The Sanctuary Downtown / Relentless Love

Peter Hiett

Religion och spiritualitet Kristendom

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Like Father, Like Son, Like You (Is God a Monster)?
In John 5, at the Pool of Bethesda (meaning “House of Mercy”), Jesus heals one “invalid” among “a multitude of invalids,” all competing for Mercy — that is Unconditional Love. Imagine if you were one of the other invalids: You might ask, “Is God some sort of Monster?” “The Jews” — as John, the Jew, calls them — get angry, for this happened on the Sabbath. And we wonder: “Are they emotional invalids or maybe monsters?” Jesus then finds the invalid, now healed and walking in the old stone temple, and tells him to stop sinning. And He tells the Jews, “My Father has been working until now and I am working.” And they sought “all the more to kill him” because he referred to God as his own Father. It seems that they were all invalids competing for Unconditional Love, Daddy Love. Well, if God only heals some, He does seem to be rather mean, doesn’t He? And if God only saves some, blessing them with endless bliss, while damning others to endless conscious torment, doesn’t that make Him something of a monster? This is the sixth line of “The Statement of Faith” for The National Association of Evangelicals: “We believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost; they that are saved unto the resurrection of life and they that are lost unto the resurrection of damnation.” It’s a bit strange on the face of it, for it seems to be a confession of faith in the inability of, or lack of desire to, seek and save “the Lost” on the part of Jesus, who came “to seek and to save the lost.” And yet, they get this language from what Jesus says to these folks in the temple in John 5:29, according to the translators of the King James version of the Bible in 1611. “All that are in the graves shall hear his voice and come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation.” About half of the institutional church would argue that this is God’s free choice. And most of the other half would argue that this is our free choice. But either way, it would seem that God is something of a monster — endless bliss for some and endless torture for others. We watched a video of a man turning into a beast, and I said, “Imagine if that man was your father.” I’m not a healthcare professional, but I think it’s safe to say that if you only suspected that your father was a werewolf, that he had two natures, it would have a profound effect upon your daily life. You might appear to be very obedient, respectful, well-adjusted, and compliant. And yet, your heart would be emotionally isolated, trapped within a prison of fear, and unable to love. In the 2nd century, Marcion the heretic taught that the God of the Old Testament was different than that God of the New. In the 4th century, Augustine taught that God was Mercy and not Mercy, which he defined as “Justice.” In 20th century America, it became common to portray God the Father as having to kill God the Son in order to feel better about you... because God the Son is merciful, and God the Father is Just (not merciful). If you find yourself competing for Mercy, worried that God might be two instead of One, wondering if He might just be a monster or if you, a little child, had the power to turn him into a monster... you need more than conventional therapy, self-help books, practical application points, rules, or more law; you need the Gospel. In John 5:19, in the old stone temple, surrounded by spiritual invalids all competing for unconditional love, Jesus preaches the Gospel. “The Son can do nothing of himself, but only what he sees the Father doing.” Could the Son deliver himself up for crucifixion if the Father did not deliver himself up for Crucifixion? Could God the Son “will” what God the Father does not will? I don’t think so. But once in a garden, He did pray, “Not as I will, but as you will.” Perhaps He is Good will having descended into my bad will and willing what I cannot. Perhaps He actually is my righteousness. He continues, John 5:21, “For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life (That must be his judgment... Dead things don’t make judgments), so also the son gives life to whom he will. For the Father judges no one but gives all [the] judgment to the son.” “All judgment” — That’s all decisions, all choices; that’s running the universe. We like to think we have “free will” because we can move our own bag of dust, our body. But imagine if you had “free will” like God has “free will”! All creation is his bag of dust, like his body. If God the Father freely wills to give his free will to his Son, He’s hardly a stingy, self-centered father. And now listen to God the Son: “The Spirit of Truth will glorify me, for he will take what is mine (all judgment, Free Will) and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine” (John 16:14-15). Like Father, like Son, Like You, You are predestined for an entirely free will, God’s will, Love. . . and “all things with Him.” John 5:24, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life [The life of the age]. He does not come into judgment...” But what is Judgment if God and Jesus don’t judge? In John 8, Jesus says “I judge no one. Yet if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone who judge but I and the Father who sent me (That sounds like a communion of non-judgment that is “the Judgment”)...when you have lifted up the Son of Man, you will see that I Am” How could I Am that I Am “make” judgments? We make judgments in space and time. Anytime He seems to make a judgment, it’s the manifestation of the Judgment that has always been made. “This is the Judgment,” said Jesus in John 3, “The LIGHT.” “NOW is the Judgment,” said Jesus in John 12. LIGHT is eternal (A photon doesn’t experience the passage of time.) And NOW is the point in which eternity touches time, and we make judgments, or, I should say, the Eternal Judgment of God makes us. “God is Light” and “Jesus is the Light of the World,” writes John in 1 John. Jesus is the Judgment of God. John 5:24, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment but has passed from death [in] to [the] life.” If you believe, you confess that you were dead (dead things have very bad judgment.) And if you don’t believe, you are dead and trapped in Hades, for dead things can’t do anything until something is done to them. John 5:25-27, “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear (That is, the dead) will live. (That’s God’s Judgment: The dead will live. It’s the second time He’s said it). For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. And he has given him authority [poiein: to do] judgment, because he is the Son of Man.” God is his Father. Man (that’s us) is his mother. He is faith in our faithlessness, Hope in our hopelessness, Love in our lovelessness, Righteousness in our unrighteousness, Grace in our sin, Good Judgment born out of our bad judgment, and so, saving us from our invalid selves. John 5:28-29, “Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good [in] to the resurrection of life, and those who have [practiced] evil [in] to the resurrection of judgment.” “Those who have done good”: They resurrect into Life. Why? Because they have already believed, which means they’ve already been judged. To believe is to lose your life and find it in Jesus. “Those who have practiced evil”: They resurrect into Judgment. And what is the Judgment? Well, He just preached it. The dead will live. It’s the death of death which is The Life. Jesus is The Life. “I know that my Father’s commandment is eternal life,” said Jesus, the Life (John 12:50). John 5:29 is perhaps the most hopeful verse in all the Bible. Nobody gets away with anything: We must all die with Christ. And nobody misses out on anything: We must all live in Christ with God. And nobody is exactly like anybody else, for God is writing the story of His Mercy into the unique disobedience of each one of us, his vessels, his children. John 5:29 is perhaps the most hopeful verse in all the Bible, and yet when the translators of the King James Version translated the last word of John 5:29, they just changed the word “Judgment” (krisis in Greek) into “Damnation” (katakrisis in Greek). And institutions, like the National Association of Evangelicals, major seminaries, and denominations, entirely capable of understanding the Greek, have not corrected this obvious mistranslation, but instead have required conscription to this statement of faith in God’s inability, or lack of desire, to save. And so we must ask, “Why would we do such a thing?” Perhaps we are the monsters? Maybe God is not two, but one? “Hear, O Israel the Lord our God, the Lord is One.” That’s the command. “And you will Love...” That’s the Promise. Perhaps God is not two, but one. And each of us is not one, but two — a false self (an in-valid self), that listens to the father of lies and so thinks it is its own creator … and a true self, that knows he or she is the creation of God, “our Father.” Don’t listen to the dragon, for he would turn you into a monster (a man trapped in a beast). Believe the Gospel. He is the Judgment of God.
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Cultivating a Culture
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The Ever-Present Present of His Presence in Trauma
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Who Wants to be Well?
In Monte Python’s “The Life of Brian,” an ex-leper — having been healed by Jesus — plans to ask Jesus to make him a bit lame in one leg so that he can go back to begging at the city gate. Who would want to be lame? Who would ever choose a self-imposed prison of disease? As I asked these questions, I pulled a doughnut, a flask of whiskey, and a cigarette, out of my coat pocket. And I lit the cigarette. In John 5, Jesus goes up to Jerusalem for one of the pilgrim feasts. Pilgrims would take ritual baths before entering the temple to worship. By “The Sheep Gate” there was an enormous pool with five roofed porches called “Bethesda,” that is “House of Mercy.” In it lay a multitude of “invalids” (the weak), for there was a legend that the first into the pool after the water had been touched by an angel would be healed. Imagine: Hundreds of the “last and least of these” lying around this pool, just waiting to compete for mercy. The first were first and the last were last at getting into the pool of Mercy. But Mercy IS the first freely choosing to be the last, in order that another might be first. So, if you got into the pool first, it revealed that you were last at Mercy; if you won, you lost at Love, which is everything that the Law requires. And yet, if you had been first and chose to be last that another would be first, it would reveal that Mercy had miraculously bubbled up from inside of you like a fountain in a living temple. I doubt that little, if any of that, had been going on at the Pool of Bethesda. Instead, they all believed that Life was “The Survival of the Fittest” . . . not “The Sacrifice of the Fittest.” One man had been there 38 years. That’s the amount of time the Israelites wandered in the wilderness after refusing to believe the Word of God recorded in the Law (That’s the five books of Moses — five, like the five roofed porches containing the pool of mercy.) Jesus asked the man, “Do you want to be well?” How rude! Is Jesus blaming the lame? What could be more . . . lame? Jesus is not like Job’s three counselors. But maybe the man wants to be a victim? If you’re a victim, it means that you’ve done nothing wrong and someone else is wrong; you avoid blame, but you also avoid mercy. Jesus doesn’t blame the man as if he could’ve done any better. And yet, he doesn’t excuse the man as if he did not do anything wrong. In fact, in just a few verses He will say, “Sin no longer that nothing worse may befall you.” All suffering is the result of “the sin,” but suffering doesn’t pay for the sin; suffering reveals the sin and points us toward our Helper. In the garden (on the temple mount according to the Jews), Adam (mankind) couldn’t find his Helper (God alone is our “Helper [ezer]”) who was with him. So, God made two out of Adam and planted a tree in the middle of the garden. On the tree in the middle of the garden is The Good in flesh and The Life who is our Helper. The snake whispers: “Help yourself; take the fruit.” God blames us but not as if we could’ve chosen the Good (We didn’t have the “knowledge of Good and evil.”) And yet, God doesn’t excuse us as if we each didn’t actually do the evil. “He consigned all to disobedience (that’s doing the evil; that’s our choice) that He may have mercy on all” (That’s what it is to be chosen by the Good.) Jesus is our Helper. The invalid doesn’t answer Jesus’ question. Instead, he seems to make an excuse: “I have no one to help me into the pool.” Maybe he’s 40 years old? Maybe he was born without “the knowledge of Good and evil.” Maybe, around the age of two, he started taking knowledge of the Good, attempting to make himself Good, and it made him rather bad. Maybe at about five, he went to school where we all learn the first are first and the last are last. Have you ever noticed that winning a spelling bee or the hundred yard dash in school (or business, politics, and war) is what we call “cancer” in a body? Maybe this man has no idea what “well” is; maybe he’s been institutionalized. In the movie “The Shawshank Redemption,” all the prisoners are “institutionalized” except one. That one breaks into the warden’s office and plays a symphony over the prison loudspeakers. “For the briefest of moments, every last prisoner at Shawshank felt free,” says one of the old prisoners. But that’s the rub: Those who have been institutionalized by the principalities and powers don’t want to be free. They don’t want to be well, for they’ve forgotten or perhaps never known what it means to be well, or good, or alive. They do not hope. The man couldn’t choose the Good, so the Good chose him. He couldn’t choose Life and so the Life chose him, and that’s the Good. He couldn’t get to Mercy, and so Mercy got to him — and that’s the Gospel. Jesus didn’t wait for an answer; He just said, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And “at once” the man did. “So, the Jews said to the man who had been healed, ‘It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful to you to take up your bed.’” How lame is that? Do they not want to be well? It wasn’t against God’s law (The Law of Moses), but it was against their commentary on the Law, the Mishnah. That’s why I was smoking a cigarette. I wanted to break some Evangelical American Mishnah. I’m not saying that it’s good to smoke, drink whiskey, or eat doughnuts. I’m saying that there’s something far worse. And that is making laws about cigarettes, whiskey, and doughnuts and then judging yourself and your neighbor with those laws (or even God’s law). For that will trap you in a prison of self-righteousness and then debilitating shame. When we don’t want to love, we lust for law, call lawyers, and start making excuses (“It was the woman that you gave me,” says the man.) An addiction to law is utter ignorance of, and hatred for, Love. Love fulfills the Law. The Law describes Love, but God is Love. Do we want to be like God — the First who makes himself last and least and crucified on a tree? If you think that you’re a winner because you made someone else lose, you obviously don’t want to be well. And you didn’t make Jesus lose; He gave His life before you took it. Jesus found the man in the old stone temple and told him to “sin no more” (stop sinning). “And the man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who healed him. And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, ‘My Father is working until now, and I am working.’” Maybe they didn’t know, and we don’t know, what “well” is, just as they didn’t know and we don’t know what “the Sabbath” is. If God was working “until now,” then no man was “finished” (well, whole, complete) when and where Jesus spoke those words. No man is finished until he or she truly hears the Word of God on a tree in a garden, praying: “Father forgive them; they know not what they do”; then proclaiming, “It is finished”; and then delivering up His Spirit — the Spirit that falls on His living temple and fills each of us with faith, hope, and love, the Judgment, Choice, and Mercy of God. That’s the 7th sign that is also the Substance. “Destroy this temple, and I will rebuild it in three days.” And “He was speaking of the temple of his body,” where first are last and last are first; where all are humbled and exalted, for everyone is dancing; where all the work is rest. This is the House of Infinite Mercy, Bethesda. Not only does most of the institutional church (the church governed by Mishnah) not know what the Sabbath Rest of God is, they will kick you out for claiming that it exists — this Holy Place where “everything... is very good (Gen. 1:31),” and “It is finished (Gen. 2:1, John 19:30).” When Jesus finds the man in the old stone temple, He says, “Behold, you have become well. Sin no longer that nothing worse may befall you.” What sin could he have committed for 38 years as an invalid and still be committing other than trying to be Good by taking the Good, such that he could no longer receive the Good, know the Good, or want the Good who is Mercy? When we look at Him, I think He must be saying, “You are well . . . right now, when and where eternity touches time. You are right; stop trying to make yourself righteous. You are just; stop trying to justify yourself. You are good; stop trying to make yourself good and be the Good that I have made you. You are well; stop trying to make yourself well, lest you make yourself unwell and something worse may befall you.” Understand? You can only hear His voice “now” and in the inner sanctuary of the temple that is your soul. And so, you cannot live the Christian Life by “trying harder” to do so. You can only live your eternal life from the inner sanctuary as you listen to the music — the voice of the one who speaks all things into existence. He knows that part of you hasn’t wanted to be well; confess it. And He is the part of you that just confessed it and does want to be well. Thank Him for it. He wants to be Well. And “now” you’re free.
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The Seventh Sign
John wants us to count the signs. In John 4, Jesus leaves Samaria and the Samaritans who joyfully proclaim, “This is indeed the Savior of the world.” And He goes to his homeland, specifically Cana, where He performed the first sign. He goes to his homeland, for He had said, “A prophet has no honor in his homeland.” And so, “They welcomed him,” for they had seen all the signs that He had done in Jerusalem. An “official” asks Jesus to heal his son. Jesus responds, “Unless you (y’all) see signs and wonders, you will not believe.” Then, at the 7th hour, He heals the man’s son. And John writes: “This was now the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee.” John wants us to count the signs. John is clear that Jesus did numerous signs, but he has built his Gospel around seven public signs which Jesus and John exposit. In The Revelation (of Jesus to John) there are seven seals, trumpets, thunders and bowls — they aren’t called “signs,” but they do reveal things. The 7th in each series is different from the other 6, for it is the edge of eternity, the Sabbath rest of God, the endless End full 7th Day. John wants us to ask, “What is the 7th sign?” So, I googled it and found an old horror movie titled “The 7th Sign.” In the movie, Abby (played by Demi Moore) concludes that she’s rented a room to Jesus, having returned to earth as the Judgment of God and so breaking the seals and bringing about “The Apocalypse” — which includes the death of her unborn baby. So, of course, Abby stabs Jesus with a knife. Light comes out of the wound, and Jesus explains that He had once come as the Lamb, but now He had been sent as the Lion — the wrath of God. What a great movie clip for Mother’s Day! The clip contained some truth but a lot of lies. Jesus is the Lion and the Lamb. In The Revelation, John hears “The Lion has conquered,” but when he looks, he sees a Lamb standing on the throne as if it had just been slain, and every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth... starts worshiping in an unceasing symphony of praise. He’s always both. He’s always Relentless Love. How did Hollywood succeed in turning the Gospel into a horror story? I don’t think they did; they learned that from us: the institutional church. What could be a more horrifying horror story than the idea that God (whom we say is Love) will one day endlessly torture the vast majority of His own children? And yet, it is a horror story that works . . . for selling maps of the End Times — that is, knowledge of good and evil, which we can use to save ourselves from God (who alone is Savior, according to Scripture). We seek signs. And that is what John is talking about in John 4. I’ve seen some wonderful and miraculous signs, but I feel rather ambivalent about signs, for I can’t seem to control them. Jesus also seems to be rather ambivalent about signs. “An evil and adulterous generation seeks a sign...” said Jesus. Why is Jesus so ambivalent about signs? Jesus goes to his homeland where He is welcomed and dishonored. Does that make any sense to you? Have you ever been to a used car lot? Have you ever been to the grocery store with a six-year-old? “Daddy, I love you SO much... Can I have gum?” A spoiled child is a miserable child, for that child seeks signs of his father’s love but can no longer see the Love that the signs point to — the Love that makes the signs worth reading. God is a very wealthy Father. Jesus is an extremely attractive Bridegroom. I bet that Samaritan woman was pretty good looking. She had been welcomed by six men and honored by none, for none saw her heart — none, until the 7th man, Jesus. He honored her and she honored him. And yet He had done no “great works” or miraculous public signs. And “Jews aren’t welcome in Samaria.” I bet strippers and prostitutes often feel welcomed and yet dishonored. Remember when Jesus rode into Jerusalem (His Bride) and went to His Father’s house (the Temple) on Palm Sunday? He was extremely welcomed (“Hosanna! Save us!”) and dishonored. They stripped him and took his life on the tree under a sign that read: “King of the Jews.’ So, Jesus says to the official, “You will not believe unless you see a sign.” Jesus then performs the sign, and the man goes on “his way.” The 1st sign was water to wine (If I had that power, we would have no budget problems.) The 2nd sign was healing this father’s sick child (We are all children of “Our Father.”) The 3rd sign is restoring a lame man (Until each member of a body wants all members to be well, a body is lame.) The 4th sign was bread (If we simply seek the sign, we break the body; yet, Jesus still performs the sign.) The 5th sign is sight to the blind (But none are as blind as the religious leaders.) The 6th sign is Lazarus rising from the dead (But Lazarus still dies.) The 6 signs reveal that God has all power, and Jesus is that power; He is the Lion. The 7th Sign reveals that He freely chooses to lay it all down — He is the Lamb. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He is the Word of God who creates and sustains all things. And so, the 7th sign is also the Substance. It reads: “In this is Love.” In chapter 2, John revealed the 7th sign in his commentary on the 1st sign. When Jesus cleansed the temple, the Jews cried out, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” and Jesus replies, “Destroy this temple and in three days, I will raise it up.” The 7th sign is the edge of the Substance. It’s not only one man’s earthen vessel — not only one man’s body — but Christ’s body: the New Jerusalem Coming Down, the Temple of Living Stones (What we called “Thing #5” on Easter Sunday.) And how do we get there? We must lose our self-centered, frightened “psyches” and find them in the psyche of God (Jesus and the Kingdom), where everyone bleeds and none are wounded; where everyone’s judgment is the Judgement of God; where everyone loves as they have been loved, and so, none are alone. It’s already at hand, and the gates are always open, although in the darkness, we may be too terrified to look, for this is the Judgment: “The Light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the Light.” The doors are wounds on the Body of Christ. In Him is Life. Thomas asked for a sign. Jesus appeared and said, “Place your hands in my wound.” And then, “Blessed are those who haven’t seen and yet believed.” Perhaps He meant, “Thomas, it hurts me to prove my love to you, and even more, it hurts you. Happy are we when you believe, for then we have already arrived at home.” Don’t seek signs. And don’t ignore signs or try to change signs. But read the signs. It turns out that everything is a sign, and they all mean “I love you.” “Blessed are those who haven’t seen . . .” Seen what? Signs that cannot be ignored. Apparently, Jesus does not want you to believe because you have to believe, and so must confess that He exists; He wants you to believe because you hope that He exists. I watched “The 7th Sign,” amazed at how we could turn the Gospel into a horror story, but then amazed at how some folks in Hollywood, just trying to tell a story, couldn’t help but preach the Gospel. Abby gives birth during “The Apocalypse,” choosing to die for her baby, who in some weird way turns out to be Jesus, who then says to Abby: “It was you (the 7th sign is you) — one person with enough hope for an entire world.” OK . . . a little messed up in the details, but not as much as you might think. Check out Revelations 12. And Jesus is the “Son of Man” (humanity), “Christ in you” is “the Hope of Glory,” and He’s hope enough for an entire world. A mother knows her child in a way that no one else can. And this is how you will know Jesus and all things with Jesus, for all things are in Jesus. And you won’t be dead, for nothing in the Kingdom can stay dead, for it is a communion of sacrificial love in unceasing ecstatic joy, which is Eternal Life: The Life of the 7th Day. In fear, we seek signs to save ourselves from the Judgment of God; and the Judgment of God is to save us from ourselves with Himself: The Sign and the Substance. So, take that piece of broken bread, dip it in the wine, and place it in your belly. It’s a seed. Happy Mother’s Day, Bride of Christ. The 7th Sign means that God is Good, God is Life, God is creating you in His own image and will not fail. Once you’ve read the 7th Sign, you will know the meaning of all the signs, and you will embrace the Journey, for everything means “I love you.” And you will become the 7th Sign. “We love because He first loved us.” That’s not a horror story; that’s the Gospel.
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