Author: Alexander F. Venter

Live a life of love just as Jesus loved us...
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The Risen Lord Renews Our Calling, Part Two: Loving & Leading

This is the second part to my teaching  on The Risen Lord Renews Our Calling: Fishing & Feasting (see my notes). A continuation of the same post-resurrection appearance of Jesus, now focused on loving and leading (see the video teaching). John shifts the attention from Peter and the disciples fishing and feasting, to Peter’s personal renewal of calling to lead, from love, with an implied contrast to John’s calling, the beloved disciple.

Using homiletical license, we can say that Jesus, the master-psychologist:

First, recreates the scene of their first calling in Luke 5:1-11, for them to relive and renew their calling in resurrection power.

Second, recreates the meal of the Kingdom feast that he frequently enacted, breaking bread and fish – his shared life, now in resurrection power.

Third, in so doing, Jesus recreates the scene of Peter’s denial of knowing Jesus while warming himself around a fire (John 18:15-27). For emphasis, John repeats the word “warm/ing” three times along with Peter’s three denials. That incident – Peter’s guilt-ridden, pain-full memory of his threefold denial – is now reversed by Jesus as he creates a new event around a new fire, a resurrection healing memory of a threefold confession and forgiveness, affirmation and commission.

Renewal of Call to Lead by Love (John 21:15-17)

Imagine the dramatic scene. Put yourself in Peter’s sandals. He was cold after swimming to the shore. He warmed himself at the fire that Jesus had made. Then, “when they had finished eating”, he turns to address Peter. Why did he wait till after the meal to address Peter? Was he contemplating what to say? Perhaps quietly praying for Peter as he had done earlier (John 17:9,15; Luke 22:31-32)?

So, as they all sit around the fire warming themselves, Jesus asks Peter three times, “Do you love me?”, and waits for his answers. Peter must have thought, “I’ve seen this movie before!” His three answers reversed the words he spoke only two weeks earlier around the fire outside the High Priest’s courtyard. Then Jesus commissions Peter, renewing the call, now not to fish people, but to shepherd his sheep – going beyond “have you caught any fish?” to “do you love me?”, beyond “doing” to “being”.

Jesus pierces Peter’s heart with the demand of love, just as Peter pierced his heart with sorrow by his shameful threefold denial (especially because he said he would die for Jesus, John 13:37). Matthew 26:69-75 shows a downward spiral of intensity around the earlier fire: Peter first denied being “with Jesus”, then swore an oath, “I don’t know the man”, finally he “called down curses on himself” to prove he was telling the truth! Now the Good Shepherd comes to seek the one sheep that has gone astray. He prayed that Peter’s faith would not fail (Luke 22:32). He knows his sheep, tenderly calls him by name (his birth name, “Simon son of John”), and gently leads him out to be the lead-shepherd of Jesus’ flock.

The three questions:

We should not read too much into the usage of agapeo (love) in Jesus’ first two questions and phileo (love) in Peter’s three answers. Scholars have shown that John uses these two Greek words for love interchangeably. The most we can say is: Jesus’ use of phileo in his third question comes down to Peter’s level of “you know I phileo you (affectionately love you)”.

The point is: Jesus wants to know, does Peter love him after he denied knowing him? To hear his verbal confession/commitment in this regard. Jesus wants to know if love the source of your ministry and leadership, indeed, life itself? Anything else will not sustain, it will subvert us. We all live and lead from mixed motives: for identity, to feel good about ourselves, for success, popularity, power, etc. The demand of love is the heart-motivation. To love is to obey Jesus (John 14:15,21). Jesus’ persistent questions of love echo the essence of God’s revelation to humanity: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength”, “Love your neighbour as you love yourself”, “Love one another as I have loved you”, “I am the Lord your God, have no other gods before me”.

His first question “Do you love me more than these?” refers, not to the disciples sitting there, but to the fish, Peter’s fishing business and ‘life as usual’ (see my notes from last week). What or who do you really love? That ultimately is your life and worship either of God or gods – “money, sex and power” – the traditional false trinity in church history. What or who you love is your treasure. That is where your heart is.

The three confessions:

The questions face Peter with his own heart and his failure. He answers, “You know that I love you!” The words reverse “I do not know him”, and affirm his love and commitment to Jesus, despite acute awareness of his sin. In effect Peter is saying, for all of us, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you! You know me, I can’t hide anything from you. You know I’ve messed up, that I’m weak and sinful. Nevertheless, I really do love you – as faulty as my love may be!” This is implied in his third response when he “was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time” (v17).

Jesus pressed the point. He wants to know how honestly in touch we are with ourselves. Then he can entrust his sheep to us! We are all wounded healers. To the extent we deny our own brokenness, we minister and lead from a wrong source, from faulty motivations. It leads to use and abuse God’s sheep for our own purposes, to achieve our vision, as the false shepherds of Israel did (Ezekiel 34:1-6), as the “hireling shepherds” did in Jesus’ day (John 10:1-13). Confession is indeed good for the soul. It cleanses and forgives, releases and empowers us, so that our brokenness and failures do not disqualify us in our God-given calling.

The three commissions:

Jesus’ response to Peter’s honest confessions/affirmations of love, is not to exhort him to be strong, do better, be faithful, etc, but to entrust his church to Peter! Entrust his lambs to Peter! Can you believe it? Jesus never called the successful, professionally holy, Torah obedient, theologians, lawyers, to follow him; but simple fishermen, tax collectors, sinners, prostitutes, very ordinary broken people. He patiently, lovingly, transformed them into leaders that would change the world!

“Feed my lambs, take care of my sheep, feed my sheep”. In the context it means, “feed my sheep just as I provided for you and fed you this morning.” Jesus is our example, the Chief Shepherd, who calls us to lead with him as his ‘under-shepherds’: to lovingly feed his lambs and sheep, to care for them in their pain, sin and failures, as he would if he were us. Peter later teaches this from personal experience (1 Peter 5:1-4). They are HIS sheep, not ours! The Church does not belong to the man of God, the pastor, the elders, but to Jesus! He bought it with HIS precious blood. He will hold us accountable as to how we shepherd and lead. Jesus’ commission is clearly based on his teaching in John 10:1-18, which in turn clearly refers to Ezekiel 34:1-16.

Following and Leading from Love (John 21:18-24)

Why did Jesus do this personal confrontation with Peter in the presence of the other disciples (John 21:2)? They see and hear the drama. Perhaps, because Peter said at the last Passover meal, “Even if all fall away on account of you, I will never… Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you”. And all the other disciples said the same (Matthew 26:33-35). That happened in community around a meal and is now reversed in community around a meal. In other words, Jesus is also addressing them, through Peter. And also, because Jesus reinstates Peter as their leader. He does it in their presence because, what unfolds, shows that there is still insecurity and comparative rivalry among them, as is common among leaders and people.

After Jesus’ threefold commission to Peter, he says, “When you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want… Follow me!” (John 21:18-19). Earlier Peter had “wrapped his garment around him (for he had taken it off) and jumped into the water” to swim to Jesus (John 21:7-8). He did what he wanted, when he wanted, taking the initiative. That is the mark of youthful leadership, the ideal of freedom.

Maturity, however, is different. It faces death. It goes through death into resurrection. Leadership in the resurrection is the freedom of surrender, God’s true liberation, entered into by the obedience of “not my will, but yours be done”. The longer we “follow me”, under the loving discipline of the Chief Shepherd’s rod and the staff, we learn to lead by being led. The paradox of Kingdom leadership. We surrender initiative to him in all things, just as he surrendered initiative to his Father in all things, thereby leading by being led (John 5:17-20). It means we let go. We surrender control, trusting his patient and persistent love that initiates, defines and leads us. We learn to no longer define ourselves but allow God to (re)define us through community, through others. Incredibly vulnerable.

Like our Master who was stripped naked, flogged, and re-clothed in a purple robe (John 19:1-2), God slowly but surely strips us of that which identified and defined us in our heroic early years of ministry and leadership. God uses people and circumstance, ‘strangers’ who walk on the shore, even our enemies, to do this. We open our hands in vulnerability, even stretch them out to be nailed to a cross. We lead with spiritual authority and real influence, like Jesus, to the extent we allow ourselves to be led by those whom God uses to dress and take us to where we would naturally not want to go. That is leading in, by, and from the suffering love of God in Jesus, who suffered the brokenness of those he led, healing and transforming them in his resurrection. So, to lead in the Shepherd’s Spirit is death to self, to live his love in resurrection power.

This kind of mature selfless leadership is what truly glorifies God; just as God’s choice of Peter’s martyrdom was “the kind of death by which he would glorify God” (John 21:19); just as the Good Shepherd “glorified God” (John 12:23-27) by “the kind of death he was going to die” (John 12:33). Indeed, Peter literally “followed in Christ’s footsteps” (1 Peter 2:21), “knowing that I will soon die as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me” (2 Peter 1:14). Reliable tradition says that Peter was executed by the Romans, crucified upside down at his own request, because, he said, he was not worthy to be crucified right side up like his Lord and Master. Astonishing.

To complete the story. Perhaps, in all of this we see John ‘setting the record straight’ in his old age, long after Peter had glorified God through his life and particular death. I say this because we see Peter still looking around and comparing himself with John (John 21:20-23), just as we do with other followers and leaders: “Lord, what about him?” “Why didn’t I first recognize it was Jesus?” “Does Jesus love me as much as he loves him?” “Why didn’t I get to rest my head on Jesus’ chest and listen to his heartbeat?”

Jesus’ answer is, “It’s none of your business! YOU follow me!” God’s plan and destiny for each of us is different, because we are uniquely loved and called by God. That is what gives us our value and identity, our meaning and purpose. Insecure leaders cause great damage to their fellow leaders and those who follow them. The sooner we learn to be fully secure in God’s personalized love for us, the more we surrender to that love, and learn to lead in and from love, as Jesus did.

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THE RISEN LORD RENEWS OUR CALLING – Part One

This is part of a series of teachings that began with Passover Crucifixion and Easter Resurrection – The Big Bang of New Creation (see my notes Part One and Two)
Then, Jesus Breaks Lockdown, Part 1 and Part 2
Then, The Resurrected King Changes Everything (see my notes)

These notes, on The Risen Lord Renews Our Calling: Fishing & Feasting, are reflections on John 21, the last chapter of John’s good-news story of King Jesus. I acknowledge drawing from Craig Keener, David Carson and Leon Morris in their respective commentaries on John.

The chapter has two parts (or ‘pericopes’), each with two internal subsections.
John 21:1-14, Jesus’ resurrection appearance to the disciples on the shore: a) the fishing story and miraculous catch, and b) the breakfast story where Jesus feeds them. (Part One)
John 21:15-23, Jesus’ reinstatement of Peter as leader: a) his confession and commission, and b) his unfolding future call/leadership. (Part Two)

Renewal of Calling: Fishing & Feasting, John 21:1-14

The context: The life changing events of Jesus’ traumatic death and resurrection, and his appearances to his disciples (over a period of 40 days, Acts 1:3). John records two prior appearances of the risen Lord to Peter and the gathered disciples in Jerusalem (John 20:19-29). After that, Peter and six others return to fishing (their business) in the Galilee.  

Failing at business and life as usual (John 21:1-3)

In the aftermath of all that had happened in Jerusalem, Peter and 6 others return to ‘business as usual’. This fishing story shows the well-known tradition in the gospels of Jesus first calling fishermen to follow him, to make them “fishers of people”. The story echoes Luke 5:1-11 as a renewal of that initial calling to fish people for Jesus. 

The fact that John mentions seven disciples, the number of completion, could symbolize the uncertain mind and mood of all the apostles. Peter takes the initiative (as usual, a natural leader), “I’m going out to fish”. The others follow. But that night they caught “nothing”; the same word John uses in John 15:5, where Jesus says, “without me you can do nothing”. In other words, John emphasizes their failure in going back to business and life as usual in their own resources and efforts.

Jesus gives fish – renewing their calling (John 21:4-8)

“Early morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize it was Jesus…” A repeat of Mary’s experience (John 20:1f), early morning, seeing Jesus but not recognizing ‘the stranger’ (as with the two on the road to Emmaus, Luke 24:13f). It’s the early morning darkness of dashed hopes and human failure. Yet it’s the first light of a new dawn of new creation. Through their dark experience they see Jesus on the shore of resurrection – the other side of death, the coming age – from their boat of business and life as usual, in the untamed sea of the uncertainty of this age.

They don’t recognize Jesus. That ‘stranger’ takes the initiative and calls out, “Friends, haven’t you any fish?” “No!” After a whole night of hard work! He makes them face and confess their own insufficiency of effort and resource (indeed, they can do “nothing” without Jesus, 15:5), so that they trust and obey his word: “throw the net on the right side of the boat and you will find some”. Some fish? They catch so many that they can’t haul the net into the boat, confirming Jesus’ miracles of ‘over the top’ abundance in God’s Kingdom come in him (John 2:1-11, 6:1-14).

“Then the disciple whom Jesus loved” knew “it is the Lord”. He said (confessed) it to Peter. Revelation of who Jesus really is, the Risen King, is not only by the obedience of faith, and miracles, but also by the intimacy of love. John is “the beloved disciple” who is at Jesus’ side (‘bosom’, John 13:23, 21:20), as Jesus is at the Father’s side (‘bosom’, John 1:18) – that profound intimacy is the source of Jesus’ revelation of God. The others come to know/recognize later that it’s Jesus (at the breakfast, John 21:12), but dare not ask him “who are you?” This indicates that revelation unfolds differently for each person, with intuitive immediacy (John), with responsive action (Peter), or with timidity and doubt (Thomas and the others, John 20:24-29, 21:2,12). Jesus came to the world and it did not know/recognize him (John 1:10), but his own know him because he calls us by name and we recognize his voice (John 10:3-5, 20:16).

Peter’s response to the first miraculous catch of fish when he first met Jesus, in Luke 5:1-11, was to fall to his knees and say, “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man” (v8). But Jesus responded, “Don’t be afraid, from now on you will catch people” (v10) – their calling to work with him to fish people into God’s Kingdom. Now, seeing this second miraculous catch, he must be thinking, “I’ve seen this movie before!” His response this time is not to run away, but to clothe himself, dive into the sea and swim 100 meters to the shore – the impulse and passion of love to see his “friend” (v5) and “Lord” (v7), despite acute awareness of his failures. He swims over the water that Jesus walked on (6:19), crossing the unknown, from the uncertainty of business/life as usual to the shore of intimacy at Jesus’ side of resurrection.

Jesus gives a feast – confirming their calling (John 21:9-14)

Peter finds him making “a fire of burning coals with fish on it, and some bread” (a South African ‘fish braai’!) Jesus provides his own fish and bread to feed Peter and the disciples after an exhausting night that produced “nothing”. All who come to Jesus will not hunger or thirst (John 6:35). “Jesus came, took bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish” (John 21:13). The Resurrected Shepherd lovingly feeds his hungry sheep with his own life (John 10), with the bread of heaven (his body, John 6), with the waters of his Spirit (John 7:37-39), the power of new creation (John 20:22).

The breakfast he prepares symbolizes the Kingdom banquet/feast that he frequently enacted during his ministry. He invites the disciples to “bring some of the fish you just caught” – that he (also) provided! All we have is, literally, all from him! We are, however, invited to share what we do have, just like the little boy’s “five small barley loaves and two small fish” (John 6:9), that Jesus multiplies to feed the nations through the hands of his followers. The Kingdom is indeed a collaborative relational work with the Resurrected King, in his power, to reach all peoples, all nations. 

Peter gets up and helps the others to pull in the net. They count them: 153 fish! Commentators try to make the number mean “the nations” or all sorts of things! I agree with Keener: It was obviously so impressive that they remembered the number, and it simply suggests the great abundance of unlimited supply from the Risen Lord, at the table of The King (john 6:13-15).

John deliberately adds, “even with so many (fish) the net was not torn” (John 21:11) – in contrast to the net breaking with the first miraculous catch when they were first called (Luke 5:6). Is this a picture of the Resurrection Church, relationally joined and united as one (John 17:20-26):  God’s net to “fish the nations” into his Kingdom? And to bring them to the table fellowship of the Shepherd-King’s “abundant life” (John 10:10)?   

In Summary: Seven Lessons

1. After life-changing events like the crucifixion and resurrection – also the Corona Pandemic – we cannot simply go back to life and business as usual.

2. We must cross over to find the new normal, to live resurrection now.

3. Discipleship is hearing Jesus’ call, trusting and obeying his word, which releases his resurrection life and power.

4. The call of discipleship is to follow Jesus, to be formed into the net of his Kingdom, to fish people (the nations) for The King.

5. If we act on the revelation we have, we receive more revelation and enter the abundant fullness of the Kingdom.

6. Collaboration with King Jesus in all things, joining what we have with what he has, is the great enterprise of the Kingdom.

7. Fishing and Feasting with King Jesus is living Resurrection Now.

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The Resurrected King Changes Everything

Currently we are living between Passover and Pentecost. The period in which Jesus repeatedly revealed himself to his followers after his resurrection, in preparation for his ascension and coming of the Holy Spirit. In Church tradition, Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances in the Gospels are preached at this time. Here are my reflections on the story of Jesus’ appearance to the two on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24:13-35.

These notes are the basis of my video ‘homily’ presented Sunday 3 May 2020:
https://youtu.be/aiIqJfTrbM0

On ‘Easter Sunday’, when Jesus rose from the dead, Cleopas and his wife were on their way from Jerusalem to their home in Emmaus. He met and joined them on the road, though they did not know/recognize it was him. Jesus heard their sad story and re-interpreted it in light of his suffering and death, and resurrection to glory. Later he revealed himself to them in the breaking of bread. And disappeared! They immediately made the 11 kilometer journey – now evening – back to Jerusalem to the community of followers. They told them,
 
a) “what had happened on the way” (v35, The Journey Out),
b) “how Jesus was recognized when he broke the bread” (v35, The Pivot Point),
c) and their overwhelming joy all the way back (The Journey In)

Pope Francis, in his homily on this story, contrasts the journey out and the journey in. I have added a few other elements.

The Journey OutThe Journey In
Journey away from JerusalemJourney returning to Jerusalem
In the daylight, mostly downhill, easyAt nightfall, mostly uphill, tiring
(after 11 kilometers of the day journey!)
A journey of sadness, away from painA journey of gladness, because of joy
They don’t walk alone, Jesus is beside them – but they don’t recognize/know himThey walk alone and don’t see Jesus, but feel him closer than ever – they’ve recognized him
They tell of “the (awful) things” that happened, disappointments, shattered dreams of death  They tell of “the (amazing) things” that happened, the risen Lord, eternal life.  
The stranger re-interprets their pain in light of Messiah’s suffering, death & resurrectionThey realized their hearts burnt within them as Messiah himself opened the scriptures to them
Their destination is safety in the lockdown of their home in EmmausTheir destiny is freedom in Jesus’ Family of Resurrection in the New Jerusalem

The Journey Out and Down – Three Movements

Receiving Jesus into their journey

Jesus came to Cleopas and his wife “on the way”, offering to join and companion them. They could’ve rejected his overtures because he appeared as a stranger – his identity was hidden from their eyes. Though they didn’t recognize/know him, where he was from or where he was going, they decided to let him walk with them. Perhaps, because they were so depressed, they needed someone to talk to beside each other. However, it was risky!

Jesus comes to us in the stranger, initially keeping us from seeing that it’s him in the ‘disguise’ of ‘the other’ (as Mother Teresa said, “Jesus comes to us in the distressing disguise of the poor”). Besides strangers, Jesus comes to us in friends, family, pastor, therapist, dreams, prayer, etc. He often comes when we are in need, offering to join us in our journey. Do we make ourselves vulnerable by inviting “the stranger to our pain” to walk with us? Hoping it might be Jesus? Or turn him aside in our isolation of inner pain? Some don’t want to talk, least of all when in pain. Then we live lonely and die alone. Only when we risk allowing others into our walk can we discover it is God helping us. How do you view ‘the stranger’? How has God come to you, to journey with you?   

Receiving Jesus into their conversation & pain

They took the next step of receiving Jesus into their conversation, which meant inviting him into their narrative of pain. Their story was of “the things” (v14,15,19) that had happened to Jesus, their hoped-for Messiah-King. Yes, they felt sorry for him. But they wanted him to save them, now he was dead! It was, ultimately, about themselves, their shattered dreams of disillusionment and despair. Jesus entered their conversation. Listened deeply. Asked questions that made them “stand still” (v17), stopped them in their tracks, stopped them from walking away from their pain, from suppressing it. “What are you discussing?” (v17), “What happened?” (v19), “How are you feeling?” “Why do you see it that way?” The questions drew out their story, to relive the trauma, to own their feelings and perceptions, to disclose their confusion and dashed hopes, the rumours of resurrection, what to believe or not believe, fake news or conspiracy theories!

Having entered their conversation, the strange Messiah-King changes their narrative. He re-interpreted all of it in light of his own suffering and death, as per God’s plan foretold in the scriptures, “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets” (v27). How can a suffering and dying King save anyone? Yet, as Isaiah 53 foretold, that was God’s strange plan that “will bring you peace”; but because they rejected Jesus as their King, it was “hidden from your eyes” (Luke 19:42). However, his resurrection vindicated the meaning and purpose of his death – now the good news of salvation made known to all – the revealed reality that Jesus defeated the powers of evil. He overcame human sin, suffering and death, including corona pandemic, by taking it into his own body on the cross, and rising again to give life!

So, why not take the next step? Invite Jesus into your conversation. Into your anxiety and pain. Hear his questions. Tell him your story. Let him re-interpret all you’ve been through, what you struggle with, what has broken you, in the light of his suffering and death on your behalf. He suffered what you suffer. He understands, knows, has compassion. The Risen King changes your narrative by reinterpreting your perceptions in his promises and (sometimes mysterious) purposes. Your story finds meaning and destiny to the extent it is caught up and changed in God’s conversation of redemption, in God’s meta-narrative of transforming love, of resurrection life. What is your story? What dominates your thoughts, emotions, words? Receive Jesus into your narrative and interpret it in light of his death and resurrection.

Receiving Jesus into their home

“As they approached the village, (the stranger) acted as if he were going farther. But they urged him strongly to stay with them” (v28). Why did he act as if he were going farther? To see their response. A test. Were they happy to merely receive his comfort and counsel, his help in their time of need? Or did they want to go deeper? To host and feed him? Have him stay with them? To get to know him for who he is, not merely for what he can do for them? They not only invited, but urged him to come to their home, their safe and sacred place. He graciously accepted – did not presume or force himself on them. Little did they know, it was that third step, on “the third day” (v19, Resurrection Day), that would be the pivot, the turning point that changed everything for them!

Take this third step. Jesus is not reluctant. He’s quietly longing to be invited, to go deeper with you. Receive him into your most intimate space, your heart, the center of your being. Yes, he comes to help us when we need him. However, don’t use him for that purpose, as a means to an end. He is The End. Host him as King of your heart to “stay with” you, to get to know him for who he is, and not (only) for what he can do for you. Then…

The Pivot Point

It as “nearly evening” (v29). They prepare a meal and take their seats. Suddenly, it all shifts and turns around. The stranger takes the initiative, becomes the host. He makes it his table, his supper – by taking the bread, giving thanks (says the Hebrew blessing), breaking it, and giving to Cleopas and his wife. “Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him!” (v31). It’s Jesus! He’s alive! The Lord is out the tomb! Suddenly, everything made sense. And in that moment, everything changed for them… forever!  

Perhaps they recognized him as he broke bread because they saw the nail prints in his wrists (his sleeves would have moved back from his hands). In all the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ resurrection appearances, he repeatedly identifies himself to his followers by the marks of the cross, marks that he will carry in his resurrection/glorified body throughout eternity, as witness of the unfailing everlasting love of God.

What has been your pivot point? Have you received Jesus into your heart? If you have, he then takes the initiative in all things. You are his home. Your table is his table. Your meal is the Lord’s Supper. He opens your eyes. Reveals himself to you. Shares his life with you, his body and blood. In so doing, he heals and transforms you, because he’s alive! He is risen in you, to make all things new!

The Journey Up and In – One Movement

Before they could do anything, Jesus disappeared! Wow! No worries! It simply adds to their overwhelming joy, now to be given to others. Immediately they journey up and in to Jerusalem, to their fellow followers, to say: “The Lord is risen!” All along the way they spoke of how their hearts burned within them, when Jesus opened and unfolded the scriptures to them. Step by step they recounted text by text, making sense of it all. Everything fell into place. And it was confirmed by their family of faith when they arrived in Jerusalem.

Conclusion

Two journeys.  Which one are you walking?

Two stories.  Which one are you living?

Two narratives.  Which one are you telling?

One pivot point.  Have you met the Risen Jesus?

Lord, stay with me!  Lord, stay with us!

Yes!  Here is my body, here is my blood.

BUT, go and tell everyone I’m alive!

I AM  The Resurrected King.

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The Big Bang of The New Creation – Part Two

This paper assumes and continues the content of Part One.

John tells the story of Jesus’ resurrection in a way that shows the new creation – new heaven & new earth – began in Jesus. As the sun begins to set on that Friday, after Jesus had died, his young broken body is taken down from the cross by two elderly sages. They tenderly wash and wrap it in cloth, with 30 kilograms of spices (very expensive, only done for kings), and place his body in a new tomb in a nearby garden (John 19:39-41).

Death entered the first garden of creation through human sin. There was no tomb in that garden, because God never intended humans to die (death is an evil invasion into pristine creation, hence the innate human fear of death – it’s our enemy). They were driven out and barred by angels from re-entering that garden. In contrast, death enters the garden near Golgotha, in Jesus’ human body. There was a new tomb in this garden, because God intended to use it to defeat death by resurrecting Jesus’ body – the body that atoned for sin on that ‘Good Friday’: The Sacrificial Lamb of God. That makes this garden a New Eden of New Creation that destroys death, that will empty all tombs (one day), that opens the way for all to enter, regenerating those who do enter with eternal resurrection life.

The Resurrection (John 20:1-18)

“Early on the first day of the week, while it is still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance” (v.1). This is the day after the Sabbath, the first day of the next week, which is the eighth day of creation. For John, that eighth day is the first day of New Creation: The Resurrection of The Last Day that Jesus proclaimed in John 11:24-25, as taught in the Hebrew scriptures (Ezekiel 37:10-12, Daniel 12:2). Many Jews believed in The Resurrection, that it would mark the end of this age and the beginning of the Messianic Kingdom.

It’s no longer Friday, Sunday has come!

The phrase, “while it is still dark”, symbolizes human hopeless, entombed by the power of evil, to be shattered by the dazzling light of this new dawn. So, the story of this new dawn unfolds. Mary comes to the tomb, only to find it empty! Shocked, she runs to tell Peter and the others. They run to the tomb. It’s empty! The strips of linen lying there just as if Jesus’ body had simply come out of them! When the youngest disciple, whom Jesus specially loved, sees it, he believes. Jesus is alive!

But Mary remains outside the tomb weeping (v.10-18). Then looks in and sees two angels, one at the head and one the feet of where Jesus’ body was laid. She was dressed in black, in mourning. They were in white, connoting a different story. The glory of God that rests between the two cherubim on the mercy seat in the Holy of Holies, is no longer there behind the curtain, no longer in lockdown in a tomb, but is out and about in the garden, in the home, on the street, in the marketplace. The ‘missing body’ that lay between the angels is the Resurrected Temple, the new Ark of the Presence, giving mercy and forgiveness, “life from above” to all who “receive him” (John 1:12-13). The stone is rolled away, the veil is torn open, heaven breaks out on earth, new creation explodes in broken creation.

The angels ask, “why are you weeping?”
She answers, “they’ve taken my Lord and I don’t know where they’ve put him!”
She then turns to look away from the tomb and sees someone standing there.
He asks, “woman, why are you weeping?”
Thinking he’s the gardener of the garden, she answers, “if you’ve taken his body, tell me where you’ve put him.”
Then Jesus says, “Mary”.
Recognizing his voice calling her by name (John 10:3), she sees him for who he is – risen and alive – and she comes to life.
Surprised and overwhelmed with joy, she turns fully toward him and “clings”, crying out “rabboni!” The warm relational “my teacher”, as opposed to the formal “Rabbi”. He says, “don’t cling to me because I must ascend to my Father and you must go tell my brothers that I’m returning to my Father and your Father.”
She then runs to tell them all she saw and all he said.

In the way John writes this dramatic, tender, eye-witness account, we cannot but pick up its meaning in the symbolic echoes of the first creation story (I have italicized the key words). Jesus, like the first Adam, rose to life in a garden, in spring (northern hemisphere), bursting with blossoms and new life. He is the New Adam in a New Garden of Eden. He is the gardener who tends New Creation in broken first creation, looking for us, calling us by name, “Mary”. She can symbolize the church, all believers, who turn away from the tomb of death and despair – to see Jesus, to hear him identify us by name, and embrace him.  

However, the whole point of this story is not that we hold onto Jesus in a possessive way, for our own comfort and healing, but that he sends us out as witnesses of New Creation! He is the Last Adam who is a “life-giving Spirit” (1 Corinthians 15:45), reversing the first Adam’s “death-giving spirit”, which infected humanity with mortality, including creation. We who turn to the Last Adam, who believe and receive, become his sisters and brothers, born again with life from above by the same Father (John 1:12-13, 3:3-8). Nowhere in John’s gospel did Jesus call his disciples “my brothers”, and God “your Father”, till this resurrection day.

New Adams & Eves – New Creation Mandate (John 20:19-23)

Then John says, “On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together…” Technically, he should say “on the second day of the week” – Sunday night was already Monday! His deliberate wording, however, emphasizes that what follows is still the first day in the Garden of Resurrection, the first day of New Creation.

The disciples are in self-imposed lockdown for fear of being arrested by the authorities. Suddenly Jesus walks in through the bolted door. He “came and stood among them”. What a shock! It’s the first time he appears to them, in John’s story, other than to Mary that morning. He greets them with the customary “Shalom alechem”, “peace be with you”. In other words: Hi, it’s me! Don’t fear! I’m here, I’m alive! Then shows them his hands and side, the marks of crucifixion. They are “overjoyed when they saw the Lord”.

He again pronounces God’s Shalom on them. Then commissions them, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you”. With that he does an extraordinary thing: he breathes on them and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit”, and affirms his commission, mandating them with his authority: “if you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven”.

Some explanatory observations arise from this story.

First, Jesus was resurrected in a ‘trans-physical’ body (N.T. Wright’s phrase), a ‘spiritualised’ body renewed and saturated by God’s Spirit (pneumatikon body, Paul’s phrase in 1 Corinthians 15:44-45). He walks through walls, appears, disappears, yet eats food and is fully recognizable as the person they knew. They touch him, feel his wounds, hug him – he’s not a ghost as they initially thought. We will recognize and know each other by name in our resurrection bodies when Jesus returns (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18). Jesus calls his resurrection body “flesh and bone” (Luke 24:39), different to the regular “flesh and blood” (Hebrews 2:14). “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 15:50), because “the life of the flesh in the blood” (Leviticus 17:11). In other words, blood is the principle of life in the mortal body. Spirit is the principle of life in the resurrection body – thus “flesh and bone” – transformed and governed by God’s Spirit, fully suited to eternal life and reign in God’s Kingdom throughout the coming ages.

Second, to show one’s wounds in a court of law, as proof of what took place, was common in those days. This thought as two applications:

a) Jesus chose to first reveal himself to women (in all four gospels) – the first witnesses of his resurrection. Why women? Their testimony was not accepted in Jewish courts as they were ‘unreliable witnesses’ because they ‘deceive and lie’ (male prejudice). Mary earlier told the men apostles she saw, heard and touched the Risen Lord. But only when Jesus gives them the irrefutable evidence of his wounds, do they believe and are “overjoyed”! Can you believe it? Yes, sadly, I can! This was, perhaps, Jesus’ most empowering act for women, and most rebuking act for men – to transform both!

b) Jesus identifies himself by the marks of the cross. There is a nail-pierced resurrected and glorified human body not only in heaven, but in the Godhead. In some sense the Trinity is forever ‘changed’! The Crucified and Resurrected God, bearing the marks for eternity. How do you ‘self-identify’? What identifies you? What marks do you carry? Jesus told us to take up his cross and follow him, meaning, lose your life to find real life. To the extent you die to self you live in resurrection power. It’s not a triumphalist gospel for winners, but a theology of God’s power made perfect in human weakness.

Third, Jesus’ commission and breathing (his) Holy Spirit – fresh from the resurrection – into his disciples, is a direct reference to the Genesis story. Two last explanations:

a) John uses the same words, “he breathed on them”, from the Greek translation of the Old Testament (the Septuagint) in Genesis 2:7 and Ezekiel 37:9-10. Both texts speak of God breathing (new) life into bodies: first, Adam in the garden, then Israel in prophetic renewal. Here the New Adam breathes his Spirit of Resurrection Life into a new humanity of born-again Adams and Eves. Here Israel’s Crucified but Resurrected God breathes his Ruach ha Kodesh into the new Israel, fulfilling Ezekiel’s vision. The new humanity and new Israel are the same – all who experience John 1:12-13 & 3:3-8.
John might also see Jesus’ breathing his Spirit on them as the church’s empowerment of the Spirit – their experience of John 7:37-39 and Jesus’ teaching on the Spirit in John 14 – 16. Empowerment for the New Creation Mandate. Most biblical stories tell of God’s leaders commissioning and empowering their followers before the leader dies. John’s version of Spirit-empowerment is different to Luke’s version of Pentecost. Rather than contradict, they complement each other. It’s both/and, not either/or.

b) Before and after Jesus breathes Holy Spirit into his disciples, he commissions them, sending them as the Father sent him. In the context of this resurrection story, and in the entire context of John’s gospel, this is the renewal of the creation mandate in Genesis 1:28. Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth with Eden, rule over the creation God entrusts to you. In John’s terms, the born again and empowered church of new Adams and Eves are to take God’s Kingdom of New Creation to the ends of the earth: “Go and do what I’ve been doing, forgive sins, do miraculous signs & wonders (greater than what I did, John 14:10), bring light and life by speaking my creative word, re-Shalom the earth!”

The Conclusion (John 20:26-29)

John’s conclusion comes exactly a week later in the same house; in other words, another first day of New Creation. Jesus appears to doubting Thomas and irrefutably reveals himself as resurrected. Thomas’ response is the closing climax of the entire gospel, “My Lord and my God!” (v.28). This takes us back to the beginning, “The Word was God… and became flesh” (John 1:1,14). Jesus is indeed the Enfleshed, Crucified, Resurrected, Glorified God.

Therefore, the death, and more so the resurrection of Jesus is the Big Bang of New Creation that happens in human history. It explodes and exponentially expands God’s eternal life, the coming age, within this age, transforming broken creation. “If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). And most important, we are called to take that New Creation to the ends of the earth.

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The Big Bang of The New Creation – Part One

Jesus’ death on the Friday was an enactment in his own body of the Passover meal that he celebrated with his disciples the night before – “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29, all biblical quotes are NIV). Jesus is the New Exodus out of the oppressive rule of sin and death, through his death and resurrection, into God’s liberating reign of forgiveness and life.

Jesus’ bodily resurrection vindicated the meaning of his death, proving him to be “the Son of God in power by his resurrection” (Romans 1:4). The gospels show, particularly John’s gospel, that Jesus’ resurrection was the ‘Big Bang’ of the New Creation (my phrase. Don’t let this phrase put you off if you disagree, read it as a metaphor). Matthew’s gospel speaks of earthquakes when Jesus died and rose again, with the Temple curtain torn open and bodies of holy people coming out of the tombs. In other words, creation convulsed in anticipation of its liberation from bondage in Christ’s death and resurrection – the New Exodus of the renewal of all things. I will, however, focus this article on John’s gospel. Beside my own insights, I have drawn on N.T. Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God.

John’s Good News Story

John sets his themes in the prologue to his ‘theological biography’ of Jesus: Creation/New Creation (“In the beginning”, John 1:1 echoes Genesis 1:1)… in the Word/Life/Light that defeats darkness (1:3-9)… regenerating/resurrecting all who receive him (1:10-13)… God’s enfleshed Temple full of glory/grace/truth… all revealing who God is (1:14-18).

The Temple theme is the (new) creation theme. Eden was a garden cathedral where heaven and earth joined. Adam & Eve, God’s human image, were priests and kings over creation on God’s behalf. The later tabernacle and Temple were full of depictions of angels as the place of heaven on earth: God’s house where God lived in the Holy of Holies among his nation of royal priests (Exodus 19:6).  

John’s prologue (John 1:1-18) is the opening of an ‘inclusio’ that closes with Jesus’ resurrection and appearances (John 20:1-21:25). The structural centre of the gospel is chapter 11, Lazarus’ return from death. And the centre of that story is Jesus’ profound statement (John 11:25-26):

“I am The Resurrection and The Life. S/he who believes in me will live, even though s/he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”   

To sew these themes into a seamless story, like Jesus’ garment (John 19:23), John speaks of days and times: “The next day…” (1:29,35,43), “the third day” (2:1,19), “the time is coming and has now come” (5:25), “the last day” (6:39,40,44,54; 11:24), and so on. It’s his symbolic way of showing that the end, the future age, has happened in Jesus of Nazareth, especially in his death and resurrection, inaugurating the new creation the Hebrew prophets predicted.

So, John says (2:1), “On the third day” there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee. Jewish readers would have noted the reference to the third day – beside the symbolism of the end-time marriage feast of God and his people when “the finest of wines” is brought out and does not run dry, when God will “destroy the shroud of death that enfolds all people” (Isaiah 25:6-8). John repeats and explains “the third day” in the next story (John 2:13-22), clearly referring to Jesus’ resurrection. The other gospel writers have this story (Jesus’ enactment of judgement on the Temple) at the end of his ministry, after he enters Jerusalem riding on a donkey. John puts it at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, referring to his body (the Temple) being destroyed (his death), which he will raise up on the third day (his resurrection).

The wedding feast is the first of seven “miraculous signs” to “show his authority” (2:18) and “reveal his glory” (2:11, God’s Shekinah returning to Israel in the Temple of Jesus’ body). Each sign points to and is a foretaste of The Big Bang of New Creation. Sign two, healing the official’s son (4:43f); three, healing the paralyzed man (5:1f); four, feeding the 5,000 (6:1f); five, healing the man born blind (9:1f). Sign six is Jesus’ defeat of death in raising Lazarus to life (11:1f) – the center of the gospel that points to its climax: a resurrection of an entirely different order (20:1f). Clearly, John’s theology of Jesus is embedded and communicated in his stories of Jesus. The signs & wonders are the enfleshed Word speaking Life and Light into the darkness of broken creation. They defeat evil, “the prince of this world” (12:31, 14:30, 16:11), bringing order out of chaos by the hovering Holy Spirit (Genesis 1:2) – the new creation that regenerates and reorders all who “receive and believe him” (John 1:12).   

The signs culminate in the seventh, the number of completion and perfection: Jesus’ death & resurrection. It begins the second half of John’s good news biography of Jesus, 12:1, “Six days before the Passover Jesus arrived…” In other words, Jesus’ last week in Jerusalem is the final countdown to actual New Creation.

The Crucifixion (John 19:1-37)

On the sixth day of that final week, Friday, Jesus is crucified. On that day, early morning, Pilate twice presents Jesus to the people.

First, “Behold, the man!” (19:5). This echoes the sixth day of creation, humanity unveiled as God’s image, to rule the earth (Genesis 1:26-28). “The man” who Pilate reveals – in whom he finds no fault (19:4) – is a beaten and bloodied man, having been flogged to within an inch of death. The people are looking at the Second Adam, who represents brutalized humanity made in the image of sin and death. This man, God in human flesh, absorbs all humanity’s violence in his own body, thereby defeating the powers, “the prince of this world”, behind the chaotic darkness of broken creation. See God’s glory shining brightest in this image-bearer: Jesus is “glorified in this hour” of suffering and death (12:23).  

Then, “Behold, your king!” (19:14). This echoes Isaiah 52:13f, where God’s Servant-King is presented for all to “SEE… he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted”. These are the words Isaiah uses to describe Yahweh in his vision in the Temple (Isaiah 6:1), which John refers to as “Isaiah saw Jesus’ glory and spoke of him” (John 12:41). When the Jews look at Jesus presented as “your king”, they see him (ironically, their REAL King) mockingly dressed in a purple robe with a crown of thorns thrust on his beaten brow. They were “appalled at him – his appearance was do disfigured beyond that of any man, and his form marred beyond human likeness – so he will sprinkle many nations, their kings will shut their mouths because of him” (Isaiah 52:14-15). Jesus not only memorized Isaiah’s prophetic songs of the Suffering Servant of Yahweh, but he became their living fulfilment.

On both occasions the people respond by chanting, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” So, they take him to Golgotha and crucify him. They put a sign on his cross: “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews”. By mid-afternoon, “knowing that all was now completed… so that the scriptures be fulfilled” (19:28), Jesus cries out, “Tetalestai”, “It is finished!” (all three italicised words are the Greek root telos, “the end” – the end goal complete). He then bows his head and gives up his spirit (v.30). John immediately mentions the Sabbath (twice, v.31,32), the seventh day that begins when the sun sets that Friday.

In all of this John is saying: the work of (new) creation of “the Word made flesh”, over the six days, in the six miraculous signs, through the entire ministry of Jesus, is now completed in his seventh sign – his death on the cross. Thus, his work now finished, he surrenders his spirit to God. And bows his head, entering rest, in hope of resurrection. Jesus died in faith of God’s vindication of his mission, trusting God would raise him from the dead. Not like Lazarus’ resuscitation, who died again. Jesus believed he would be first – the “first-fruit” – in The Resurrection spoken of by the prophets (Ezekiel 37:10-12; Daniel 12:2). His Sabbath has come, he rests as God and all creation rested after the six days of work of first creation.

The King sleeps. Let all the earth be silent!

It’s Friday, but Sunday is coming!  In Part Two – in three days!

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Guidance in Leading A Kingdom Response to Corona

A full solar eclipse

I was asked this week to share thoughts on giving leadership in response to the corona pandemic. Pastors and spiritual leaders carry a particular responsibility before God to guide churches, and society in general, with a godly response. How do we think about this crisis, and what do we do? Note that this is from a South African context in response to developments here. But it has application globally.

Biblical thinking, theology, does matter! It leads to right or wrong attitudes and practices, depending on our underlying beliefs. How do we respond to God in faith at this time, and not react in fear to the situation? We’re living in unprecedented times: a micro-virus holds the whole world to ransom, to a lockdown not seen in our life time, with all the socio-economic-political implications. It is very serious. Our lives have changed. Globally, as I write, there are 468,644 infected & 21,191 deaths (see live tally, https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/). It’s a kairos moment, a time of threat AND opportunity, of disaster AND of God’s Kingdom breaking through like we’ve not seen before. How do we maximise a ‘Kingdom response’ that is life-changing at this critical time?

Kingdom-Prophetic Perspective:  How do we think biblically about this pandemic?

‘Corona’ means crown. The scientists who, in 1968 came up with the term coronavirus, noted that the virus they were looking at under the microscope resembled a solar corona, the bright crown-like ring of gasses around the sun, visible in a solar eclipse. However, corona is not king!

Jesus is King! He is the Son that shines so bright with his crown of thorns, from his throne of the cross, that his beautiful light is blinding darkness. The darkness of human sin & sickness, suffering & death – of hell itself – that he took into his own body, to overcome evil and free humanity from its power. In his death AND resurrection, Jesus is victorious and rules over evil powers, all pandemics, all catastrophes. Not in arrogant triumphalism! But in humble compassion, because he suffered, and suffers, with and for all who suffer. Mercy is the mode and manner of his majestic reign that gives light and life to all who turn to him. This is the message we seek to live and preach, of the King to whom all other crowns (coronas) must bow, the King who is the hope of the world.  

What on earth is God doing at this time?  God is shaking all things, all the kingdoms of the earth, so that what is unshakable may emerge for all to see and receive: God’s Kingdom (Hebrews 12:26-28) in his Suffering Servant, by whose wounds we are healed (Isaiah 53:5). The entire biblical message is simply: God is King… God will become King. While God is – and always will be – sovereign over all reality, including our lives, something serious went wrong after creation and turned against God. So, God will become King by defeating that evil rebellion, putting everything to right.

How then do we view pandemics and natural disasters?  They are due to the fall of humanity into sin and death, part of the chaotic rule of ha satan – Hebrew for the opposer of God, his purposes and his people. Humanity in Adam and Eve lost their God-given authority – their kingdom – to the devil, who is now “the god of this age who blinds the minds of those who do not believe” (2 Cor 4:4). Satan is the perpetrator of all that works against God and God’s purpose of Shalom-Good for humanity, of all created reality.

So, has God lost control?  No! God is King, sovereign over all. God has no equal opposite. Satanand his kingdom of evil spirits are created fallen beings. The Hebrew Testament shows that God can even use ha satan as an instrument/servant of judgement. It also means that no matter what evil does, God can ultimately use it to fulfil his purpose. More so, no matter what happens, God works in it for our good, for those who love him and are called as per his purpose (Romans 8:28). This requires faith to see what God is doing in each kairos moment. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Matthew 5:8) – in all things – where God is present & active, to work with God!

What is God’s answer to corona?  The Messiah. God will become King. God becomes King in two accumulative historical steps: Jesus inaugurated God’s Kingdom 2000 years ago, in principle and power, and will consummate the Kingdom when he returns, in fullness and finality. This is to defeat and “destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8), and free humanity and creation into the fullness of God’s Shalom Kingdom. Paul uses three tenses for this mystery of salvation: “God has delivered us (past)… will deliver us (future)… and will continue to deliver us (present)” (2 Corinthians 1:10). Evil has been defeated at the nailed-pierced hands of Jesus, is being defeated at the prayerful hands of the Church, will be defeated at the Second Coming. In other words, we’re in a war that we cannot lose, a life and death battle with evil in all its forms, including coronavirus.

Practical-Responsible Perspective:  How do we give leadership, what do we do?

We teach our people the Kingdom has come, meaning, we engage with conviction and courage as a time of great Kingdom opportunity to work with God (listed below). We also teach that the Kingdom is yet to come, meaning, we wait in prayerful hope for God’s breakthrough, facing reality head on, being honest about where we are at, and reaching out to others in need.

Our people must avoid two extremes: an overemphasis of Kingdom now that is presumptuous and arrogant, denying reality due to “faith in the blood of Jesus”, “corona is hyped/fake news”, “we can meet, touch each other”, “we’re immune to COVID-19 because of PSALM-91”. That’s presumption, not faith. The devil tempted Jesus with this, quoting Psalm 91; but Jesus said, “don’t put God to the test” (Matthew 4:5-7). Or, an overemphasis of Kingdom not yet that is faithless and fearful, succumbing to reality in doom and gloom, escaping into “it’s judgement, it’s the end”, “hoard stacks of food and withdraw”, “save yourself”, “the rapture can happen any moment”.

Therefore, the radical middle we lead and teach our people is…

  • As citizens of heaven PRAY ceaselessly, “May your Kingdom come and defeat this pandemic… have mercy, O God.” Pray continually for miraculous breakthrough.

  • As citizens of our nation, PRAY for the President and government as they lead us in this difficult time (1 Timothy 2:1). Pray for all health workers who put their lives at risk. Pray for all who are vulnerable, sick and dying. Pray for the poor & unemployed, for business & the economy.

  • It also means supporting and upholding the government requirements of “social distancing”, sanitization and lockdown. Distribute the list of requirements during isolation to all church members, that they may be good citizens as per Titus 3:1-2, “Remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good, to slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and always be gentle to everyone.”

  • “Social distancing” is better reworded as “physical distancing AND social solidarity”. Keep bodily distance (1.5m) but socially engage via all the technological means available to us, for love and care of our families, friends and people in need.  LOVE = physical distancing + social solidarity. NB: think about what this (LOVE) means for so many poor and unemployed people living in townships, informal settlements, rural areas, for whom hand sanitization, running water, storing up food, working from home, social distancing, drawing on savings, means little or nothing. If we are willing, God will show us how we can do something to help those within reach. The Church can be the nail-pierced hands of Jesus to them – a shining witness of love.  

  • Make arrangements to pastorally care for your people through increased ‘high (tech) touch’ by video and audio calls, pastoral letters, Whatsapp groups, pastoral visits with bodily distancing, live-stream teachings, video recordings, getting food and medicine to those in need. Ask God to show you how to do church, and leadership, creatively different at this changing context.

  • Have special sensitivity for the elderly, singles, for those vulnerable to mental health issues, depression, loneliness, dysfunctional marriages and potential domestic abuse in the ‘pressure cooker’ of the home in weeks of lockdown.

  • Finally, the lockdown means we now have the space and time to do three things:

    a) Deepen our discipleship to Jesus by engaging more in spiritual practices like extended solitude, learning silence, hearing God, meditation & prayer, fasting, good spiritual reading & study, among other exercises. (My two books are available as a resource, Praying the Psalms, a 12 week program of meditative prayer in 12 psalms; and Doing Spirituality, where I discuss all 24 classic spiritual practices in the Christian tradition).

    b) Deepen our relationships with our closest others we live with, learning to listen and love, resolve differences & conflicts, play games together, read a book together, etc. The lockdown will test us and our relationships in new ways. Use it for personal and relational growth.

    c) Deepen our social solidarity with others in need – commented on above.  

God bless you with the grace and wisdom, the love and faith that you need at this difficult time to lead your people as Jesus would if he were you! I pray that over you in the Name of Jesus!      

I close with an honest, biblical, prophetic and practical quote from Martin Luther in giving advice to Lutheran pastors in a letter in 1527 when Wittenberg was overrun by the plague. When asked what he would do, this was his answer: 

“I shall ask God mercifully to protect us. Then I shall fumigate, help purify the air, administer medicine and take it. I shall avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance inflict and pollute others and so cause their death as a result of my negligence. If God should wish to take me, he will surely find me and I have done what he has expected of me and so I am not responsible for either my own death or the death of others. If my neighbour needs me however I shall not avoid place or person but will go freely as stated above. See this is such a God-fearing faith because it is neither brash nor foolhardy and does not tempt God.”

(Luther’s Works Volume 43, pg 132, the letter “Whether one may flee from a Deadly Plague” written to Rev. Dr. John Hess).

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Echoing Silence: God’s One Word

What intimate companionship with God while driving home yesterday. Four hours of solitude and silence. This ‘Creedal Meditation’ poem is an echo of that silence.

Echoing Silence:  God’s One Word

From Eternity to Eternity
Infinite Silence
Impenetrable Mystery
Father, Son and Spirit
Trinitarian Community
One God
By Breath Speaks
One Word

LOVE

The Echo of Silence
The Eternal Word
The Living Word
The Incarnate Word

JESUS

Enfleshed Love  (Bethlehem)
Growing Love  (Nazareth)
Baptised Love  (Jordon)
Empowered Love  (the Spirit)
Ministering Love  (Israel and beyond)
Suffering Love  (compassion)
Crucified Love  (Calvary)
Buried Love  (the tomb)
Resurrected Love  (the garden)
Ascended Love  (the heavens)
Reigning Love  (the Father’s right hand)
Returning Love  (the Second Coming)
Consummated Love  (the Marriage Feast)
Everlasting Love  (New Heavens & New Earth)

Enter The Mystery
Silence
Be The Echo
God’s One Word
By Empowering Breath
Enfleshed in your Life

LOVE

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Repentant Reflections on Jean Vanier

For those who know (of) Jean Vanier, the recent disclosures by six women of his alleged sexual relationship with them, is profoundly distressing, to say the least. For those who don’t know of him, it might not be a big issue. It is, however, a HUGE issue. Especially for the women. And sadly, once again, for all spiritual leadership and God’s integrity in the eyes of the world.

My reflections explore WHY? What can we learn from this?

Yesterday morning before leaving for our church service I read a tweet about this breaking news, which led me to the statement released by L’Arche International, reported in The Guardian. Read L’Arche’s official report of its credible investigation. It is harrowing.

What a shock! I felt so grieved and gutted that I could hardly sing. My worship was an inner lament, “O God! O God! Have mercy! Christ have mercy!” The whole day of Sunday I felt a heaviness of spirit, a dark mourning in my soul. It took me another day to get to the point of reflecting and processing in writing before God.

I repeatedly asked why I felt so strongly about this? So broken and repentant? Was it for Jean Vanier, a (now) fallen hero of the faith? Was it for the shattering of my own deep respect for him? Or was it for the women who were abused by him, spiritually manipulated into a sexual relationship with him? They are the ones for whom God weeps – they carry this shame. Probably more will come out into the light of truth, as always happens in such cases.

The brief story.

Jean Vanier was founder-leader of L’Arche (The Ark). Started in 1964. He died 7 May 2019. It was a ministry to care for folk with (develop)mental disabilities. This remarkable charity has communities in 38 countries that care for thousands of people. I heard about Vanier while reading Henri Nouwen – who, in his later years, went to live and work in a L’Arche community. I read all I could of Vanier’s life, work, and writings. A profound lived “reality of love” in selfless service, intentional community, healing and spirituality.[1] Vanier and Nouwen, among others, were formative for me in my years in Soweto, as we worked for Kingdom reconciliation under Apartheid, and set up an intentional inter-racial Christian community. I held Vanier in as high regard as Henri Nouwen. Many who knew him in his Catholic circles considered him “a living saint” – as Mother Teresa. He was a layman, not an ordained priest. He never married.

After investigating the women’s accusations, L’Arche International reports: “Evidence shows that Jean Vanier engaged in ‘manipulative sexual relationships’ from 1970 to 2005, usually with a ‘psychological hold’ over the alleged victims.” They came to him for spiritual direction. His pattern was similar to that of Rev Thomas Philippe, a Catholic priest Vanier called his “spiritual father”. Philippe, who died in 1993, was banned from exercising any public or private ministry in a trial led by the Catholic Church in 1956, for his theories and the sexual practices that stemmed from them. Several women accused him of sexual abuse.

Why is this such a big issue? What can we learn from it?

Here is my repentant reflection before God:  

Why is this disclosure about yet another respected spiritual leader so dismaying for me?
Is it a time for sackcloth and ashes?
Who knows the (dark) thoughts and (devious) motivations of the human heart?
Ultimately only you, Lord.
Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts.
See if there is ANY offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Our hearts seduce and deceive us in its slow but sure moral corruption.
If we allow it.
Only ruthless self-honesty with God and significant others, to our own hurt (even death), will save us from ourselves.
S/he who thinks they stand, TAKE HEED, lest you fall.
It’s the little foxes that destroy the vine.
Each little temptation, deviant thought, “white lie”, corrupted appetite, self-justifying belief, must immediately be brought to the light of community with God and significant others.
It’s called confession, living a fully disclosed life.

If left unattended, or excused, malformation of moral character sets in.
Corruption of sexual character – in fact, the Big Three: Money, Sex and Power.
It gives power to evil in self-deception, in the silent prison of guilt and shame.
The lie of self-preservation: “whatever happens, don’t let anyone know, don’t be caught out”
So, we progressively live a double life, sworn to secrecy.
We are as sick as the (dark) secrets we keep.
It remains unseen for years till the fruit pops out in certain attitudes, words and behaviour.
Often when we least expect it. Others see and notice it.
Disintegrates our integrity of being into other “selfs”, sick “parts” that we compartmentalise and accommodate and live with – for 35 years in Vanier’s case.
These “identities” then drive us, eventually with tormenting demonic energy.
Which seek to deceive and destroy – through us – those around us, those to whom we minister.

Who we really are, our true character, is known ultimately only to God.
Will be fully revealed when we die and appear before The Judgement Seat of Christ.
Then all will be known.
Lord, have mercy!
Better to come clean NOW, disclose our dark secrets and devious thoughts.
And get help, so that we don’t deceive ourselves and destroy others.

Paul says: watch your life – your believing, teaching and behaviour – very closely, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers (1 Timothy 4:15-16)
What will it profit you to gain the whole world’s respect by admirable selfless service in the Name of Jesus, and yet lose your own integrity and personhood while doing so?      

This might appear selfish. It’s not.
The real concern is the women and others, “the hearers” who were left spiritually manipulated, sexually abused, deeply damaged.
At the hands of a male Christian spiritual leader… again. Again. Again. Again.
When will it ever end? Only in the age to come.
As part of this spurious specie of (male) pastors/leaders, all I can say is, “God forgive us! Women and children, please forgive us!”  

Do I now disrespect and throw out all Jean Vanier has done? No, not at all. Do I discount what he’s written? Not at all. I now read it with clearer discerning lenses. We honour the good work that has been done – God uses broken people, we’re all wounded healers – while honestly facing the loss of integrity that has now tarnished his legacy (the first sexual abuse he engaged in, if disclosed at the time, should’ve disqualified him from leadership). Above all, however, we pray for the healing restoration of these women.

What can we learn?
 

Be radically honest with yourself. Be in touch with your needs, with your brokenness. With what drives you in certain contexts with certain people. And get help.

Do not remain unmarried if you are not “gifted” with celibacy, as Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 7:1-7. The doctrine and practice of celibacy of the priesthood has caused untold pain for many victims of abuse. It should be re-examined, even abandoned.

Do not over-react with generalisations (“don’t trust leaders”, “Catholics are bad”, “mystical spirituality is spurious”). Don’t under-react with excusing or minimising it all in the name of “love” or “mercy” or “good works” (that enhances the pain of the abused. We forgive sin, even patterns of immoral character, but that doesn’t mean the perpetrator must not be held accountable).

Be careful of (exclusive) one-on-one relationships in spiritual companionship or direction, in discipling, mentoring, fathering and mothering.

Be discerning of any spiritual manipulation, of any emotional pressure, relational dependence, deceptive beliefs, character failure.

Never idolise human leaders. We only have one human-God, Messiah Jesus. The rest of us are merely servant leaders in recovery all the way to heaven!

Don’t follow or entrust yourself to leaders who are not in touch with their brokenness. Who are not led or do not allow themselves to be led. Who are not genuinely accountable to others. Who do not work in team. They are dangerous.

Above all else, guard your heart, keep your integrity, grow your character, for it’s the fountain from which we all live, whether we know it or not, for better or for worse, with eternal consequence.
In other words, model the real deal of life to the full, due to godly character formation before the audience of One – Who sees all, knows all, and gives us the grace we need when we need it.

[1] “L’Arche is founded on love for people with mental disabilities. If we keep our eyes fixed on them, if we are faithful to them, we will always find our path. We are constantly called to draw this love from the heart of God, and from God’s mysterious presence at the heart of poor people.” Jean Vanier, From Brokenness to Community (Paulist Press, 1992), p.7.

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Is God on our side? Does God take sides?

Meditation on Joshua 5:13-15 (New International Version)

Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand.
Joshua went up to him and asked, “Are you for us or for our enemies?”
“Neither,” he replied, “but as commander of the army of the LORD I have now come.”
Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence, and asked him, “What message does my Lord have for his servant?”
The commander of the LORD’s army replied, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy.”
And Joshua did so.

Personal and socio-political issues arise and easily polarize and divide people into: “Are you for me/us or against me/us?” It happens in marriages and families. In communities and nations. Including The Church. Theologians, pastors and local churches are painfully divided from time to time by personal-social-economic-political-ethical issues like land expropriation without compensation, poverty & wealth, women in church leadership, gender dysphoria & LGBTIQ, mass (im)migrants, environmental issues, EU & Brexit, terrorism, war, abortion, death penalty. These, and more, reveal how divided Christians are, let alone general society. We are more a copy of society than a model of God’s Kingdom come in Jesus Christ. We are more “evangelized” and “discipled” in our thinking and acting by the dominant consciousness of partisan ideology than by the Good news of God’s Kingdom.

We quickly appeal to God to give legitimacy and authority to our viewpoint. God is on our side because we are simply doing what is right, what God’s Word says (so we believe). Thus “the other side” is wrong. They are against God, thus our enemies. This is how we domesticate and co-opt God to serve our agenda – “knowing” it is “God’s” agenda!  

Presidents and politicians infamously do that, often co-opting God and the Church to get (and keep) them in power, as Hitler did with the German Lutheran Church in the name of “Christian” national socialism. As in WWII, here in South Africa under Apartheid, Christian fought against Christian. Some white Christians said God was on the side of our “Christian nation”, our “Christian” Nationalist Government, and God was against the “communist hoards” that want to destroy our “Christian civilization”. While black theologians and leaders proclaimed, “God is on the side of the oppressed, to overthrow the enemy oppressor, this evil Apartheid regime”. Both sides prayed to the same God. Or god?

Whose side is God on? Does God take sides? Whether with persons, leaders or nations?

When Joshua saw a man with his sword drawn, ready to fight, he challenged: “are you for us or against us?” That’s often our mindset: We accept or reject (even attack) people on the basis of their answer, “us” or “them”. We “other” people, then label them, to secure ourselves. Because we are unable to think through and respond to polarizing ethical issues from a genuine biblical worldview, from Jesus’ Kingdom of God mindset. Are you for us or against us is more a conformation to the pattern of this world than a transformation, by the renewing of our mind, into God’s thinking and acting in Jesus.    

The man’s answer was decisive: Neither!

Instead, “As Commander of God’s army I have now come”. I am God’s Warrior-King, the leader of God’s army, of God’s agenda. This was a “theophany” (manifestation) of God, of God’s “angel” – the pre-incarnate Christ?   

The implication was immediately clear to Joshua: Who’s side am I on? Am I on God’s side? It’s NOT a matter of God being on my side, and thus against my enemy.  

Putting aside the technicalities of interpretation and “holy war” in the destruction of Jericho and all its people (except Rahab and her family), the point is simple:

Do we see God for who God is? Or do we project onto God who we think God is, or want him to be (for us)?

God comes to us, encounters us, in various ways – even in the form of our (supposed) enemy! Why? To provoke our fear. To see our reaction. To reveal our heart. For us to see ourselves more accurately in light of “the stranger”, who turns out to be God with human flesh. How do you respond to “the stranger” among us?


And, do we choose to bow down to God (revealed in Jesus)? Do we let GOD be God? Or do we make a human being our god? Or do we unconsciously (even consciously) use God “on our side” to make us (look) right, to fight our battles, to defeat those with whom we disagree? This, in effect, is making God bow down to us. Then we play God. We become (G)god – the ultimate deception of evil.

Be like Joshua. Fall facedown to the ground in reverence before God, surrendering to God’s Warrior King. He is the true Joshua (Jesus, meaning “Yahweh Saves”) who leads us into the fullness of God’s Promised Kingdom. The only adequate response to seeing and knowing Jesus for who he really is, is to kneel in full surrender to HIS rule and reign: “let YOUR Kingdom come, let YOUR will be done, on this piece of earth, here and now, as it is in heaven”. Not MY Kingdom, MY will, MY turf, MY truth, MY rightness, MY rights, MY church, MY people, MY culture, MY (Christian) nation.

Joshua embodies the posture of all true followers of Jesus: bowing the knee ONLY to God in Jesus Christ – to no other human being – no matter how Christian they say they are. They can turn out to be anti-Christ, the opposite of the “the stranger” who turned out to be God’s representative. The posture of humility, reverence and surrender is: “What message does my Lord have for his servant?” We are nothing more than God’s servants who find their identity, meaning and purpose, in Jesus, in serving HIS Kingdom. We wait at his feet for his directive in the social context of us and them, of painful polarization, of deep division.   

“Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy.” The response from the Commander in Chief! Wherever God is, THAT place is “holy” (meaning “set apart, belonging to God for his Kingdom purposes”). And God is everywhere! God is “the Lord of ALL the earth” (Joshua 3:11,13). “The EARTH is the Lord’s and everything in it” (Psalm 24:1). Plus, wherever you’re standing – like Joshua – THAT piece of earth belongs to God and his purposes. And you take your stand on the side of The Commander in Chief and become his instrument to bring GOD’s Kingdom where you are, right now.

The Commander’s reply anticipates the New Covenant that the Hebrew prophets said Messiah would institute. Messiah Jesus has fulfilled and transcended holy war, holy nation (ethnic Jews), holy city (Jerusalem), holy land (Israel), holy temple. From Jesus’ water baptism, through his ministry of the Kingdom, to his death and resurrection, the heavens AND the massive curtain in the Temple were “torn open” (Mark 1:10, 15:38), signifying heaven come to earth. God is out and about on every street, everywhere, meeting people as Jesus did – now through Christ-followers – no longer “locked up” in heaven or the “Holy of Holies”. Every separating barrier and dividing wall (spiritual, political, economic, social, cultural, geographic) is torn down in Messiah, who creates “one new humanity” that is trans-ethnic, trans-cultural, trans-national, trans-territorial. That is Christ’s Church, God’s true holy nation, God’s new living temple, where ALL are welcome – even our enemies, whom we love as Jesus loved. “Blessed are the meek (Jesus referred to his followers), for they will inherit the earth” – not a slice “holy land” in the middle east. Israel today is no more holy than any other nation, no more holy than they were 2000 years ago in the Promised Land when they rejected their Messiah and his perfect Peace Plan – “the best deal” not only of the centuries, but of all human history – still available to Israel and the nations today.   

“And Joshua did so” – he obeyed. He took off his sandals as Moses did when encountering God in the burning bush. As God was with Moses so he was with Joshua. God being “with us” (Immanuel) does not mean that God is on our side. No. God graced Israel with his manifest presence as long as they were on God’s side, fulfilling God’s purposes. But God withdrew from them, even turned against them – became their enemy, sent them into exile – when they repeatedly presumed on God by worshipping idols. They used God as their servant for their convenience, when they needed him, as many Christians do today.  

A final thought: Obedience in small things leads to faith and obedience in big things. “What message does my Lord have for his servant” was answered in two steps. The first was a small act of obedience, “take off your sandals”. A simple symbolic act that acknowledged,
a) God as the owner and ruler of the earth, who makes all of created reality holy;
b) that we are God’s surrendered servants, humbling fulfilling God’s purpose in the place where we stand and live with God, on God’s side.

There was a second response and instruction that immediately follows in chapter 6 (there should be no chapter division). A far greater obedience, a much bigger risk of faith, of life and death: “Advance… march… for I have delivered Jericho into your hands”. That was huge! (I plan to write a meditation on this story) The lesson is: if we do not do the “small obediences” – a long obedience in the same direction – we will not have the character, the moral muscle and faith capacity, to do the big obediences, to win the big (spiritual) battles, when God requires them of us. This includes not taking sides, but making sure we’re on God’s side, whatever it may mean or cost us. Then God’s Warrior-King fights HIS battles for, with, and through us, to advance his Kingdom for human salvation!

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Reflection on Significant Personal Shifts 2019/2020

In January I decided to start a long slow journey to meditatively read the Bible cover to cover. This morning, 30 December 2019, I finished Deuteronomy. The end of Torah/Pentateuch, the five Books of Moses. It’s been rich! I enter 2020 reading the next book in the Bible, Joshua, going into ‘The Promised Land’. How significant is that? Unplanned on my part. End of an era, beginning of a new year, a new decade, a new season to ‘inherit God’s promises’.

What makes this shift more symbolic is that Gill and I came to Johannesburg – independently of one another – in January 1980 (we met in 1984, got married in 1987). And we relocate to Salt Rock on the South African north coast, to a brand new house, on my birthday 14 January 2020! We both, in other words, have lived in Johannesburg exactly 40 years, planting and pastoring churches. Not that they have been a ‘wandering in the wilderness’ like Israel – at least not all of the time! But I do see God’s sovereignty in the timing of things. Has it been ‘training for reigning’, as in Israel’s formation and preparation in the wilderness, to rule with God in the new land?

Briefly, three years ago we started a succession process to hand over our local church. Two years later, on 13 January 2019, we laid hands on a younger couple to lead the church (when I began reading Genesis, ‘new beginnings’). We took the big step of faith to trust God month by month for ministry and finances, making ourselves available to the broader church to travel, consult with leaders, teach conferences, lead spiritual retreats, and write more books. Not that the last one has happened yet! And we decided, with a sense of leading from God, to relocate to the coast – north of Durban, where I was born in 1955. God has encouraged us with prophetic words that speak of a whole new season in our lives. We’ve been stretched in our faith like never before. Without going into detail, here’s one example: due to SA’s economic recession we’ve not yet sold our Johannesburg house, which we really need to sell (if there’s anyone out there who wants to buy it, let me know!)

I have learnt that the longer we faithfully journey with God in life, leadership and ministry, things do not get easier. Faith is further tested and seriously stretched for the finishing work of God in us, and through us, in his preordained plan for us. Jesus’ biggest test was toward the end of his life – Gethsemane – ‘Father, if it’s possible, take this cup from me! Yet not what I will, but what you will’. Greater faith is need for the greater and final things God wants to do in our lives. It’s ultimately training for reigning with Jesus in our resurrected bodies on the new earth, in the coming age(s). God has personally come through for us, reassuring us, providing, making a way, working miracles, keeping promises, being our light in darkness – ‘My God, that’s who you are!’

I conclude by grounding this brief 2019/2020 reflection in my year’s scripture reading. What amazed me is that the five books of Moses are named, in the Hebrew Bible, by the opening phrase of each book. They constitute an overview of headline lessons, a story told backwards from Deuteronomy to Genesis:

  • From ‘the words’
  • That ‘the Lord speaks’
  • Based on ‘the Lord’s calling’ on our lives
  • Calling us ‘by name’ to ‘exodus’ out of slavery to sin into God’s Promised Kingdom
  • Which is ‘the beginning’ of (a new) creation.

Deuteronomy is essentially the repetition of ‘These are the words’ (1:1, the Hebrew name for Deuteronomy) of God’s covenant, to prepare Israel to enter The Promised Land. They are literally “the words” (debarim) from God that give us faith and life (Romans 10:8-17), that equip us to inherit God’s promises, to enter the rule and reign of God’s Kingdom come.

These ‘words’ (Deuteronomy) follow on, and come from ‘The Lord spoke’ – Hebrew name for the book of Numbers (1:1; the Hebrew Bible also uses “in the desert/wilderness”, 1:1). Did you know that ‘the Lord spoke/said’, and its related phrases, occur 150 times in Numbers? Astonishing! In other words, the message of Numbers is that life’s wilderness is all about learning to hear God’s voice again and again in each and every situation – to receive God’s words, to be guided and trained by them for life. For 40 years in the desert, whenever Israel was tested, facing trials and temptations, Moses prayed and listened, heard and obeyed God. Israel, in contrast, moaned and groaned, reacted and rebelled. To the degree we learn to live and lead by listening and obeying, we exercise God’s authority to rule and reign, demonstrating the signs and wonders of the Kingdom, as Moses did.

‘The Lord said’ (Numbers) is based on ‘The Lord called’ (Leviticus 1:1) – the Hebrew name for the book of Leviticus. The Greek Septuagint name, Leviticus, means ‘relating to the Levites’. The Hebrew message of Leviticus is: because God has called us, therefore we hear God’s Word. It’s all about our calling and identity as God’s redeemed and holy people. The Lord’s Word – recorded in scripture, incarnated in Jesus, revealed by the indwelling Holy Spirit in each life situation – equips us to rule and reign with Christ on the basis of God calling and identifying us as his own. God calls us by name, sets us apart, makes us holy by the blood of the Lamb for his Kingdom purposes.

Our calling (Leviticus), in turn, comes from our Exodus – miraculous deliverance, departure, exit – from our life of slavery to sin, sickness, demons and death. The Hebrew name for the book of Exodus is ‘These are the names of” (1:1). God personally calls each of us out from under Satan’s rule by name, as members of his great diverse family, into a (new) covenant of love, in training for reigning to inherit the Kingdom. Exodus is all about God’s personalised love, fighting for us, freeing us from evil.

Lastly, this exodus – in fact, all four above – is based on, and constitutes, ‘the beginning’ (Genesis) of God’s creation. ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth’ (1:1). The book of Genesis is about God bringing order out of chaos, making all things new in a Garden of Delight (the meaning of Eden). God mandated his human image-bearers to take that Garden, that glory and abundance of God’s Shalom-Kingdom, to the ends of the earth.

Therefore, to move from Deuteronomy to Joshua – which I do on 1 January 2020 in my Bible reading; and, symbolically, we will do when we move to Salt Rock after 40 years in Johannesburg – is to come full circle back to the beginning: a new Genesis, a new birth. To move from Deuteronomy to Joshua is to move from Moses to Jesus (Hebrew Yeshuah, Yahweh Saves). Jesus leads us into the Promised Kingdom, to live in and advance God’s new creation – the new heavens and new earth – to the ends of this old, broken, chaotic creation, for the redemption and renewal of all things.

It’s a new year, a new season, a new start.
In Christ, you are a new creation, the old has gone, the new has come. Take heart! Turn to God, listen for his voice, receive his word, hear his call. God calls you by name!
Follow Jesus and he will lead you into the Promised Land.