Overboard for Jesus Again
Love Never Dies, prt. 20
Wildwind Community Church
David Flowers
September 5 , 2010
With this message we draw to a close our series from the Gospel of John. The first message in this series was on Easter Sunday, and we have certainly covered a lot in the past twenty weeks or so. But there is much more that we have not been able to cover. I could do an entire series on the Gospel of John every year and it would still take years to give reasonable attention to most of what is there. But what I have tried to do in this series is give you a sense of the mystery of the Incarnate Christ – the Logos – the eternal Word of God. I have tried to preach it in ways that might not be expected – to bring out things that are often overlooked – to emphasize what is commonly not taken to mean much. The most important thing I have tried to do is help us step outside the material enough to be able to then see back into it with greater clarity. Our fatal flaw today in reading sacred scripture is in assuming that we already come to it understanding the most basic things. Indeed this is extremely dangerous. I have in several sermons used the crusades and other wars, or burnings at the stake, or other extreme things like that, to demonstrate what kinds of things we are capable of when we approach sacred texts with assurance that our particular point of view is immutable – that it could never be any other way – that we have figured out everything that is essential – that our creeds and laws and rules have boiled all of this down enough that we are no longer in danger – as were the religious people of Jesus’ time – of missing the entire point of what he was trying to say. Indeed I am convinced that in the past 2000 years, the religion of Christianity has not, in general, presented the gospel to people hardly at all. We have talked about Jesus – an historical person who walked the earth and taught and died on a cross. We have worshipped that man as God. But that’s only half the equation. John presents Jesus as the Logos – the eternal God – God himself in the flesh. What we did was we took the historical Jesus and made a religion out of him, and largely neglected the eternal God – the one who created heaven and earth and who is working in history to redeem all creation in all its various forms and people and places. This is precisely how Jesus is presented in John, and it’s precisely how Jesus is taught in Paul’s letters. But instead of rejoicing in the big-ness of God, the massive scope of his saving power throughout all human history, and the work he is doing even now to make all things new, the church made a religion out of all things Jesus – and not even really all things – we have actually picked and chosen which of Jesus’ teachings to pay attention to. But we tried to boil him down and put him on paper. We have taught Christianity for two thousand years essentially as a set of ideas, but what Jesus came to explain was that knowing God is not about understanding ideas, or believing in a certain set of things – knowing God is, above all else, a relationship with a person. Now a sign that we have been very deeply indoctrinated into this alternative gospel that I don’t really think is the gospel at all is that we hear that statement – knowing God is not about understanding ideas, or believing in a certain set of things – knowing God is, above all else – a relationship with a person – many of us hear that and our instant response is, “Yes, that’s true – but what about…?” and then we insert our favorite Christian idea. What about salvation through Christ alone? What about the virgin birth? What about the primacy of scripture? What about intelligent design? What about defending the unborn? What about?” And on and on we go. We kind of pay lip service to the idea that this whole thing is primarily about a relationship with a person, but we’re so thoroughly immersed in this view that this is really about being right, that we actually don’t think it’s possible to know God without being right. We think being right on the ideas is actually necessary for salvation. And in thinking this, we ultimately think that it is being right, having right ideas, that saves us. I’m not criticizing anybody. This is the way the message has been presented. We have largely been taught to believe right things rather than how to pursue right relationship with this person we call God. (Again, God is not human, but Christians believe God has a personality, therefore God is a person.) My guess is that there are those who hear this message and actually feel a little bit fearful. We are so worried that we might get an idea wrong and what the consequences will be for this, that it’s difficult to even hear the message I’m giving. It can be hard to listen, to be open to it, as if there is danger simply in hearing the idea. That’s because most people with a church background have actually been raised with a toxic mix of spirituality and fear. We are taught that fear is what helps us discern truth from falsehood and that if we fall off the path of truth, there will be consequences that are disastrous for our soul. Of course this idea doesn’t gel at all with the idea of God’s infinite love, nor with the idea that it is God as a person we are after, and not simply getting an idea right. Add to this 35,000 Christian denominations worldwide, nearly all of them secure that they are right and everybody else is wrong, and it seems like there’s just no rationality in clinging to the need to be right about everything, or in worrying too much that we might be wrong. We simply cannot be, and we aren’t, right about everything – not even everything that really matters. Yet so many cling so hard to this “being right” thing, afraid to let go, afraid that, like Jonathon Edwards preached, we are indeed in the hands of an “angry” God. And so fear continues to reign in the lives of Christians who mistake their fear of God for love of him, who have simply not comprehended the meaning of the words:
1 John 4:18 (Darby)
18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has torment, and he that fears has not been made perfect in love.
We cannot move fearfully towards God, for God himself overrules fear, blots it out – it is swallowed up in his vast love. So if we find ourselves fearing the gospel message, we must either a) judge it as wrong and retreat from it, refusing to listen (this is exactly what most people did to Jesus, and exactly what we can normally expect); or b) feel our fear, acknowledge it, before deciding to cast it aside and wade out into the deep waters that are far over our heads, but where God is waiting for us. Indeed God waits for us to abandon faith in everyone and everything, in every religion and every system, and simply take his hand and learn to walk with God. It’s so simple, and so pure, and so beautiful, that something in us resists it and wants to complicate it and make it messy, and draw lines around it. When we do not resist that urge, we largely end up with religion as we know it. But God waits for us to wade out to where he is. Deeper water awaits, and God is patient and good, and will wait for every person to move beyond fear.
We close our series in John today with a message I want to bring you from chapter 21. Dr. Joe covered chapter 19 last week (thanks Dr. Joe!), and I preached from chapter 20, the chapter about the resurrection, on Easter Sunday when we kicked off this series. Here in chapter 21 we find Jesus appearing a third time to his disciples since rising from the dead. Let’s dig in there a little before we move on. Understand something. This person who appears to the disciples is no longer the historical man Jesus of Nazareth. He appears as Jesus of Nazareth so his disciples can recognize him, but even then they struggle to know at first who he is. His body is no longer the same physical body – there’s something different about it.
John 20:17 (NIV)
17 Jesus said, "Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'"
At this point, Jesus could have appeared to his disciples as a burning bush, a talking donkey, a cloud (all ways he DID appear in the Old Testament), or a piece of bread, a glass of wine, a hooker, or absolutely anything else he wanted to be. He was no longer limited by his body in any way. The eternal Word – the Logos – had come from God, taken on human skin, and lived as Jesus of Nazareth. He did this until he died, then he was released from bodily constraints. In fact, what happened to Jesus is the same thing that will one day happen to you and to me. That’s the teaching.
1 Corinthians 15:52-54 (NIV)
52 …the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.
53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.
54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory."
Just like it was for Jesus, so it will be for us. And just like after his resurrection Jesus was still Jesus, but was a great deal more than Jesus, so too will you and I be a great deal more than what we currently are:
1 John 3:2 (NIV)
2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
As it was for Jesus, so it will be for us.
1 Corinthians 15:20 (MSG)
20 …the truth is that Christ has been raised up, the first in a long legacy of those who are going to leave the cemeteries.
The Jesus that appears here is the same person, but a higher person, a new person, a regenerated person – a person with a spiritual body. If Jesus were to suddenly appear to you today, it would be the same way he appeared to his disciples at that time. It would be the eternal God showing up in the guise of the historical person of Jesus of Nazareth. But the Logos doesn’t have to look like Jesus – he is free to appear any way he wants to. He is God. If we can get our arms around this simple fact, it will dispense with a great deal of our issues about in what form God has to appear to people and whether people have to fully recognize him as the historical person of Jesus Christ in order to nonetheless follow him and be saved by him. Of course not! Perhaps we can be led into this reality by the very fact that scripture never actually describes what Jesus looks like. My friends, I don’t think we’re supposed to try to pin any certain face on Christ.
At any rate, Jesus here appears to the disciples for a third time since his resurrection. Let’s look at the text:
John 21:1-7 (MSG)
1 After this, Jesus appeared again to the disciples, this time at the Tiberias Sea (the Sea of Galilee). This is how he did it:
2 Simon Peter, Thomas (nicknamed "Twin"), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the brothers Zebedee, and two other disciples were together.
3 Simon Peter announced, "I'm going fishing." The rest of them replied, "We're going with you." They went out and got in the boat. They caught nothing that night.
4 When the sun came up, Jesus was standing on the beach, but they didn't recognize him.
5 Jesus spoke to them: "Good morning! Did you catch anything for breakfast?" They answered, "No."
6 He said, "Throw the net off the right side of the boat and see what happens." They did what he said. All of a sudden there were so many fish in it, they weren't strong enough to pull it in.
7 Then the disciple Jesus loved said to Peter, "It's the Master!" When Simon Peter realized that it was the Master, he threw on some clothes, for he was stripped for work, and dove into the sea.
Sound familiar?
Matthew 14:25-29 (NIV)
25 During the fourth watch of the night Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake.
26 When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. "It's a ghost," they said, and cried out in fear.
27 But Jesus immediately said to them: "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid."
28 "Lord, if it's you," Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water."
29 "Come," he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.
In the first story Jesus is on the shore and in the second story Jesus is on the water. The point here isn’t where Jesus is, the point is for us to look closely at this desire Peter had to simply be wherever Jesus was. Of course I have read these stories out of order. Peter walked on the water to Jesus first, and then, after Christ raises from the dead, Peter dives into the sea to go to him.
I always read the account of Peter walking on the water to Jesus with some fear and tentativeness on Peter’s part. After all, Peter says, “If it is you.” He’s not entirely sure what he’s getting into. Then we see later in the account that he is distracted by the wind and waves and takes his eyes off Jesus, and that’s when he begins to sink. Of course he is only distracted by the wind and waves because he is afraid.
But no such fear this time. He’s out on this fishing boat in the lake and as soon as he becomes aware that it’s Jesus on the shore, he grabs his clothes and dives in. He dives in. Peter is the guy that wants to be where Jesus is. My friends, does that describe us? Do we want to be where Jesus is? Wherever God is found, do we want to be found in that place? Or do we first want to make sure that God is in places where we know we will be clean and dry and comfortable? Wherever God is found, is that where we want to be? Or do we look into the lake and see the wind and waves churning – the theological questions, doubts and fears about whether it’s really God we’re going to – and then simply decide to remain safely in the boat?
Look, in both of these accounts, there is a period of time where Peter doesn’t know who Jesus is. The first time, when Jesus is walking on the water, Peter says, “If it’s you, command me to come to you on the water.” Pretty risky, right? Peter is willing to risk life and limb on the simple hope that he’s moving toward Jesus. Are we? Are we willing to move out into new waters of faith where we have never been before, where the wind and waves appear threatening, and trust in Jesus to be sufficient for us? Don’t say “yes” too quickly. I think the quick “Yes” is a Sunday school answer. The quick “Yes” is nearly always a little disingenuous because it comes before the struggle, before the long look into the truth of who we are and where our faith really lies. The quick “Yes” is the answer we too often give before we look seriously at our lives, seriously into our own hearts, seriously into the fears that are already churning away in there, seriously at how deeply we are already convinced that God is going to abandon us, and let us drop into the teeming surf, if it should turn out we have failed to dot one theological “I” or cross one doctrinal “T.” Seriously at how completely we have bought into the falsehood that Jesus is only mighty to save those who are right, those who maybe don’t have it all together, but at least have the right things together, and therefore perhaps who were never really in need of saving to begin with.
That’s why we can learn from Peter. The gospel accounts are full of two things in regard to Peter. His wrongness, and his desire to be with Jesus. Peter was a big-mouth, a passionate guy, a doer. Because he was a doer, he often did wrong things. He stumbled and bumbled, but Christ said to him, “You are the rock and on this rock I will build my church.” Peter, who denied him, who cut off a soldier’s ear trying to defend him, who took his eyes off him and began to sink – but who nonetheless was willing to swallow his fear and dive into any lake of any depth and any conditions if it was going to get him to where Jesus was. Don’t talk to me about Jesus being the only way to heaven, or about taking scripture literally. You can think what you want about those things. You can be right and you can be wrong. But the best theology you will ever see in all of scripture is those two accounts of Peter diving out of those boats. When we get the relationship right, when the love is there, it’s not that right becomes wrong and wrong becomes right – it’s just that you have stopped playing that game because you’ve discovered for yourself that it’s not the only game in town – and it’s not the most important one. As Jonathon Edwards said, you have been seized by the power of a great affection. You are being lost in love from God and for God. And what do we know about love? Interestingly, Peter teaches us what is so critical about love, and Peter knows this first hand.
1 Peter 4:8 (MSG)
8 Most of all, love each other as if your life depended on it. Love makes up for practically anything.
If you know your spouse loves you, you tolerate their moods, their misunderstandings of you and your motives, their annoyances with you, the ways in which they just don’t get you, their failures to be perfect, even occasional failures to be kind! You accept the ways in which they are wrong about you – maybe even deeply wrong sometimes. You stick with them, realizing that you would be foolish to insist on their getting things right at the risk of losing their love. It’s not even a question. It’s not even an issue. Someone who thinks it is needs help! Love makes up for practically anything, or as that verse says in the NIV,
1 Peter 4:8 (NIV)
8 Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.
But to dive into deep waters that are clearly over our heads is a fearful thing. To know this love of God, we must not allow our fear to lead us. We must instead allow God’s love to conquer fear in us. Love never dies. Love lays waiting for you and for me. Will we dive in and go to that love, or will we pull back in fear, in the desire to stay comfortable? There’s a song the Catholics sing as part of their mass. The chorus is simple. It goes like this:
“Shepherd me, O God, beyond my wants, beyond my fears, from death into life.”
Will you sing this with me?
“Shepherd me, O God, beyond my wants, beyond my fears, from death into life.”
