Last Sunday I asked you to mentally or physically draw a picture of what you think God looks like. It may have sounded silly or trite, but I was very, very serious. As preacher, author, and lecturer Trevor Hudson so powerfully and succinctly put it: “In each of our hearts and minds there is drawn our picture of God” and “the way we live is profoundly shaped by our picture of God” (Hudson, T. Discovering Our Spiritual identity: Practices for God’s Beloved. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2010, p. 13). He goes on to say that when “distortions creep into our picture of God, their negative effects reverberate throughout our lives” (Hudson, ibid., p. 14). He gives some salient examples of the kinds of distortions that can result from our negative pictures or perceptions of God. He writes:
“Those who view God as an impersonal force tend toward a cold and vague relationship with Him. Those who see God as a heavenly tyrant, intent on hammering anyone who wanders outside His laws, seldom abandon themselves with joy to the purposes of His kingdom. Those who imagine God to be a scrupulous bookkeeper, determined to maintain up-to-date accounts of every personal sin and short-coming, rarely acknowledge their inner contradictions and struggles in His presence. Those who regard God as a divine candy machine (just say a prayer and you can get what you want) inevitably end up in disillusionment” (Hudson, ibid., p. 14).
In my case, Hudson’s point became painfully and almost fatally true. For me, God was a Heavenly tyrant, a scrupulous bookkeeper, and the perfect scapegoat for all my problems. Perfect in the sense that I could blame all my mistakes on Him and He never showed up to dispute my accusations … and perfect in the sense that who could stand against God, right? So, I could play the cosmic victim … a sad distortion of our brother Job, sitting atop the garbage heap that I had made of my life and shaking my fist at the heavens and blaming God. And this distortion, as Hudson calls it, took me down into the pits of hell and almost killed me.
What saved my life … what turned me around … was that I literally drew a picture of the God that I had in my mind and in my heart. When I crawled into Alcoholics Anonymous, I had to admit defeat in my battle against the demons of alcoholism. That part was easy. In admitting my defeat, however, I had to admit that I was powerless … that I couldn’t defeat my addictions … proven by the fact that I crawled into AA and literally begged for help. The only Power strong enough to defeat my addiction to drugs and alcohol was God. And that’s when I ran into a serious brick wall. How can I turn to God and ask God for help when He was the heavenly tyrant, the scrupulous bookkeeper, the life-long scapegoat for all my problems? How could I turn to God to help me solve my problems when I saw Him or considered Him to be the source of my problems? I was both mad at Him and terrified of Him all at the same time. But I didn’t know any of this until my sponsor … the person who guided me in my early stages of recovery … asked to draw a picture of God … which I thought was goofy and dumb … but he asked me to do it so many times that I finally sat down and did it just to get him to stop nagging me about it.
I decided to go for broke and write down what I honestly pictured. For some reason, God was tall … really tall … with flowing white hair and a white beard. I guess it’s windy in heaven because His hair was always blowing back, making Him look very intimidating. He points to a big leather chair … it looked like the one Captain Kirk on Star Trek would sit in. A big screen appears and my life begin to play on it. Every time that I screwed up, God would stop the tape and say, “Well … did you see what you did there” and then He would break it down and analyze it. As this continues, I feel more shame and more shame … until I begin pushing the “Go to Hell” button located on the arm of the chair.
I stopped writing and began crying at that point. That wasn’t God. That was me, sitting at the dinner table, getting lectured before I got punished. I had formed an image of God that was the result of my interaction with my parents and teachers and other authorities in my life. I know this may sound weird, but I realized that I had to fire that portrait of God and come up with a new, more accurate picture … one that is always changing and evolving … one that will constantly be changing and evolving for all eternity because God is always changing and evolving.
So, the first place we should start is with God Himself. As one author put it, “God is a boundless mystery” (Hudson, ibid., p. 15) … which is how God described Himself. As you recall, when Moses encountered God in the burning bush and asked God what His name was, God responded with the unpronounceable tetra-grammatron or four Hebrew letters: Yod He Vav He … or YHWH. As I mentioned last week, this name is complex and fluid. It’s usually translated as “I AM” but I prefer to translate it as “I AM WHO IS CONSTANT AND ALWAYS CHANGING” and I used the example of fire. Fire is always fire, but it is never the same … it dances, it moves, it is constantly changing. Author John Powell compared God to the sun:
“It is the nature of the sun always to give off warmth and light. The sun always sines, always radiates its warmth and light. There is no way in which the sun can act against its essential nature. Nor is there any way in which we can stop it from shining. We can allow its light to fill our senses and make us warm; alternatively, we can separate ourselves from its rays by putting up an umbrella or going indoors. But whatever we may do, we know that the sun itself does not change” (Powell, J. The Christian Vision. Allen, TX: Tabor Publication; 1984; p. 94).
As Trevor Hudson put it, “if ever we think that we have finally got God all worked out, then we can be sure that we are wrong” (ibid., p. 15). Author John Powell.
A person’s name in the Bible was meant to reveal something about the person and there are many names used to describe the character and heart of God. There is YHWH, as I’ve already mentioned. There’s “Adonai” … which is Greek for “Lord.” Whenever you seen the title “LORD” in all capital letters in your Bible, it stands for the title “YHWH” and when you see it with a capital “L” and the rest of the word lower case, it stands for “Adonai.” Here are just a few of the names that are used to describe God in the Bible:
El Shaddai: Which means God Almighty or Mighty Mountain
El Elyon: The Most High God
Jehovah: I Am or The Eternal Living One
Jehovah Jireh: The LORD is our Provider
Jehovah Rapha: The LORD is our Healer
Jehovah Nissi: The LORD is our Banner
Jehovah Shalom: The LORD is our Peace
Jehovah Raah: The LORD is our Shepherd
Jehovah Tsidkenu: The LORD is our Righteousness
Jehovah Shammah: The LORD is Here
He is also called “The Ancient of Days” in the Book of Daniel … El Roi, the “God who sees me” by Hagar in Genesis 16 … Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, and Immanuel by the prophet Isaiah.
All of these names are windows … mere glimpses into the infinite mystery of God. But we have one window … one flesh and blood window … into the heart and soul and mind of God. Anyone know the name above all names? Yeah! Yeshua … Jesus … Savior! Immanuel … God made flesh. And it is through Jesus that we get a whole new insight into the heart and nature of God. “I am the way, and the truth, and the life,” Jesus explains to Thomas. “No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know Him and have seen Him” (John 14: 6-7). That applies as much to us today as it did when Jesus first explained it to Thomas thousands of years ago.
When Philip asks Jesus to show him the Father, Jesus explains: “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does His works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves” (John 14:8-11).
Well … we saw Jehovah Rapha … the LORD our healer … when Jesus cured people of diseases and drove out demons, amen? We saw Jehovah Jireh … the LORD our provider … when He fed thousands with bread and fish, amen? We saw Jehovah Shammah … the LORD is here … when He became Immanuel … the Logos … the Word of God made flesh … the Ancient of Days … the Alpha and Omega who was with God and was God from the very beginning and through Whom all things were created and came into being. He is Jehovah Raah, the Good Shepherd. He is the Branch (Zechariah 3:8) … the True Vine (John 15:1). He is El Shaddai … our Mighty Commander and Chief … the Lion of the tribe of Judah (Revelation 5:5). He is a friend of sinners (Matthew 11:19). Most important … He is love personified.
In his first letter, the Apostle John, who knew Jesus personally, said that “God is love” … because He had seen God through the love and words and deeds of Jesus. “This is the very essence of who the Holy One is: extravagantly, sacrificially, passionately loving” (Hudson, ibid., p. 16). Jesus, says the Apostle Paul, “is the image of the invisible God. … For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell (Colossians 1:15, 19). If we want to get a picture of God, we must look in the direction of Jesus. “Through word and deed, dying and rising, Jesus introduces us to what God is really like” (Hudson, ibid., p. 16). “Every idea and assumption that we have about God,” says Hudson, “must be measured against the person of Jesus. If they are contradicted by what we have come to know about God through Jesus, they need to be relinquished. If not, then they can safely be included in our God picture” (ibid., p. 16). Contrast this with my old picture of God as a heavenly tyrant and scrupulous bookkeeper with the picture of God that I now have through my experience of Jesus in the Bible and the Holy Spirit of God in my life and it is clear which picture needs to be relinquished and which is the one that is correct, amen? And that’s the beautiful thing about God. Our picture of Him can be redrawn and should be constantly redrawn as our knowledge and experience of Him continues to grow and expand, amen?
Cardinal Basil Hume, former archbishop of Westminster and well-know spiritual guide, was given the chance to re-draw His picture of God. As a boy, he had been raised by a good but stern mother. “If I see you, my son, stealing an apple from my pantry, I’ll punish you,” she used to say. “If you take an apple and I don’t see you, Almighty God will see you, and He will punish you” (Hudson, ibid., p. 14). Well, you can imagine the picture of God that painted for his young, impressionable mind, amen? When he got older and began studying the Bible and experiencing God in his life, however, his faith and understanding began to mature and he realized that if God saw him stealing apples from his mother’s pantry that He might have said, “Why don’t you take two, my son? I have plenty” (Hudson, ibid., p. 14).
Jesus told Philip that He was in the Father and Father was in Him … His nature was God’s nature … the love that He showed to the world was the love of His Father, our Father, for all of His children. Remember how John Powell compared God’s nature to that of the sun? In the same way, the love that we see in Jesus, the divine nature that we see in Jesus, is like the light that comes from the sun … it never ceases. Like the sun, we have the freedom to open ourselves to this love and be transformed by it, or we can separate ourselves from it but we cannot stop Him from continuously sending out the warm rays of His love. At the heart of the unbound Mystery of God and of God Made Flesh is a blazing love that has created us, searches for us every moment, and desires to bring us, along with all His creation, into wholeness that comes from our deepening knowledge of Him and our growing and ever-changing relationship with Him.
And if there is any doubt as to the length and depth and breadth of God’s love for you and me, all you have to do is look at the cross, amen? Who among us can contemplate such love? And yet, looking at the cross, seeing Jesus hanging there, we catch a glimpse of how God in Christ absorbs the very worst that we can do … bearing it sacrificially in His own body for us, His prodigal sons and daughters.
As we prepare to come to the table, I ask you to once again to contemplate the crucified Christ and try to comprehend the meaning of what He did and why He did it. A mother was once asked which of her three children she loved the most. “I love them all equally,” she said but her friend pressed her. “Sure … every parent says that but, really, which one do you love the most.” “Okay,” she replied, “fair enough. I love them all the same but when one of them struggles and is in trouble, then my heart goes out to that child the most” (Hudson, ibid., p. 17). The cross is an immeasurably rich symbol of the ever-present power of God’s love. “Plumbing its depths,” says Trevor Hudson, “we see that suffering and evil are real, love often gets crucified, and people do get hurt. … Nevertheless … the strong love of God always has the final word” (ibid., p. 19).
And then there is the immeasurably rich symbol of hope … the empty tomb. “Not only does the Holy One experience our suffering as though it were His own,” says Hudson, “He is also relentlessly seeking to bring light and life where there seems to be only darkness and death. When this happens,” says Hudson, we experience what he called a “little Easter” (ibid., p. 20). When Jesus was nailed to the cross and suffered, when He breathed His last and gave up His spirit, the Disciples and His followers were crushed. He was finished. His life and His ministry were over. Death and evil had defeated God’s love … and then, three days later, they discovered the empty tomb and the truth that not even darkness or death could defeat the power and the love of God, amen?
When we are given courage to keep going, to keep living through the pain, that is a little Easter.
When we listen to a friend and they open up to us and share their grief and pain, that is a little Easter.
When we are truly able to forgive those who have wronged us or abused us, that, my friend, is a little Easter.
Any time that we are surprised with new possibilities for life and healing in the midst of brokenness and decay, that is a little Easter and it gives us a glimpse of the resurrection power of God’s love made manifest in the crucified and risen Jesus, amen?
“The deeds of Jesus wrap flesh around His words” (Hudson, ibid., p. 17). People from all walks of life felt accepted and welcomed by Him as He consistently reached out in friendship to those around Him. Whether it was a well-to-do public official like Zacchaeus or lepers living in forced isolation or children who simply wanted to sit on His lap or feel His hand upon their head or shoulder, everyone seemed at home in His presence. One of the most important expressions of friendship in Jesus’ time … and, well, our time too … is the sharing of a meal. As theologian Albert Nolan explained: “Because Jesus was looked upon as a man of God and a prophet, they would have interpreted His gesture of friendship as God’s approval of them. They were now acceptable to God” (Nolan, A. Jesus Before Christianity. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Publishers; 1978; p. 39).
“Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied,” said Philip (John 14:8) … and He did. “Believe me that I am in the Father and Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves” (John 14:11). As you see the face and heart of God in Jesus here at this table, I also hope that you hear Him whisper:
“You are loved just as you are. I am Abba, your heavenly parent, who welcomes you with open arms … arms that were spread out in love and nailed to the cross so that I could embrace you when you come home to be with me forever. Your presence is deeply desired at this table, where you will be greeted in friendship and treated as one of my family. Your suffering is my suffering. Your grief is my grief. In your darkness and pain, I want you to know that I am constantly seeking to bring about another ‘little Easter’ for you. On the cross I died so that you would know the full extent of my offer of forgiveness and my resurrection is your hope of a future together with me. This table is the symbol of how much I love you.”
Please turn to page 12 in the hymnal as we hear and accept His invitation to come to His table to receive His grace, His mercy, His friendship, and His love as we gain a more true picture of who God really is and, more importantly, what God thinks of us, amen?
