Coming To Terms With Reality Series

Well, it’s the middle of summer, and the nation is immersed in what has been called its favorite pastime—baseball. And the big news is that Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter became the Yankee’s first player with 3,000 hits yesterday, and he did it with a bang, with a home run, and next Tuesday is the All-Star game—a game that probably tens of thousands of little boys who play little league baseball dream one day of playing in.

Now, let’s imagine, just for a moment, that there’s a little league baseball player who is preparing to play his very first little league game. And He’s a very creative little boy. As he awaits his first at bat, what he notices is that running the bases is a very dangerous occupation. He notices that even when other little boys hit the baseball, they get thrown out at first base, or they get tagged out on the base paths, and so even though they hit the ball, many times they do not make it around the bases and to home plate to score a point, or “a run” for their team. And then he watches as another little boy actually hits a home run—that is he hits the ball and runs all the way around the bases to home plate and thus scores. And he thinks to himself, all that trouble, all that scrambling around the bases to get back to where he started in the first place—home plate. And so he comes up with a plan for when he gets up to bat.

So the pitcher pitches the ball and he somehow gets his bat around to make contact with the ball, and he hits a little ground ball to the pitcher. But instead of running to first base, he jumps on home plate and yells at the umpire, “Home run! Home run!” Meanwhile the pitcher manages to field the ball and throw it to first base where the umpire calls the young man “Out!” But the creative youngster continues to hop on home plate insisting that he’s hit a home run.

What’s happened? This creative little leaguer has decided to change the rules for himself. He doesn’t like the way the rules read, and he wants an exception to be made on his behalf. He doesn’t want to have to run the base paths, because so many bad things can happen to someone on the base paths. So he’s decided to eliminate the “run” from the Homerun, to change the rules according to his own preferences so that every time he hits the ball, he automatically has a home run.

Now let me ask you a question: “How is that “I make my own rules” attitude going to work out for him? Even if he continues to hop on home plate and declare insistently that he’s hit a home run? Not too well, is it? Even if he throws a tantrum, the Umpire is not going to declare Him “Safe!” He’s not going to be credited with a home run. Instead, he may be declared permanently out of the game, and undoubtedly someone from his team, a coach, or an older member of the family is going to be called to remove him from the playing field.

Now if he were older, he might challenge the call. He might say, “Who says so?” And then, “What right does he have to tell me I’m out?” “And why does he, the ump. have the right to say so.” And ultimately, if someone took the time to explain things to him, he would learn that everyone is supposed to play by the rule book, and that by consensus, everyone has given the Ump the right to make those decisions, and ultimately the rules go way back to the person who created the game, Abner Doubleday, or whoever, and that’s just the way things are. If you play the game, you play the game by the rules.

Now that’s very much the way it is with life, isn’t it? There’s a way things are meant to be, there’s a way life is meant to be lived. And there’s a reason for it. And if anyone is going to challenge that idea, he’s going to do so by asking some of life’s biggest questions, like, Well, then what’s life all about? And why is that so? And who said so?

And what gives them, or him, the right to say so? Questions that get back to Ultimate Reality, and the Creator, and the Authority that He has by virtue of the fact that He’s is the Creator.

And it’s precisely those kinds of questions, and those kinds of answers that we come to this morning in John 14. In verses 4-11 of John 14 we find ourselves in the midst of the Last Supper, those last intimate moments between the relatively faithful 11 disciples and their Lord Jesus before his arrest and Crucifixion. And what we find now is that Jesus is summarizing all of His teachings for the last 3 ½ years of ministry in their presence. He’s connecting all the dots for them. And what all those dots when connected will say is that Jesus is the Ultimate Reality, God Almighty, the one they must believe and follow if they would find the way to God and life, for He is God and life.