour

 

“But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshippers” (John 4:23).

 

“Truly, truly I say to you, an hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live” (John 5:25).

 

Now we come to another way in which the word “hour” is used in John’s Gospel, another way in which we can understand the Divine clockwork. This way of understanding the working of our Father is vital to our participating in the Divine Nature and in His promises, for whatever is ours in eternity future, is also ours in Christ in eternity present. That is, we are called to participate now in that which we will fully experience when the fulness of time arrives. Another way to put it is that we don’t need to wait for heaven, we can experience heaven now – heaven is coming and already is.

 

In John 4, Jesus tells the woman at the well, “An hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father” (4:21). He follows it up with “An hour is coming and now is” (4:23).

 

At the time of Jesus’ encounter with the woman, Samaritan worship was still occurring in Mount Gerizim, and Jewish worship was till occurring in Jersualem, and while such worship would continue after Jesus’ death and resurrection and Pentecost, it would no longer constitute the Divine Order, as we see in Hebrews and elsewhere in the Bible. (Why, O why, do we seek to build again those things which were a shadow of the Perfect which was to come, and which is now here?)

 

Even though worship was still occurring in Jerusalem and Mount Gerizim as Jesus spoke to the woman, there was another order of worship also occurring, worship in spirit and truth, a higher worship, a more intimate worship, a heavenly koinonia – not oriented toward the external, but rather rooted in the internal and eternal.  Jesus invited the woman to experience a fountain of living water within her so that she would never thirst again.

 

An hour was coming, but the woman did not have to wait, for the coming hour had arrived for her, that which was “not yet” was “already” for her.  When we encounter Jesus Christ, eternity past and eternity future coming rushing into our lives in eternity now – we come into the fellowship of the Burning Bush, the I AM THAT I AM.

 

In John 5 Jesus focuses our attention on “the judgment” and future life and death. “For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes. For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son” (John 5:21 – 22).

 

Notice how Jesus uses the present tense. While we normally think of judgment as future, Jesus speaks of it as present. While we think of raising the dead as future, Jesus speaks of it in the present. While this is not to deny the future element of resurrection and judgment, it is to bring that which is future into the present, it is to open the portal of the future and experience eternity future within eternity present, and to see how eternity present flows into eternity future.

 

Jesus continues, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes in Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life” (John 5:24). Eternal life is a present reality for those who know the Father and the Son (John 17:3).

 

Then we have verse 25, “An hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.” Jesus continues to move our future orientation into the present, He continues to bring eternity into the “now.”

 

Even as Jesus speaks in John 5, some are hearing His Voice and others are not. Those who are hearing His voice are coming forth from the dead into eternal life, as Peter says, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God” (John 6:68 – 69).

 

In John 5:28 – 29 Jesus directs His hearers’ attention to the “not yet”: “Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.” This “hour” is decidedly in the future, as we see in 1 Corinthians Chapter 15.

 

The woman at the well, and Jesus’ audience in John 5, were invited by Jesus into the “hour which is coming and already is.” Jesus invites you and me into that same hour.

 

There are those who see John 14:3 as an hour which is coming, and only as an hour which is coming.  “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.”

 

But then we have, “Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24).

 

Now then, just where is Jesus when He prays this? We could say that He is in the Upper Room. We could say that He is in Gethsemane. Wherever we think Jesus physically is when He prays this, is He asking the Father to pick us all up and place us physically with Himself so that we might be with Him where He is?

 

Of course not. Jesus is praying that we might be where He is in His relationship with the Father, He is praying that we might be in the koinonia of the Trinity. Now then, each one of us has a unique place in this fellowship, a “place that Jesus has prepared for us” as His Body, as His Temple. As we have seen in the Upper Room, Jesus comes and He goes, we see Him and then we don’t, and then we see Him again.

 

Jesus “comes again” to us, most especially after His resurrection, and He receives us to Himself in His Body, His Temple, His Church, His Bride.

 

This way of thinking and seeing and experiencing is found throughout Scripture. For example, in 1 Peter 1:1 – 9 we see elements of our salvation in eternity past, eternity present, and in eternity future. The same is true for Ephesians 1:1 – 12. As we worship the Father in spirit and in truth we can learn to live in the I AM THAT I AM, and what may seem strange or even uncomfortable to us now, may come to be our natural way of living.

 

I’ll close this reflection by suggesting that the overcomer passages in Revelation chapters 2 and 3 are an opportunity to experience the “already – not yet,” the “an hour is coming and now is.”

 

For example, in Revelation 2:7 Jesus says, “To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God.” This is a wonderful promise and expectation for us in Christ, and we look forward to its full manifestation as seen in Revelation chapters 21 and 22.  Yet, we need not wait to eat from the Tree of Life, in fact, we overcome as we eat from the Tree of Life as our way of life, for Jesus Christ is the Tree of Life, He is our sole source of light and life.  Therefore, in the overcomer promises of Revelation we have a dynamic of “an hour is coming and now is.” How this works out in our lives is for us to learn as we worship God in spirit and in truth, as individuals and as His People.

 

 

The Hour Has Come

 

“Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You” (John 17:1).

 

The Upper Room begins with, “Jesus, knowing that His hour had come” (13:1). The first section of the Upper Room begins with “hour,” and the concluding section also begins with “hour.” The heavenly clockworks have a movement that resides in the depths of God, we may sense it at times, we may respond to it (and let us pray that we do), but only God knows how the hours will unfold and knows their timing.

 

“But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone” (Matt. 24:36). (I consider “nor the Son” to be an Incarnational mystery and temporal in nature, in line with the kenosis of Philippians 2:6ff. However we understand this, Jesus and the Father are One and Jesus is fully God.)

 

The Scriptures give us patterns and trajectories, they are not written to satisfy our curiosity, they are written to reveal Jesus Christ and bring us into koinonia with the Trinity and with one another.

 

John introduces us to the theme of “hour” at the wedding in Cana, “Woman, what does that have to do with us? My hour has not yet come” (John 2:4). This “hour” appears to be the hour in which Jesus is to begin working His signs of attestation and revelation which we see unfolding in John. Therefore John writes, “This beginning of His signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory, and His disciples believed in Him” (2:11).

 

In 7:30 we read, “So they were seeking to seize Him; and no man laid his hand on Him, because His hour had not yet come.” This “hour” appears to refer to His betrayal, trial, and crucifixion. I write “appears” because there may be other facets and I want to leave room for them.

 

Similarly, John writes in 8:20, “No one seized Him, because His hour had not yet come.”

 

However, the hands of Divine time change when we arrive in Jerusalem for Holy Week, and in John 12 Jesus says:

 

“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal. If anyone serves Me he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.

 

“Now My soul has become troubled; and what shall I say, ‘Father save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify Your name.”

 

“Then a voice came out of heaven: ‘I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.’” (John 12:23 – 28).

 

John 12:20 – 50 is a prelude, of course, to the Upper Room. As we ponder the above section (12:23 - 28) of this extended passage, we see a penumbra of the Upper Room.

 

Jesus speaks of His hour having come, He speaks of His death and resurrection, He says that we must lose our lives and follow Him, He tells us that we will be where He is and that if we serve Him that the Father will honor us. We see all of these elements in depth in the Upper Room. Following Him encompasses self-denial, obedience, loving as He loves, laying down our lives for others, suffering persecution, living in Divine oneness with our brothers and sisters; being where Jesus is (as I hope we are seeing and will continue to see) means being with the Father in Divine koinonia, both now and forever.  

 

We have seen these things in chapters 13 – 16, and we will continue to see them in the Holy of Holies of Chapter 17.

 

Our purpose in coming into the world is to glorify God. We fulfill this purpose only in Jesus Christ, and in Jesus Christ we experience the Cross, suffering, rejection, and resurrection. As with Jesus, we must, in Him, learn what it is to fall into the ground and die, so that others may live (2 Cor. 4:12). Jesus extends the Father’s calling to Him to all of us. “As the Father sent me, I also send you” (John 20:21).

 

We may ponder the crucifixion hours upon hours, but we must move beyond pondering and into living it out in Christ – lip service must be translated into life, the Cross must be lived. We must live in the Cross and the Cross of Christ must live in us. As we have seen in the Upper Room, Jesus says that if we follow Him we will suffer – but we will also live, O my how we will live!

 

Jesus knew when the hour had come. He knew that He had come into the world for that hour. There was an hour for Jesus to begin showing His glory and teaching and doing His signs of attestation, then there was an hour for Him to fall into the earth and die, so that you and I might live in newness of life in Him.

 

In John’s Gospel, we have an hour that begins at 2:1, and another hour that begins at 12:23.

 

As we see in 12:28 and 17:1, the purpose of the “hour” is to glorify the Father and the Son. This, my friends, is the purpose of our lives, this is why we have come into the world, to glorify God and to enter into that glory with one another – the glory that Jesus bestows on us (John 17:22).

 

O that we would see who Christ is in us, and who we are in Christ!

 

What do the hours of God look like in your life?

 

Do you sense Divine clockwork in your life? Are you living in an awareness of Psalm 139?

 

Do we know the hours of our lives?

 

There is another dimension to “hour” in the Gospel of John, and we will return to that in the next reflection the Lord willing. Can you see what that dimension is? Can you locate it in John’s Gospel?

Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship Part II – Reflections (14)

 

Let’s continue to consider what Bonhoeffer writes about what I’ll term intercessory suffering. I’ll quote Bonhoeffer from our previous reflection:

 

“Even though Jesus Christ has already accomplished all the vicarious suffering necessary for our redemption, his sufferings in the world are not finished yet. In his grace, he has left something unfinished in his suffering, which his church – community is to complete in this last period before his second coming” (page 202, italics mine).

 

We “are permitted to bear what others are spared …There is a specific amount of suffering which has been allocated to the body of Christ” (page 203).

 

In Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free, F. F. Bruce writes, “He [Paul] seems to have held that the more of these sufferings he personally absorbed, the less would remain for his follow-Christians to endure. “I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake," he writes to the Colossians, “and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church” (Colossians 1:24). To the same effect he tells his friends in Corinth that “if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation (2 Corinthians 1:6)”” (page 139).

 

Intercessory living and suffering is very much the theme of 2 Corinthians, and it is indeed the theme of Christ Jesus, in His life, His death, His resurrection, and His Presence within His Body, His Church, His Temple. The Suffering Servant of Isaiah, such as we see in 52:13 – 53:12, continues to live within His Body. If we are indeed joined to our Lord Jesus in organic unity, ought we not to expect His Nature of self-sacrifice and self-giving to live within us and through us?

 

“God so loved the world that He gave…” God gave, and God continues to give, and as He gave Jesus, so He gives us. Jesus says, “As the Father has sent Me, I also send you” (John 20:21). What is it about this we don’t understand?

 

The theme of intercessory living is found throughout the New Testament, yet we don’t see it. We read Colossians 1:24 and gloss over it. We read 2 Corinthians 4:12 and gloss over it. We read 1 John 3:16 and promptly ignore it. Galatians 2:20 might as well be written in Martian, it is so alien to us.

 

For you see my dear friends, if these passages are not realities within us and our congregations then we would be better off if they did not exist – for they represent our high calling in Jesus Christ, to know Him in the power of His resurrection and the koinonia of His suffering (Phil. 3:10) – if they did not exist we would not be guilty of rejecting them.

 

To teach a vicarious understanding of the Cross and Atonement, without teaching a corresponding vision of our life in Christ, of living and suffering with Christ, in Christ, and through Christ for the sake of others, is to present a truncated message of the Cross. The Cross is our sacramental portal into the koinonia of the Trinity, as individuals and as God’s People. To confine our teaching of the Cross to Jesus dying vicariously for us, is to teach less than what we see in Scripture. (Consider the dimensions of the Cross in Romans, especially from 5:12 – 8:39.)

 

We cannot understand the mystery of the Cross anymore than we can understand the mystery of the Trinity. We can touch the Cross and be touched by the Cross, we can live in the Cross and the Cross can live in us. As we follow on to know Jesus Christ in His depths, we will all (I do believe) have experiences and moments when we see things and hear things which we may, with Paul, term, “inexpressible words [and images and ideas], which a man is not permitted to speak.”

 

In his sermon, The Wonderful Tree, Geerhardus Vos says concerning the soul and God, “There is an inner sanctuary of communion, where all else disappears from sight, and the believer shut in with God gazes upon his loveliness, and appropriates Him, as though outside of Him nothing mattered or existed. These may be fugitive moments, and they may be rare in our experience, but we surely must know them, if God’s fruit-bearing for us is to be a reality in our lives” (Grace and Glory, page 26, italics mine).  

 

A doctrine of the Cross without the experience of the Cross, without living the Way of the Cross, is dead letter, a tragedy indeed. As Bonhoeffer has written, the Cross frees us to suffer for Christ and others, it gives us the liberty to lose our lives so that others may live.

 

In the American church, we have become so far removed from the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ, we have become so pleasure oriented and self-centered, we have so bought into individualism, that what Bonhoeffer writes, what Paul writes, and what I am writing, seems like a different Christianity, a different Gospel – why we might even say that it goes against our entire way of life of consumerism and pleasure and striving for the self.

 

Yet, I can recall as a lad hearing men and women still talk about these things, still value them, still call others to follow Jesus and respond to Him by losing their lives for His sake and the Gospel’s (Mark 8:34ff).

 

Biblical Christianity is partaking of the Divine Nature through and in Jesus Christ. Biblical Christianity is, in its essence, supernatural – it is Other than we are, or we might say that it is Other than we were, for we are being transformed into Christ’s image and we are new creations in Him. It should not surprise us if we experience things, such as suffering on behalf of others, that we cannot understand – we are learning a new Way of living in Jesus Christ and with one another.

 

We may not understand Colossians 1:24 or 2 Corinthians 4:12, but we can ask God to make them real in our lives, we can ask God to teach us to know the koinonia of the sufferings of Jesus Christ, we can ask God to teach us intercessory living and intercessory prayer, we can ask God to teach us to bear the suffering of others in our hearts and minds and souls and in the depths of our spirits. We can ask God to implant the Cross in the core of our very being. (And in our congregations!)

 

If we do these things, if we desire these things, then let us not be surprised if the Holy Spirit prays and intercedes through us “with groanings too deep for words” (Romans 8:26) for we will have crossed the divide between religion and the Kingdom, between childhood and sonship, and we will be learning to follow the Lamb wherever His goes, including to the sacrificial altar we know as the Cross.

The Already, Not Yet Hour

 

 

“But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshippers” (John 4:23).

 

“Truly, truly I say to you, an hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live” (John 5:25).

 

Now we come to another way in which the word “hour” is used in John’s Gospel, another way in which we can understand the Divine clockwork. This way of understanding the working of our Father is vital to our participating in the Divine Nature and in His promises, for whatever is ours in eternity future, is also ours in Christ in eternity present. That is, we are called to participate now in that which we will fully experience when the fulness of time arrives. Another way to put it is that we don’t need to wait for heaven, we can experience heaven now – heaven is coming and already is.

 

In John 4, Jesus tells the woman at the well, “An hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father” (4:21). He follows it up with “An hour is coming and now is” (4:23).

 

At the time of Jesus’ encounter with the woman, Samaritan worship was still occurring in Mount Gerizim, and Jewish worship was till occurring in Jersualem, and while such worship would continue after Jesus’ death and resurrection and Pentecost, it would no longer constitute the Divine Order, as we see in Hebrews and elsewhere in the Bible. (Why, O why, do we seek to build again those things which were a shadow of the Perfect which was to come, and which is now here?)

 

Even though worship was still occurring in Jerusalem and Mount Gerizim as Jesus spoke to the woman, there was another order of worship also occurring, worship in spirit and truth, a higher worship, a more intimate worship, a heavenly koinonia – not oriented toward the external, but rather rooted in the internal and eternal.  Jesus invited the woman to experience a fountain of living water within her so that she would never thirst again.

 

An hour was coming, but the woman did not have to wait, for the coming hour had arrived for her, that which was “not yet” was “already” for her.  When we encounter Jesus Christ, eternity past and eternity future coming rushing into our lives in eternity now – we come into the fellowship of the Burning Bush, the I AM THAT I AM.

 

In John 5 Jesus focuses our attention on “the judgment” and future life and death. “For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes. For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son” (John 5:21 – 22).

 

Notice how Jesus uses the present tense. While we normally think of judgment as future, Jesus speaks of it as present. While we think of raising the dead as future, Jesus speaks of it in the present. While this is not to deny the future element of resurrection and judgment, it is to bring that which is future into the present, it is to open the portal of the future and experience eternity future within eternity present, and to see how eternity present flows into eternity future.

 

Jesus continues, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes in Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life” (John 5:24). Eternal life is a present reality for those who know the Father and the Son (John 17:3).

 

Then we have verse 25, “An hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.” Jesus continues to move our future orientation into the present, He continues to bring eternity into the “now.”

 

Even as Jesus speaks in John 5, some are hearing His Voice and others are not. Those who are hearing His voice are coming forth from the dead into eternal life, as Peter says, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God” (John 6:68 – 69).

 

In John 5:28 – 29 Jesus directs His hearers’ attention to the “not yet”: “Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.” This “hour” is decidedly in the future, as we see in 1 Corinthians Chapter 15.

 

The woman at the well, and Jesus’ audience in John 5, were invited by Jesus into the “hour which is coming and already is.” Jesus invites you and me into that same hour.

 

There are those who see John 14:3 as an hour which is coming, and only as an hour which is coming.  “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.”

 

But then we have, “Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24).

 

Now then, just where is Jesus when He prays this? We could say that He is in the Upper Room. We could say that He is in Gethsemane. Wherever we think Jesus physically is when He prays this, is He asking the Father to pick us all up and place us physically with Himself so that we might be with Him where He is?

 

Of course not. Jesus is praying that we might be where He is in His relationship with the Father, He is praying that we might be in the koinonia of the Trinity. Now then, each one of us has a unique place in this fellowship, a “place that Jesus has prepared for us” as His Body, as His Temple. As we have seen in the Upper Room, Jesus comes and He goes, we see Him and then we don’t, and then we see Him again.

 

Jesus “comes again” to us, most especially after His resurrection, and He receives us to Himself in His Body, His Temple, His Church, His Bride.

 

This way of thinking and seeing and experiencing is found throughout Scripture. For example, in 1 Peter 1:1 – 9 we see elements of our salvation in eternity past, eternity present, and in eternity future. The same is true for Ephesians 1:1 – 12. As we worship the Father in spirit and in truth we can learn to live in the I AM THAT I AM, and what may seem strange or even uncomfortable to us now, may come to be our natural way of living.

 

I’ll close this reflection by suggesting that the overcomer passages in Revelation chapters 2 and 3 are an opportunity to experience the “already – not yet,” the “an hour is coming and now is.”

 

For example, in Revelation 2:7 Jesus says, “To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God.” This is a wonderful promise and expectation for us in Christ, and we look forward to its full manifestation as seen in Revelation chapters 21 and 22.  Yet, we need not wait to eat from the Tree of Life, in fact, we overcome as we eat from the Tree of Life as our way of life, for Jesus Christ is the Tree of Life, He is our sole source of light and life.  Therefore, in the overcomer promises of Revelation we have a dynamic of “an hour is coming and now is.” How this works out in our lives is for us to learn as we worship God in spirit and in truth, as individuals and as His People.

 

 

Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship Part II – Reflections (13)

 

“In the community of the crucified and transfigured body of Jesus Christ, we take part in Christ’s suffering and glory. Christ’s cross is laid upon the body of the church - community” (pp. 201 – 202).

 

Now Bonhoeffer moves into the realm of suffering for Christ, but it is not suffering in the way we typically think of it. The Biblical suffering of which he writes has two distinctive elements most of us are unfamiliar with; one is that we truly are sharing in Christ’s sufferings, the other is that we are suffering on behalf of others – that is, we are bearing the suffering of others, we are even suffering so that others may not have to suffer, as Christ suffered so that we would not have to suffer.

 

“No greater glory could Christ have granted to his own; no honor could be more astonishing for Christians than to be granted the privilege of suffering “for Christ”’ (page 202).

 

Bonhoeffer tells us that through the work of Christ we are now freed to exist for Christ “in death and suffering.” This is not what we are normally taught in church, on the radio or online, or in books. Our mentality is that we are freed to do what we want to do, to pursue a pain-free life, to accumulate pleasure upon pleasure, to get what we want and to keep what we get. We may have a bifurcation in which we subscribe to correct doctrine, in which we are expected to believe what we are taught, or at least give ascent to it, but we aren’t really expected to “take up our cross” and follow Jesus, denying ourselves, losing our lives for His sake and the Gospel’s (Mark 8:34 – 38).

 

We may admire others who suffer for Jesus, but surely that is not our calling or gift. As someone said, we judge others by their actions, and ourselves by our intentions.

 

“Even though Jesus Christ has already accomplished all the vicarious suffering necessary for our redemption, his sufferings in the world are not finished yet. In his grace, he has left something unfinished in his suffering, which his church – community is to complete in this last period before his second coming” (page 202, italics mine).

 

Bonhoeffer writes that we “are permitted to bear what others are spared” (page 203). Also, that, “There is a specific amount of suffering which has been allocated to the body of Christ” (page 203).

 

Among the passages that Bonhoeffer cites are Phil. 1:29; 2:17; Rom. 8:35ff; 1 Cor. 4:10; 5:20; 13:9; 2 Cor. 4:10 – 12; 1:5-7; 13:9; Phil. 2:17; Col. 1:24; and Gal. 6:17).

 

Consider Col. 1:24: “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body, which is the church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.”

 

“Always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death works in us, but life in you” (2 Cor. 4:10 – 12).

 

The koinonia of His sufferings (Phil. 3:10) is a deep sharing in the Cross as our Way of Life. It includes intercessory sufferings on behalf of others. When we suffer, our suffering is not solely about us, it is so that we may know Christ and bear the hurt and pain and suffering of others. “If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation” (2 Cor. 1:6).

 

We may not see or understand the particulars of our suffering, but we can be assured that it is for the glory of Christ and the blessing of others. No suffering should be wasted. All suffering can be offered up to God for His glory and the blessing of others.

 

Intercessory suffering is a prominent theme of the Bible, for our life in Christ is to be cruciform. We are positively called to suffer on behalf of others, we are called to know Him in the power of His resurrection and the koinonia of His suffering. Suffering is embedded in the call of Jesus to us (Mark 8:34 – 38).

 

Within the Body of Christ we suffer for one another. The Body of Christ suffers for the world. As the Father gave the Firstborn Son, the Father gives His corporate Son. As Christ gave His earthly body, Christ gives His entire Body.

 

“Such vicariously representative action and suffering, which is carried out by the members of the body of Christ, is itself the very life of Christ who seeks to take shape in his members (Gal. 4:19)” (page 203).

 

Of course I don’t really know, but I suspect that the New Jerusalem will be an uncomfortable place for many American Christians, for after all, the Lamb is the focal point of the City, the Lamb is the Light of the City – and it is the Lamb who was slain. The Lamb was slain for “the least of these.”

 

The Lamb will ask why we didn’t care for the least of His brethren. He will say, “But I gave you money, knowledge, the keys to medicine and education and housing, I gave you and gave you and gave you. Why didn’t you use what I gave you for others?

 

“Why didn’t you care for the alien seeking safety and food and care for his family? Why didn’t you care for the children born in your own country, just a few miles from where you lived? Why did you isolate the widows and widowers?”

 

Perhaps most telling of all is when He asks, “Why didn’t you join Me in my sufferings for others? Why wasn’t your heart joined to Mine? Why hasn’t your heart been breaking so that others may be comforted? Why did you enter into this great City more of a stranger than as a son or daughter of our Father?”

 

Well, again, I don’t really know about these things, and yet I do. For we will be held accountable, O yes, we will. Matthew 25:31 – 46; 1 Cor. 3:10 – 15; 2 Cor. 5:9 – 10.

 

If we are not bearing the brand-marks of Jesus (Gal. 6:17), if the Cross is not planted deep within us and emanating from us, if our lives are not formed by the suffering Lamb of God, then what do we really have?

 

We may talk about the Cross, sing about the Cross (though not as in previous generations), we may have crosses and crucifixes hanging in our churches and homes, we may have finely-tuned doctrines of the Cross embedded in our confessions and catechisms, but if the Cross is not our Way of Life, if we are not suffering on behalf of others – as individuals, as congregations, and as movements (if we must have movements) – then something is amiss.

 

The Cross is not only a stumbling block to the world, it is a stumbling block to the professing church (1 Cor. 1:17 – 31; Gal. 2:20; 5:11; 6:14).

 

Peter sought to spare Jesus from the Cross (Mt. 16:21 – 23; Jn. 18:10 – 11). In Matthew Jesus rebuked him with the words, “Get behind Me, Satan!” When pastors and teachers and churches spare us from the Cross, they are not helping us, they are not representing the Way of Jesus Christ.

 

Is the Cross simply something outside us, an external object which we have not touched, and which has not touched us? Or is the Cross of Christ living in the depths of our souls, is it the center of life, the source of life, and is sharing it the object and mission of life?

 

Are we following the Lamb wherever He leads us?

 

I will, the Lord willing, share more on suffering on behalf of others in our next reflection in this series.

Lifting Up His Eyes

 

 

“Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, ‘Father, the hour has come, glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You’” (John 17:1).

 

There are cultures in which eye contact is frowned upon. There are societies in which the socially inferior avert their gaze from their superiors. Even within the United States, there are some regions in which eye contact is more freely given and received than others, if not because of social convention, then because of wanting to avoid social contact.

 

When I am shopping I often see cashiers and other retail employees avoid eye contact, they are usually much younger than I am, and I suppose that this is a result of more screen time than people time, in other words they are more comfortable with blue light than natural light, with Facetime than actual faces.

 

There are two types of people who walk for exercise in our community, those who acknowledge others and those who don’t, I guess they pretend not to see you, kind of like a toddler’s game of “peek-a-boo.” People of all ages make up these two groups, the young, middle aged, and the old. This reminds me of the office building in which I worked before retirement. I made it a point to greet everyone I saw in the halls and lobbies, and it amused me how many simply ignored me.

 

We have a neighbor who is about to go into the 4^th grade who doesn’t know a stranger. He is good at making eye contact. This is likely due to his parents and grandparents and aunts and others spending time with him, talking to him, doing a range of activities with him. If we are spending our days with the Father, ought we not to lift up our eyes to the heavens and speak with Him? Ought we not to look into the Face of Jesus, who is the Face of God, and engage in conversation, koinonia, and friendship?

 

Does not Jesus model relationship with the Father for us, so that we in turn may model relationship with Him and the Father to others?

 

Early in the earthly ministry of our Lord Jesus, He taught us to pray, and in doing so the very first words He taught us were, “Our Father” (Mt. 6:9). Throughout His time on earth Jesus spoke to us of our Father, and since His ascension He continues to do so through His apostles and other servants, through His Word, and through the Holy Spirit. Jesus has sent the Spirit of sonship to us, “By which we cry out, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Rom. 8:15).

 

Do we see Jesus lifting His eyes to the heavens?

 

Perhaps it would do us well to walk outside and gaze into the sky, to lift our eyes, and to speak to our Father, the Lord Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. Most of us are indoors people, we seldom look beyond the roofs of our homes and workplaces and the tops of our cars and trucks. We go from building to car to building to car to building in our society. Our spatial perspectives tend to be confined, and I think that contributes to our moral and spiritual perspectives being constrained; we live in aquariums and hamster and bird cages.

 

As an Easterner, I am awed when I visit the vast expanses and soaring vistas of the American West, and the older I get the longer it takes me to become acclimated to high roads and switchbacks, often without guardrails. Perhaps it also takes us awhile to accept the idea that God is truly our Father and that He wants to have an intimate relationship with us. Perhaps we struggle to believe that when Jesus teaches us to pray, “Our Father,” that He means what He teaches.

 

As we will see as we move into John 17, the love our Father has for us is without measure, we simply cannot measure it, it is beyond our comprehension, but it is not beyond our experience in Jesus Christ.

 

As we meditate on John 17:1, can we see Jesus lifting His eyes to heaven?

 

Since Jesus is always with us, He is with you right now, wherever you are. You may be in an office, a living room, a physician’s waiting room, on a train or plane, on a porch, or in a break room in a factory. Wherever you are, Jesus is with you.

 

Now then, since He is with you, can you see Him lifting His eyes to heaven to speak to His Father? Can you see Him doing this right where you are?

 

Can you see Him inviting you to know the Father as He knows the Father? (Yes, yes, this is admittedly beyond our understanding, but it is His invitation nonetheless).

 

Can we lift our eyes to the heavens and speak just one word, just one word and allow God to take the conversation from there?

 

Can we simply say, “Father”?

 

Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship Part II – Reflections (12)

 

 

On page 201 Bonhoeffer turns our attention to Romans 12:5 and 1 Corinthians 12:12.

 

“For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another” (Rom. 12:4 – 5).

 

“For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ” (1 Cor. 12:12).

 

Each of us retains our own identity, place, and function in the Body, in fact, we find our identity as a hand, a foot, a mouth, a leg, only in the community of the Body.

 

Then Bonhoeffer looks at the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit “brings Christ to individuals (Eph. 3:17; 1 Cor. 12:3),” the Holy Spirit “builds up the church…even though in Christ the whole building is already complete (Eph. 2:22, 4:13; Col. 2:7),” He “creates community (2 Cor. 13:13) of the members of the body (Rom. 15:30, 5:5; Col. 1:8; Eph. 4:3).” The Lord is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17).”

 

The whole of Scripture forms Bonhoeffer’s vision of the Body of Christ, as it should ours. He does not view Scripture in an isolated, piecemeal fashion, but rather as a whole, and as a whole Bonhoeffer sees Christ Jesus and His Body. We will not see what Bonhoeffer sees if we do not read and meditate on Scripture. While what Bonhoeffer writes is true, and I think true beyond what we can possibly fully imagine, only the Word of Christ can sustain such a vision, only the Word can cause such a vision to grow and to live within us as our Way of Life.

 

We must be able to say as the Samaritans, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this One is indeed the Savior of the world” (John 4:42). That is, we must see and believe and accept and enter into the Word of God for ourselves. Yes, we do so in community. Yes, others help us. Yes, it may take time. Yes, we cannot do so without the Holy Spirit.

 

We may come because others have spoken to us, but we all need our “Ah ha!” moments in Jesus – and once we “see” we can tell others, not just because Bonhoeffer wrote it and we believe him, but because what Bonhoeffer wrote brought us to a place in the Christ of Scripture, in His Word, where we irresistibly see for ourselves. It is not so much that we capture Bonhoeffer’s vision, or even St. John’s vision, but that the visions of St. John and Bonhoeffer and Paul capture us.

 

As we read the Bible passages that Bonhoeffer cites, and read them we must or we are wasting our time, truly we are, let us recall his counsel on page 199, “While we are used to thinking of the church as an institution, we ought instead to think of it as a person with a body, although of course a person in a unique sense.”

 

Then at the bottom of page 201 we read:

 

“The life of the body of Christ has thus become our life. In Christ we no longer live our own lives, but Christ lives in us. The life of believers in the church - community is truly the life of Jesus Christ in them (Gal. 2:20; Rom. 8:10; 2 Cor. 13:5; 1 John 4:15).” What other passages could you add to these? I immediately think of John 15:1 – 5, 14:16 – 17, 14:23; 17:20 – 26.

 

Is this the way we think of the Church, of the Body of Christ? Do we live like this? Is this the way our congregations think? Our movements and denominations?

 

Read this quote from page 201 again, then read it again, read it out loud so as not to miss it. Is this the way I live my life? Is it the way you live your life?

 

Are we living in Divine organic unity in koinonia with the Body of Christ?

 

The Incarnation not only continues within us as individuals, but it most especially continues within us as His Body, His Temple. As Bonhoeffer writes on page 200, “Just as the fullness of the godhead became incarnate in him and dwelled in him, so are Christian believers filled with Christ (Col. 2:9; Eph. 3:19). Indeed, they themselves are that divine fullness by being his body, and yet it is Christ alone who fills all in all.”

 

While I cannot speak for Christians in other lands, in the United States professing Christians have no sense of this identity and calling. I cannot even write that we have abdicated our calling and identity, for to abdicate something means that you are aware of what you are leaving and rejecting. We are worse than Esau who sold his birthright for a stew. We are worse than the exiles who returned from Babylon with the express purpose of rebuilding the Temple, but who focused instead on building their own houses while the House of God lay waste (see the prophet Haggai), for we are rejecting Jesus Christ and our heavenly City.

 

We are selling ourselves to innumerable “lovers” while our Bridegroom waits for us, while He yearns for us, while He continues to love us, while He desires to shower us with His love and care and compassion, while He desires that we know Him intimately so that we, in turn, can bring others to Him. We make Gomer (Hosea 1:3) look like a faithful spouse.

 

In Bonhoeffer’s Germany the professing church sold itself to economics and nationalism. The poor, the widow, the orphan, the marginalized, the disabled, the defenseless, the alien, the racially “impure” were crushed – and Christians justified it, or turned their eyes elsewhere so they did not have to confront the evil; a few, such as Bonhoffer, called Christians to be faithful to Jesus Christ and to one another and to serve those in danger. They were marginalized, imprisoned, and some were executed.

 

An irony is that some in our own land have used Bonhoeffer to justify the very things he stood against, just as they use the Bible to justify their harlotries.

 

It is a tragedy that the beauty of the True Church has been desecrated by our foolishness, sectarianism, and failure to trust the Head of the Body to honor our faithfulness and obedience to Him.

 

Well, what to do?

 

All I know to do is to be faithful to Jesus and His Body as we are given grace, whether anyone sees His glorious Presence in His Temple (Ephesians 19 – 22), whether anyone is interested in Christ’s Church, which is beyond our churches. We are still called to lay down our lives for our brethren, for our brothers and sisters. We are still called to see them as Jesus Christ sees them. We are still called to declare the Name of our Father to them.

 

If Jesus came to His own and was rejected, it is no big thing if the same thing happens to us, indeed, we should reckon it an honor.

 

As I ponder Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship, popularly known as The Cost of Discipleship, I realize that most, if not all, of the quotes I have read from it over the years come from the first part, the part mainly focused on individual discipleship. Why is this?

 

Perhaps it is because we dare not take Part II seriously, the challenge is too great, the threat to our little fiefdoms too pronounced, the call onward and upward too demanding, to open the treasures of what Bonhoeffer has written.

 

Are we to live as the Presence of Christ, or not?

 

Are we to live as His Body?

 

There is but one authentic witness to the world, our love and unity in the Trinity as the Body of Christ.  (See John 13:34 – 35; 17:20 – 23).

 

Let us claim and proclaim our identity.

“Take Courage”

 

“These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

 

Jesus tells us the truth about tribulation and persecution and rejection so that we may have peace. He says these things in the context of our Father’s abiding love for us, of the Vine and the branches, of the indwelling Holy Spirit, and of His overcoming the world and the enemy.

 

“These things they will do because they have not known the Father or Me. But these things I have spoken to you, so that when their time comes, you may remember that I told you of them” (John 16:3 - 4).

 

“Now I have told you before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe” (John 14:29).

 

Jesus speaks to us of our hearts not being troubled (14:1, 27), of giving us His peace and joy and love (14:27; 15:9, 11). He speaks of the Trinty living within us (John 14:17, 23) and of us living in the Trinity (John 17:21).

 

Yet, He also tells us of persecution and rejection and the hostility of the world.

 

When we fail to teach the truth of tribulation in the world we not only fail to teach the Gospel, we fail those we call to know Jesus Christ. If we do not experience conflict with the world it is not likely we are living as disciples of Jesus Christ, for God’s ways are not the world’s ways, and when we come into conflict with the world’s ways we must be obedient to the commands and Way of Jesus Christ.

 

We fail those we call to know Jesus because we fail to inform them that they will have tribulation. We fail to teach them that, “All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12).

 

“You [spiritual] adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God” (James 4:4; see also 1 John 2:15 – 17 and our earlier reflections on John 15:18 – 16:4).

 

If we would call people as Jesus calls people (Mark 8:34 – 38), people would know what to expect for they would come into the Kingdom with a right way of thinking about life, about Christ, themselves, and the world. How foolish we are to be seeker – sensitive when we are called to be God – sensitive and to call all the world to be Christ – sensitive.

 

False teachers call us to make ourselves the center of life, Christ calls us to give our lives to Him and to others, to live as His brothers and sisters, laying down our lives for others. Christ calls us to the Cross as our Way of Life, and this Way is necessarily the Way of crucifixion and rejection…and yes…of resurrection. Football players are not surprised when they are knocked on the ground, soldiers are not surprised when they face the challenge of battle, marathon and ultra marathon runners are not surprised by the pain they must endure to finish the race – O but American Christians are surprised by the least amount of rejection or resistance or displeasure they encounter for Jesus Christ.

 

If someone at work makes a disparaging remark toward a Christian, that Christian often reacts as if he or she has faced the lions in a Roman colosseum. Why, we won’t even share Jesus lest there be a backlash, making excuse after excuse so as to avoid true identification with the crucified Lamb. We have no shame, do we?

 

Jesus gives us the assurance that in Him we can have peace. In Him! In Him! In Him! Not in “mindfulness,” not in “positive thinking,” not in “name it and claim it,” not in possessions or position or power or fame or in the esteem of the world, but in Him, in Him, in Him!

 

Jesus tells us that we can take courage for He has overcome the world. Why should we take courage in this? Because if our identity is in Jesus, if our life is in Jesus, if our hearts have been captured by an all – enveloping and all – encompassing love for Jesus Christ, then we are one with Him, we are bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh and spirit of His Spirit – and nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans 8:28 – 39).

 

Soon the eleven disciples will be cowering in the Upper Room. They will have deserted their Master. He has been betrayed by one of their own, tortured, crucified, killed, and buried. These eleven will have the door locked “for fear of the Jews [the religious leaders]”.

 

Look at the whole wide world and then look at this little Upper Room in comparison to it. This little room is nothing, these eleven men are nothing. Why these supposed friends of Jesus abandoned Him – they didn’t even attempt to care for His dead body.

 

Look at the population of the world at the time these eleven were cowering, but also consider all the people who have ever been born from the beginning until our own time – what significance can these eleven fearful men possibly have? If we were to search all humanity for eleven men to lead us, is it likely we would choose these men? Fishermen, a tax collector, an insurrectionist? What qualifications do they have? Cowardice? Unbelief? Selfishness (“we want to be first, sitting on Your right hand and on Your left”)?

 

Yet Jesus says, “Take courage; I have overcome the world.”

 

The inside of the Upper Room is greater than the outside, for the inside is a portal into the Holy of Holies, into the Presence of God the Creator of all, the Father who knows me, who knows you, who knows us (Psalm 139). Those eleven men, and others, have been chosen to lead humanity to the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ, and the names “of the twelve apostles of the Lamb” will be with us for eternity (Rev. 21:14) as foundational to that City.

 

In the midst of their fear, of the memory of their cowardice, these men can take courage; even when they have residual doubt after the resurrection, they can take courage, for Jesus is their Shepherd, and the sheep can trust the Shepherd to bring them back to Him, to call them, to love them, to protect them, and to equip them to join the Shepherd as the Lamb, to also be sacrificial lambs so that others may have life in Christ.

 

If you have never suffered for Christ, take courage. If you have never witnessed for Christ, take courage. If you have not responded to Jesus’ call of Mark 8:34 – 38 to take up your cross and follow Him, losing your life for Him and others, take courage. It is not too late for you to cry out to Jesus, asking Him to draw you to Himself, asking Him to live His life in you and through you, asking that you may be broken bread and poured out wine for others, so that they may live in Him.

 

O friends, whether we have labored in the vineyard a virtual lifetime or a matter of hours (Matthew 20:1 – 16), the Master calls us to Himself. I’ll tell you one difference between this parable and the way it is in the Kingdom, in the Kingdom those who have labored in the heat of the day rejoice when new men and women come to labor alongside them, no matter when they arrive, no matter when they arrive. A besieged army does not complain to reinforcements, instead it says, “We are thankful you are here!”

 

As you ponder the Upper Room, as you hear and see the words that Jesus speaks to us, of His love for you, His laying down His life for you, His desire for deep relationship with you – what will you do? There is yet more to come, there is the Holy of Holies of John 17, which we will enter, the Lord willing, in forthcoming reflections.

 

But let us make no mistake, there is the Cross, and the Cross must not be only external and seen in time and space; it must not only be seen as rooted in eternity – eternity past and eternity future, the Cross must be a living Presence and Reality within us, it must be our source of Light and Life, it must be the animating principle of our lives – in fact our very lives must be cruciform, shaped and molded and formed by the Cross of Jesus Christ (Galatians 2:20; 6:14).

 

Twice Peter wanted to spare Jesus from the Cross (Matthew 16:21 – 23; John 18:10 – 11). Peter would finally learn to embrace the Cross and to teach others the glory of this embrace (see the theme of 1 Peter). As we read the courageous words of Peter’s letters, let us recall that this was the same man cowering in the Upper Room.

 

Wherever you are, whether you are in your own Upper Room or on the Road to Emmaus or even on the Road to Damascus, Jesus Christ is calling you to come to Him, to be one with Him, to live in intimate friendship with Him…embracing the Cross, having courage, sharing in His ironic and irenic Resurrection Victory, and to experience the joy that can only be known in giving our lives for Him and others.

 

Wherever you are, Take Courage!