Theological Lecture: What is Jesus Doing Now?
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Speaker 2:are so glad that you're here. We're also very glad to be welcoming, Mark Ginelett. He's a professor at Beeson Divinity School here in town. He's also the late canon theologian at Cathedral Church of the Advent downtown. I'm sure a number of you will recognize him from either of those places.
Speaker 2:Mark was, one of my professors and also, my mentor, Josh Howson, our associate pastor of administration, his mentor and professor Beeson. He he was working and making
Joel Brooks:money the whole time. I've just been
Speaker 2:paying money there. Beason. He he was working and making money the whole time. I've just been paying money there the whole time. So he's he's one in that scenario.
Speaker 2:But but I I have loved my time at Beeson for a number of reasons, and and one of the top reasons is definitely Mark Genolette. And so join me in welcoming doctor Mark Genellet.
Joel Brooks:Do I
Speaker 3:need a oh, I'm on. Okay. I think if you'd have told me 15 years ago that in 15 years you're gonna get to go to a church event and talk about Jesus in a brewery while you're drinking beer? I don't think I could have conceived of that, but this may be the pinnacle shining moment of my life. So I'm very glad to be here.
Speaker 3:Let me let me begin this with prayer. I'm sitting and feeling real weird about that. I'm sure I'll get up eventually. Let's pray. Now father as we come together tonight, Lord we do so because we have questions and we wanna know you.
Speaker 3:And we live in a world that's torn and fragmented. And we live in our own bodies. We have internal conversations, and we know we're torn, and we're fragmented, and we're in desperate need of you. And, Lord, whatever we're doing tonight together, we ask that by the power of your spirit and the gracious giving of your own self that you would open our minds and our hearts to just glimpse into who you are and that we would walk away, Lord, changed and encouraged and hopeful. And we ask these things in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit.
Speaker 3:Amen. Well, we're talking tonight about Jesus. And we're talking about Jesus in a particular way that has to do with the significance of what Jesus is doing now. When I was asked to do this topic, I don't know, whenever I was, I was immediately encouraged by it because there are certain aspects of the Christian faith and of Christian theology that over the past 10 years have been profoundly impacting and significant in my own spiritual formation and journey, and this is one of them. So speaking into this is will be in a sense a bit of an expose of what God has been doing in my own heart, in my own mind as it relates to thinking about Jesus and thinking about God and how thinking about what's beyond our rational capabilities, how that has an impactful and a significant influence on the ways in which we live and move in this world.
Speaker 3:And I'll tell you why. I mean I grew up a Christian. Some of you have as well. Others of you and I recognize that this crowd will probably be a diverse crowd. Some of you are newer Christians.
Speaker 3:Some of you are Christians by name all throughout your years, and now you're having some sort of internal revival that's going on. Some of you are seekers and figuring this whole Christian thing out and whether or not you're going to jump into the deep end of the pool. And I I recognize that I don't know most of you, and I realize you're probably all over the map. I I grew up never knowing really a time that I didn't go to church and love Jesus. I mean, that's just kind of the world I I grew up in.
Speaker 3:My my parents are here tonight. Mom, only one beer tonight.
Joel Brooks:I want
Speaker 3:you to know that. My mother doesn't drink beer, that's a bit of a joke. But I grew up in that world, and I'm grateful for that. But I think I had a sort of conception of my spiritual existence as, you know, you you ask Jesus into your heart. You make some sort of confession of faith, and then you go about kind of trying to figure it out.
Speaker 3:You're looking for something that has to do with the ways in which you are primarily at the center of what it means to be a Christian because Jesus gave you salvation. But as far as your Christian existence goes, you've got I've got to actualize that. I've gotta make that happen. So I know that the gospel got me onto the Christian train, the good news that Jesus lived for me and he died for me. We're gonna talk more about that tonight.
Speaker 3:But the the good news about the very basic rudimentary aspects of what it means to be a Christian, I I knew that that got me onto the gospel train. But now that I'm on the train, you know, I can put the gospel ticket back in my pocket and look for the drink cart and the candy cart and try to figure out now what's the real thing about this being a Christian. And so a lot of effort goes into that. A lot of internal navel gazing. A lot of a lot of angst.
Speaker 3:And and probably rightly so, frankly, as we go through our various Christian lives. But I guess in my early twenties and maybe mid twenties, and then probably in the most significant way, my late twenties, early thirties when I was starting at Beeson, actually. The significance of the fact that Jesus is, not just that Jesus was. I could picture that. I I knew the Zephyrhili, king of the Jews movie that we would watch during Christmas time I mean, Easter time.
Joel Brooks:And by
Speaker 3:the way, if you've never seen Zephyrhile's is it am I I got that wrong. Jesus of Nazareth, King Well, what is the Zephyrili Jesus movie? Jesus of Nazareth. Awesome. Netflix that thing.
Speaker 3:It is a great show. The guy who plays Jesus dies, like, 6 months later. It's all ooey, eerie kind of stuff. Anyway, I knew that Jesus was, and I understood that. And I knew that that was important.
Speaker 3:In other words, it's important for our salvation, for our redemption as Christians, that Jesus walked around and kicked up dust. And it's important that Jesus ate falafel and pita. I don't know if he ate that, but whatever they ate back then. Right? And I knew that was important.
Speaker 3:And, but I I didn't know how to conceptualize and internalize the significance that Jesus of Nazareth, that self same individual that kicked up dust on the Palestinian roads of the 1st century world, that he is now, and that he exists now. And, and this might blow your hair back if you've got any left, I've got a little, and he's, for lack of a better term, corpuscular now. He's got a body now. Jesus is human now, and it matters. It matters.
Speaker 3:And the significance of that for me in my own spiritual life, I began to take on, various shades of meaning. And one of the I think one of the more important aspects of this for me is a recognition that humanity and what it means to be human matters to God. It matters to him. In fact, it matters to God so much that in the eternal counsel of his own will, where God self sustained in his own internal relationship with himself in need of nothing else. And you do know that about God.
Speaker 3:Right? I mean, there's some of these old poems. I can't remember the name of the poem, but there's a poem that goes something to the effect of and God and his, you know, eternal identity was lonely. And so he created man so that he could have fellowship. I mean, man, that's just first class hogwash.
Speaker 3:Right? I mean, God was never lonely. There's never any gap in God's being that needed to be filled. There's nothing that we brought to that. And so, God didn't create humanity because he needed something.
Speaker 3:He created humans and then set on a course to redeem us because of his own good pleasure, because of his love. And in his own eternal counsel And there's a lot of this. I realize it gets mysterious, and you can ask all the questions you want to, and I q and a time, and I'll just go, I don't know. Right? But there a lot of mystery around this.
Speaker 3:But we know that God made a decision in his own eternal identity to be a God for you and for me. To be a God for humanity. For us. In other words, the incarnation or Jesus becoming human was not an afterthought in God's eternal identity, but was integral to what God understood himself to be in time and in space to redeem a humanity, to redeem a people for himself. So when Jesus steps into the world now think about this.
Speaker 3:This is the theology talk.
Joel Brooks:I hope you can I hope
Speaker 3:you knew what you're getting into? Right? But if you if you think about this, I mean it's very significant to claim that there was never a time when the second person of the trinity, the son of God did not exist. Matter of fact, a lot of theological debate and identification and differentiation took place all throughout the early church into the 4th century. And the 4th century is a pinnacle century that was wrestling with, what does it mean for God to be 3 in person yet 1 in divine essence?
Speaker 3:I'm not gonna go down this road because I know our our brains will start bleeding out of our ears. But that that whole Trinitarian discussion, very important. So there was never a time when Jesus, in the sense of the second person of the trinity, the divine son of God, was not. Never a time. I'm I'm in the Anglican tradition.
Speaker 3:Some of you may be familiar with the Anglican tradition. We I I don't know if you do this with redeemer or not, but we say the Gloria Patria, I guess, is the technical term in our liturgy regularly. And that is glory to the father and to the son. You some of you may know this. And to the holy spirit, as it was in the beginning is now and ever will be.
Speaker 3:World without end. Amen. Beautiful. We've set that to music. We say it back and forth intifinally all throughout our liturgy.
Speaker 3:In the 4th century, that was the Notre Dame fight song for Orthodox Christians. I mean, we we put it in very beautiful floral settings now in our liturgy, but for the 4th century, that was go get them boys song. Because across the aisle, there there was people like Arius saying there was a time when he was not. He's very important. He's very significant.
Speaker 3:He's semi divine but he's not just like the father. So these were very important theological matters that frankly might seem arcane and esoteric to us but they're at the heart of the Christian faith. I mean this stuff's very important. So there was a There was never a time when the second person in the trinity did not exist. But there was a time when we're thinking about it from our conception of time and space when he wasn't human.
Speaker 3:That's very important. John chapter 1 verse 14, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us. Philippians chapter 2 says, being in the form of God, co equal with God, sharing in the divine essence of God. He didn't think it was robbery to be equal with God, but he lowered himself taking on the form of a servant and coming into the likeness of human flesh of humanity even unto the point of the death of a on the cross. So he took on human flesh for us.
Speaker 3:And that is significant. And and by the way, I don't know if you've conceived of this. Well, this is why you're This this touches a real neurologic point for me. But I don't know if you conceive it this way, but Jesus is taking on humanity and becoming a man, a human that had a beating heart and a spirit and flesh and walked around this world and felt hunger and knew what it was to need to take a nap and to get away for a little bit and refresh himself. All the things that we think about being human, your salvation and my salvation, my eternal security rests on the fact that Jesus came to redeem humanity by taking humanity onto himself.
Speaker 3:And here's the part that's all about what we're doing tonight and the part that I just find so absolutely fascinating to this point, to tonight, is that when Jesus raises from the dead and then ascends to the father and admittedly, that raises all kinds of wild questions like, why exactly did you have to leave? You ever thought about that? It's like things are just going so well. I mean, they killed you. Now you're alive.
Speaker 3:Right? Well, why did you have to leave? There he goes. He's gone. But in his leaving, he didn't leave his body.
Speaker 3:You realize this right? His body is now in the throne room of God wherever that exists, and I know we live in an world and the flip side of reality and all this. It's not out there. It's it's a flip side of whatever that is, wherever that throne room of God is, Jesus is there, and he's there as a man because he's elevated our humanity. He's elevated humanity into the very life of God himself.
Speaker 3:He's elevated our humanity. That's why Jesus is the humanizing human. He's a human, and he cares about humanity, and our redemption rest on that. Now can I press this just a little bit more? The other part about this that I think I find so fascinating is I also understood from my childhood on beer break.
Speaker 3:There'll be more of those. Don't worry. I also understood from my childhood on I'm I'm not in my notes yet, but I'm gonna get to them. I understood from my childhood on that Jesus died for my sins. I mean, that's evangelical Christianity 101, isn't it?
Speaker 3:Right? Jesus died for my sins. He went to hell for me so that I wouldn't have to go. But again, another angle on this, given the fact that Jesus is the humanizing human, not only did Jesus die for me, Jesus lived for me. He lived for me.
Speaker 3:Because, see, we run a real danger when we separate the work of Jesus, his atoning work, the fact that he accomplishes salvation for us on the cross. We run into real dangers when we separate the work of Jesus from the person of Jesus. Jesus lived life for me.
Joel Brooks:Can I give you a a
Speaker 3:fancy technical term for that? His life was a vicarious humanity for you and for me. He died in our place. He lived in our place. There's enormous amount of gospel hope in this for you and for me.
Speaker 3:The gospel hope is that Jesus, he believes the way that we should believe. He obeys the way in which we should obey. He gets baptized and he comes out of the waters and the heavens break open and a dove falls on top of him And then God announces from heaven that this is my beloved son. Listen to him. And Matthew's gospel says something bizarre.
Speaker 3:It's really kinda hard to get our minds around what Matthew meant by this, but he says, and he did this in order to fulfill all righteousness. What does that mean? Well, I don't think I really understand the full implications of what that phrase in Matthew means, but I think part of it is when Jesus goes into the waters of baptism, he identifies with sinners like you and me. He's fulfilling all right. He's living my life for me.
Speaker 3:He's he's being baptized for me. He's fulfilling the law for me. He's obeying his father for me. He's he fears and his piety the way in which it should be operating in in human existence. He's the humanizing human.
Speaker 3:Not only did he die my death, but he lived lived my life. And now he stands before the throne of God ever there eternally presenting our humanity to him. Now I've got to read some bible to you because this is a lot of chatter. Can I read these verses to you in light of everything that we just said? Maybe you'll hear Colossians 3 1 to 4 in a new way.
Speaker 3:So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on the earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ and God. Now let me let me say that again. Because you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
Speaker 3:Can I rephrase that in a lot of what we've been saying? Your humanity has been elevated into the very humanity of Jesus, and it's hidden safely in the very eternal life of God. Verse 4. So when Christ, who is your life is that a great turn of phrase? By the way, Colossians, 2 thumbs up.
Speaker 3:When Christ, who is your life, is revealed, here's a funny phrase, Then you also will be revealed with him in glory. I'm gonna say read it one more time. Put your mind around this. When Christ, who is your life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory. You know what I think Paul's saying there?
Speaker 3:It is profound. It's metaphysical. It's complicated. It's philosophical. It's theological.
Speaker 3:I mean, any ways in which you can think about putting to work the faculties of our minds and our hearts to think about God and how that intersects with our lives. Paul's doing that right here. He's a great theologian. And what he's saying is when Christ appears at that final day at the resurrection of the dead, then guess who's gonna appear with him? You.
Speaker 3:Now now there's more to this. The the authentic true you, that that means again, we're good. I know we're scooby gary a little bit here, but that means that your true self, if you're a Christian and you've confessed your faith in the Lord Jesus, and have followed him in the waters of baptism so that he's claimed you as your own. If that's who you are, what Paul is telling you is that your primary and fundamental identity, the very core of your being and what it means for you to be you is not really the you that's here tonight. It's the you that's been elevated into the life of God in Christ because you are safely in him.
Speaker 3:So that when he is revealed, guess who else gets revealed? You do too. The true you. The authentic the humanized you that Jesus has elevated into himself because he lived your life and he died your death. Need to put it another way?
Speaker 3:And I'm I know that my kids can't wait and my wife can't wait and I can't wait either. I can't wait to meet the real me. Right? Because I know the real me now. I got to live with that guy.
Speaker 3:Right? And you have to live with you too. It's the funny thing about those of you who are in relationships. You know what it's like. We have all these ideals for what we want our relationships to be like.
Speaker 3:The only problem is we're involved. Right? I mean, we're we're sinners, and we're not gonna escape that in this whole world. We we are gonna be I mean, if I can use Luther's terms, we're gonna be fully righteous because of Christ's imputed work, and and we're gonna be fully sinners until the day we breathe our last. Welcome to it.
Speaker 3:But at that day, we're gonna meet our true selves, your true identity, who you really are in Christ. You know what that does? You know what the implications of this are? This shapes fundamentally how we understand who we are. Ourselves.
Speaker 3:Do you realize the implications that this has for your understanding of the self? And my goodness, if we are in a time in our world on the far side of modernity that is struggling to come to terms with selfhood, authentic humanity, what it means to be human, we are in it right now. It is all over the place right now. And for a Christian, what Paul is telling us is you wanna come to terms with selfhood, finding your authentic self, your true self, so that you can actualize that self in the real world. You want to find that person, you take a long and hard look at jisobns and him.
Speaker 3:That's Well, that was introduction. You should be very nervous. The question that we want to raise now is, if that's what Jesus his whole notion about him being a fully fully human now, bringing that into divine life, So then the question is, what is Jesus doing now? That's the title of our whole talk tonight. And I want to talk about this from a few from a few angles.
Speaker 3:Number 1, I want to talk about Jesus as our priest. He's a priest, and he's a priest for you and for me now. That is, if I can borrow from a theologian who's dead, and they tend to be the better ones, John Calvin. Calvin says we need to recognize that Jesus does not sit idly in heaven. He's not inactive.
Speaker 3:I mean, you've seen enough of these far side cartoons or maybe New Yorker cartoons to recognize that, you know, the views of heaven and the spiritual life beyond can be, well, they can be portrayed in very boring ways. You know, I remember seeing 1 far side cartoon where they had 2 guys with a halo sitting on a cloud and the caption was, if I'd have known it was going to be this boring, I'd have brought a magazine. Right? I mean, that's not that's not a good portrayal. What does Jesus do now?
Speaker 3:I think it's very important for us to understand first and foremost that Jesus operates now for us as, again, the one who has elevated humanity into the life of God. He operates as our priest. He operates as our mediator. He intercedes for you and for me now. I wanna read you from Hebrews, and this will be hard for me to navigate a little bit here.
Speaker 3:But Hebrews chapter 2, verse 10. I want you to I'm thinking a lot about Hebrews lately. Verse 10. It was fitting that God for whom and through whom all things exist in bringing many children to glory should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through suffering. It was fitting.
Speaker 3:It goes on to say at the end of chapter 4 of Hebrews, since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, Let us hold fast to our confession for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses. But we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. What's all this about? This priest we don't we don't live in a world of priests.
Speaker 3:I was thinking about this recently. We don't live in a world of sacrifice. We don't live in a world that's bloody. We go down to Publix or the Western or wherever you go and your chicken's under cellophane. Your beef is all nice and dried out.
Speaker 3:You know, there's no dripping blood. We just we live in a very sedentary world. My my brother-in-law has a couple of pigs. I'm invested in one of these pigs financially, actually. Out in a little not in Pell City, but somewhere near Pell City.
Speaker 3:I get these small towns in Alabama all confused. But, it will be a bloody affair around November, I think. Alright. But that's not my normal existence. I mean, I don't normally live that way.
Speaker 3:So we don't
Joel Brooks:live in a world of priests
Speaker 3:and stuff. That's all very strange to us, but it's the world of the Bible. And as we're drawn into that world, we come into a book like Leviticus. And for any of you who've made a commitment to read through the Bible, you know, one of those new year's resolutions, I'm going to go to the gym 3 days a week. I'm going to read my bible.
Speaker 3:And you know, maybe maybe it goes well. And if you told to those resolutions, God bless you. I admire you deeply. I you know, but you maybe get to Leviticus, and you're like, done. I gave that a go.
Speaker 3:Genesis was interesting. Exodus, a lot of twists and turns. Leviticus, I'm out. Right? I'm done.
Speaker 3:But you think about what's going on in Leviticus, there's blood in the tabernacle or the temple all the time. And on that high day of Yom Kippur, you had the priest would come into the holy of holies, and he would take the blood of a goat. There are 2 goats involved in the Yom Kippur ritual, a day a yearly ritual, the high day of the Jewish calendar. And he would take blood into the Holy of Holies and he'd smear blood on the corners of the altar for two reasons. Number 1, he did so to alleviate the burden of sin on the people.
Speaker 3:To lift the sins off of them so that they didn't bear the guilt of their sin anymore. And number 2, to purify the temple itself. It was an act of ritual purification so that then people could worship God cleanly again. Because sin was both a presence and a power. And sin, in an aggregate way throughout the year, built up and so polluted the temple that it needed to be washed and cleaned.
Speaker 3:And then guess what? The next day after Yom Kippur, day number 1 of 365, And we'll build it up again. And we'll see you next year at the same time. But there was another goat that you had there at the Yom Kippur. And this goat was a goat that they would I don't even know what all this is about.
Speaker 3:We we don't. We just don't know. But they put their hand on this goat in some ritual act. And I think what that act symbolizes was we're putting our sin onto the back of this goat, and then they'd send this goat out into the desert to meet, what the book of Leviticus identifies as Azazel. I don't know what Azazel is.
Speaker 3:People will give you some sort of argument. Maybe it's a demon. Maybe it's a word for the wilderness. We're not sure what Azazel is. We but I think we can be sure that we're glad that that goat found out and not us.
Speaker 3:Right? That's the point. Right? You go out and find Azazel. So what do you have?
Speaker 3:You had having Yom Kippur, you had both the presence and the power of sin was being removed. Both the presence and the power of sin. And what do we have with Jesus? This is what makes the the person and work of Jesus so profoundly beautiful. And the book of Hebrews, another 2 thumbs up book to kind of give you a sense of why Jesus acts as our priest.
Speaker 3:He is both priest and victim at the same time. He is both the high priest mediating between humanity and God the father, but he's also the goat. He's also the victim. Removing the presence and the power of sin. I mean, it's fascinating isn't it to read in Hebrews and in the gospels that when Jesus is crucified, he goes outside the camp.
Speaker 3:He's going out into the wilderness to meet Azazel and to defeat him. And he does so permanently. And unlike any priest before Jesus, when Jesus makes that atoning ritual, Hebrews chapter 1 tells us, when he does that, he sits down in the Holy of Holies. No high priest in the Aaronic line ever sat down. Matter of fact, truth be told, those Aaronic priests that had to go in could probably couldn't wait to get out.
Speaker 3:Right? But not Jesus. Jesus goes in, he makes atonement, and he sits down. And what Hebrews tells us, and this is why it's so poignantly present in our spiritual existence right now, is that that high priest who went in and removed the presence and the power of sin permanently and effectually for his people, that self same high priest, he's someone who knows what it's like to be human. He learned obedience in the school of suffering.
Speaker 3:It says in another place in Hebrews that his prayers were heard because of his fear and piety. What strange things to say about Jesus. His prayers were heard because of his fear and piety. What does that mean? It doesn't mean that Jesus was being made morally perfect.
Speaker 3:He was morally perfect already. But what it meant was when Jesus went into the school of suffering to be human and to know what human suffering is like, He became vocationally perfect. A priest fitting for you and for me, who can pray to the father. And in praying to the father can do so in such a way that he's filled with knowledge and can say, I understand. I know what it's like.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna intercede for them because I'm a priest who knows what it's like to suffer and to be tempted and to be human. And that's why Hebrews tells us to come into his presence boldly because he understands. Those are terms we toss around rather cheaply, aren't they? And in various contexts. And most of you, I assume, are savvy enough in various moments of suffering or sorrow in people's lives not to say things like I understand.
Speaker 3:I mean, I I don't. I've got a friend right now battling pancreatic cancer. It's not looking good for the long term. I I don't, you know, I'm praying for you. I love you.
Speaker 3:I don't understand. That's that's a that's a pool I've never swum in before. But Jesus understands. That's what our our priest does. And here's a more lower the lower flying point that I want to sort of emphasize here is, and what Jesus does as our high priest is he prays for you and for me.
Speaker 3:He's praying. I don't know if you've spent time in John's gospel. That's just so beautifully constructed, the book itself. It's artistically and literarily. Just it's a John's a great gospel.
Speaker 3:What does Jesus do in John chapter 14? This is referred to John chapter 14 to John chapter 17 as scholars refer to it as the farewell discourse. Another maybe not so fancy way of describing it is John 14 to 17 is Jesus breaking the bad news to his disciples. I'm leaving. Right?
Speaker 3:And they're like, what? You're really leaving? He's like, yeah. I'm leaving. And He tells them, but I'm gonna go to chapter 14.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna make a place for you. Okay? And then I'm gonna come back for you. Alright? And then chapter 15, he tells them, I'm gonna send the Holy Spirit to you.
Speaker 3:So abide in me and you and I'll abide in you. And when I send the spirit, here's a verse that's kinda wild, you'll do more things than even I did. That's a profound statement. Then he tells him in John 16, oh, and by the way, they're gonna hate you when I'm gone. So it's not gonna be great.
Speaker 3:I'll be gone. There's gonna be real loss. It's gonna be sorrowful. I'm gonna be away. They hated me, so don't be surprised.
Speaker 3:They're gonna hate you too. Like, oh, give them the script. And and so you have all this sort of building here, all going toward the cross. Farewell discourse ends with John 17, which is referred to as the high priestly prayer of Jesus. It's how do I describe this?
Speaker 3:John 17 is holy ground. I think John 17 is take the shoes off your feet kind of place in the Bible. Because we see various times in Jesus's life where he breaks away and he prays. And we even have short prayers that Jesus makes. We even have a Lord's Prayer that Jesus teaches us how to pray.
Speaker 3:But what you have in John 17 is unique. We actually get the curtain pulled back, and we get to see an inter Trinitarian communication between God the father and God the son by the associative and powerful work of the Holy Spirit. We see God talking to himself in John 17. And it's a holy moment, sacred moment. Jesus, after he says all these things, it says in John chapter 17, after he said all of this, what's all this?
Speaker 3:All that farewell discourse stuff, He lifts up his eyes and he prays. And he prays for himself. He prays for his disciples, and the shocker of the high priest of prayer is Jesus is praying for you and for me. For people that will believe on account of the words of the apostles, and he's praying for us. And then he goes on and he tells them the last verse in his prayer, and I'm going to reveal to them your name.
Speaker 3:They're going to know who you really are. What does that mean? Oh, when they see me hanging on a cross and redeeming the world, they're gonna know what God is really like. I would love to kind of dive into the high priestly prayer and look at it, but just on the surface, what the high priestly prayer is showing us is not just a historical activity of Jesus. I do believe that's true.
Speaker 3:But not just a historical activity of Jesus. It's showing us what Jesus, the exalted Lord, does even now. And what is he doing? He's praying. I mean honestly, this is this I told you earlier this has had a profound impact on me spiritually in my own walk.
Speaker 3:This is it, right here. The very simple claim that Jesus right now before the father by the Spirit is praying and he's praying for you and he's praying for me. He's praying for Redeemer Community Church And he's praying for you. And he understands what it means to be human. And he recognizes that you need a Redeemer.
Speaker 3:And he knows that you need a mediator, someone who will stand between you and the father. He knows that and he's praying for you. Now I'll I'll just tell you, I mean, over over the last some of you are prayer warriors. God bless you. Right?
Speaker 3:Just love it. I mean, for me, He he was a colleague of mine at Beeson. And one of the things that Graham said one time that I found actually life giving is stop praying the ways in which you think you should pray and pray the ways you can. I was like, that's really helpful. And I got 4 kids.
Speaker 3:You know, this whole notion about, you know, me, Jesus, and a pot of coffee early in the morning, it's like, I've got kids running around yelling and change and die. I mean, it's just yeah. Right. Right. So, you know, you pray the way you can.
Speaker 3:But what I have found very encouraging and helpful to me is to recognize that Jesus is praying for me, and he's praying for my kids and he's praying for my family and he's praying for my church. And there have been multiple times in my own life when the simple prayer that comes off of my lips is in moments of crisis or moments on the run, Jesus, please pray for us. Please.
Joel Brooks:And can I give you just
Speaker 3:a look a couple more things about this? Oh, 10 more minutes. A couple more things about this. This should give you an enormous amount of confidence. That's not my terms.
Speaker 3:That's Hebrews 4 and Hebrews 2 terminology. That should give you an enormous amount of confidence when you pray. Some of you are in small groups, I imagine. Right? Does redeemer a small group?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So some of you are in small groups. And I imagine for some of you, the thing that is the most scary or fearful about being in a small group is, I think they might want me to pray in front of the rest of them. And I'm gonna tell you why some of you feel that way. Because you've heard some of the people in your church get up behind a microphone and pray these prayers that are so eloquent and the way they can turn a phrase.
Speaker 3:And you kind of have to peek your eye open to make sure you're still on earth and you're like, wow. You know what an experience. I could never do it. Right? I'll just keep my mouth shut.
Speaker 3:Let them do all that stuff. Right? Can I tell you something about This this again, this has been helpful to me?
Joel Brooks:I've had the experience too. And what's been
Speaker 3:helpful to me is, you know what? I've had the experience too. And what's been helpful to me is, you know what? When you're asking someone to jump to the moon, we're talking about communicating with God. When you ask somebody to jump to the moon, I know that LeBron James can jump higher than I can.
Speaker 3:A lot higher. But it's still the moon. Alright? I mean, it's a long way. In other words, that's a bad, it was a bad illustration.
Speaker 3:But what I mean by that is, what I mean by that is, God God's not impressed with our ability to turn a phrase. He's not impressed with our ability to get it all right. I mean, just think about that sweet woman that gives a might, or the publican who's at the temple who says, Lord have mercy. And they're honored for this because of the sincerity of their heart. You know what I find so encouraging about knowing that Jesus prays for me Is that he takes my prayers, Romans chapter 8, my groanings.
Speaker 3:And he, this isn't very profound or very, doesn't phrase very well, but he cleans it up and he presents it to the father by the spirit in the way in which it's supposed to be presented. And the great news about that is you just go ahead and pray whatever you want. You let your heart overflow in prayer to the Lord. Because you know what? He's gonna take it, and he's gonna present it to the father.
Speaker 3:And in those moments, in the words of the famous American theologian Willie Nelson, in those moments when you're too sick to pray it's one of my favorite Willie Nelson songs. Great song. When you're too sick to pray, he's praying for you. Well, that was point 1 of 4. I'll fly through these real fast.
Speaker 3:What else do we want to say tonight? 2 things and then we'll stop. What else is Jesus doing now? You know what else he's doing? He's feeding us.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna talk to you Christians out here now. This is for this isn't in this is a family talk right now. I don't know how you're trying to have your spiritual experience. I don't know where you're looking for it. But one of the things that I think I have found to be very encouraging for me in shaping and life giving is to recognize that I need to meet Jesus in the places where he tells me that he will meet me.
Speaker 3:I can try to fabricate places. I can try to create experiences. I can try to do all of that, but I need to go to the place where he tells me that he's going to be found because I want him and because he's exalted to the father but by the power of the Spirit and John Calvin is very good on this, he comes down to us again and again. And in his coming down, I want to meet Jesus. And where do where do I meet him?
Speaker 3:This is where the reformed Presbyterian side of me comes out. We meet him in the means of the grace. We meet him in the preaching of the word, in the celebration of the sacraments, in prayer, and fellowship with other Christians, in the ordinary means of grace. Now, let me tell you. You might have an extraordinary experience, and I am so happy for you.
Joel Brooks:If Jesus shows up in the
Speaker 3:mirror while you're shaving, great. I mean, that's wonderful. It's never happened to me. You know, if that happens to you, wow. Right?
Speaker 3:But, you know, so God can do whatever God wants to do in revealing himself to you. And I've heard some crazy stories. Matter of fact, here's a story for you. We were interviewing a missions person at Beeson who was the head of the missions department at a very well known Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. And for those of you is You guys aren't Southern Baptist.
Speaker 3:Sorry? No. For those of you who know the Southern Baptist world, that's a rather conservative theological world, especially its current expression. And he said in the interview that in his work with Muslims, that he has not yet met one Muslim convert to Christianity in a Muslim world, that it did not occur because of some dream where Jesus showed up to that person. Not one.
Speaker 3:And that's from a very conservative, not charismatic kind of person. Right? So God can do extraordinary things. I believe that. But I also know that God has given us specific places for us to meet him and to feed on him.
Speaker 3:And that is the preaching of the word, the celebration of the sacrament, Christian community, and prayer. So I just wanna say, I mean, we're all hungry for Jesus and I He can do extraordinary things but I think He calls us to meet Him in the places where He is to be found and that is the preaching of the word, the reading of his word, and the celebration of his sacraments together. Baptism and the Lord's supper. One more thing. One more thing.
Speaker 3:You know what else Jesus is doing now? This is another thing that's kind of new for me, at least in the way in which I'm thinking about it. He makes sure that the atoms on the most molecular level of our existence hold together so the world doesn't fall apart. That's weird. I'm I don't know how to say it.
Speaker 3:Colossians chapter 1, the word Jesus was the means by which the world was created and is the means by which the world is sustained. Hebrews chapter 1 verses 1 to 4, in the former days he spoke by the prophets, but in the latter days he spoken to us by the sun. And who is that sun? He's the very image of God. He is the creator.
Speaker 3:He is the sustainer of all things. What does that mean? What it means is and I don't know how to put it all together. I don't I I
Joel Brooks:try to
Speaker 3:read some stuff on physics, but I don't know what it's talking about. Right? What is what I what I think the scriptures are claiming in a very non scientific way, but in a profoundly realistic way is, on the basic level of existence, this created world is not just something that God set in motion and now is watching it from a distance, but it's by the very power of his word, by the power of his son, that our world holds together. Can I make it more practical for you? It's by the power of the creative word of God, Jesus himself, that the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico don't swallow Florida.
Speaker 3:I I I think this is very real. Like Genesis chapter 1, the creative power of the word was to separate the land from the water. To hold the water back. And it's the power of Jesus now to hold Now, we could talk about this for the rest of the night. But the point of that is, your view of God, your view of the trinity, your view of Jesus of Nazareth as the risen Lord and son of man, that's not just a view on your spiritual existence.
Speaker 3:That provides for you the lens for how you conceive of all of reality. All of it. I was a youth director. I may have shared this with you all in different context. I was a youth director at a church for 5 years.
Speaker 3:I wasn't very good at it to be honest with you. I was. The whole water balloon camping stuff, I don't know. I was never good at that. But I I did like teaching the teens and and and but part of my, payment for my sins was we had a youth band.
Speaker 3:And they we would do worship together, the youth band, and they would construct their own worship services. And I'd sit there and you know, and you guys go get them. And well, they sang one song. And I let them have a lot of freedom on this. Every once in a while, I'd step in.
Speaker 3:I can't take that one anymore. But I but I give them a lot. There was one there was one song that they sang, and if you all sing this and if this is your favorite song, I'm sorry. Right? I didn't think about it.
Speaker 3:I'm sorry. But the song the song went something like this. The chorus went, I want I think it's called the secret place. I want to know you. I want to touch you.
Speaker 3:I want to see your face. You know that one? Mhmm. You all sing that at some around some campfire at some point in your life. I know it.
Speaker 3:We'd sing that. And I I was in seminary at the time and probably a little smug, right? So I get it. But I would nudge my wife, and I would say, they can have all the touching and all the seeing they want. I'll have none of it.
Speaker 3:Alright. You know why? People who have unmediated encounters with God in the Bible, those are not happy moments. Right? I mean, Isaiah.
Speaker 3:Right? He sees the Lord and then he says, I'm dead. Right? That's true. You have you have Uzzah in a moment of forgetfulness.
Speaker 3:He has an unmediated encounter with the Ark of the Covenant, and he's dead. Right? And just so you don't think that's Old Testament y stuff, John, I was on the Isle of Patmos, and he sees the risen Lord and all of his glory. And what does John do? He falls at his feet as if he were dead.
Speaker 3:And I would tell my wife and joke around with the teens as well, but it's quite important. My Christianity, I prefer mediated, if you don't mind. I like the of the mediated kind, and that's what Jesus is doing now. That's what he does now. He he is holding the world together but he's also praying for you.
Speaker 3:He's interceding for you. He's reminding the father on your account that you're his and that's how we're safe. That gives us confidence and that's what gives us hope. So father, take these simple words and make them your own. We know we need you.
Speaker 3:And Lord, I I pray for the person here tonight who just finds this whole talk so weird. It's just weird. Who who believes this kind of stuff? It's foolish. You tell us in your word it's foolish, But you also tell us that the foolishness of humanity is your own wisdom on display.
Speaker 3:Give us the humility to believe that it's true and to believe that it's true for us. And we ask these things in Jesus name. Amen. Alright. I'm supposed to tell you we have 10 minutes and please get drinks.
Speaker 2:Alright. So the way that the q and a works is, you ask questions and then Mark's gonna be answering them. It's kind of a simple format with that. Just a quick reminder, we're gonna be back here 5th. I'll give you a reminder at the end.
Speaker 2:Hopefully, you're you're primed and ready for some great questions. Q and a. Now. Brian.
Speaker 3:So the question is, Jesus in his human form now, does he still have some sort of limitations related to his humanity? Alright. Well, that I mean, it's a good question and it's a question that has been divisive since the 5th century. And, I mean, the question is and I don't want us to kind of go too far into this. But the question is, how do the natures, the humanity, and the divinity of Jesus relate to one another in the single subject?
Speaker 3:Now that's at the core of an orthodox faith. It's called Chalcedonic faith. That's the Council of Chalcedon from the early 5th century that claimed that there's only 1 person, 1 subject, Jesus, but he's fully God and fully man. And what that means is we don't add verbs. We don't predicate the natures.
Speaker 3:So we don't say something like the humanity of Jesus did this while his divinity did that. We can't predicate the natures because they're not substances. We predicate the person. Now some will say that the doctrine of Chalcedon that was or the formula that came out fully God, fully man in a single subject made made things more confusing than it really did clarifying. And then when you get into the reformation period, which is I mean, this is my team now.
Speaker 3:And you started getting into the Protestant reformers. This is a big debate between the Lutherans and the Calvinists on how do the natures relate to one another. For Calvin, it's pretty important that there are limitations in the sense of the humanity of Jesus. And that's why for someone like Calvin, when you're taking communion, that bread substantially remains bread and is not transubstantiated into the body of Jesus because that would run afoul, the humanity of Jesus as being located in a particular place. Whereas the Lutheran tradition with more Catholic sensibilities is more open to the natures influencing one another in such a way that the humanity of Jesus can be ubiquitous as well.
Speaker 3:So all to say, you know, I I'm I'm with Calvin on this. I think I'm sympathetic somewhat to the Lutheran idea on some levels. In my tradition in the Anglican book of common prayer, Lutherans and Calvinists both get angry at it because it seems to be confused. It talks in both ways. And maybe that's the best path.
Speaker 3:I don't know. But to say that particular issue that you're raising right there is a juggernaut of a theological problem that is talked about to this day. And it's a division theologically that separates some denominational distinctives as well. And there's some sadness to this, I think. This is my sort of ecumenical side coming out, I guess.
Speaker 3:When you think about what happened in the 16th century in Europe, especially in the Holy Roman Empire there in the central part of Germany, you know, Luther's up there in Wittenberg. And you have Bucer who's in Strasbourg, and you have, in in, I'm forgetting, the z guy. Zwingli. Yeah. Sorry.
Speaker 3:It's so embarrassing. Zwingli, who's and Bullinger, who are over in in in the in the western part of Switzerland. There was such division over their understanding of the Eucharist. A common understanding of the gospel, but a division over their understanding of the Eucharist. And you know, at that time political and religious distinctions weren't really made.
Speaker 3:And that kept things politically complicated as well in this central part of of Germany as protestants did not really relate all that well to one another because of this issue. You blink, and you're into the 17th century. Now all of a sudden, you're in the middle of the 30 years war that, you know, you know, I've I've often sort of wondered in my own mind, you know, if people could have come together on this a little bit more, maybe maybe some of the hindsight's always wanted to have been avoided. So I think we need to have our theological distinctions. I think they're very important.
Speaker 3:I'm not one of I'm not a least common denominator approach to these issues, but one has to recognize the limitations on on our own understanding of some very complicated matters, and I think we can allow some space, I'd imagine, on these views. What yes, sir? So you talked a lot about Robert. Yep. It's a great it's a great question.
Speaker 3:So the question is, what's the relationship between claims elsewhere in the Bible that understand the church or Christians themselves as acting as in a priestly function in relation to the unique character of Jesus' high priestly office. I think the word that I wanna use there is derivative. I mean, the the priestly function that we have as Christians are holy function as a as a collected body that are priests, that we actually minister the the the grace and the presence of God to people in the world. That that is something that we do in a derivative sense underneath the lordship of our high priest. So, maybe another analogy on this is someone asked j r r Tolkien at one point in time.
Speaker 3:And if you've read the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I wanted to love that, by the way. And I I read them. I I just I'm sorry. I I wanted to. But I can appreciate, the the power of the mind that could create a world.
Speaker 3:Let me think what Tolkien did. He created a world and even a language. I mean, that's I can understand why Tolkien looked at CS Lewis's Narnia stuff and said, whatever. Write your little books. I've created a world.
Speaker 3:So I mean, I get that. But someone asked Tolkien, are you a creator? And his response was, there's only one creator. I'm a subcreator. So I think we want to live in the tension of affirming the unique character of the high priestly role that Jesus plays and understanding our role as organically related to that in a derivative sense because of our union with him.
Speaker 3:And I think that helps keep things related but distinct, which is really at the heart of what it means to do theology and to think about the Christian life and the Christian faith. We have to make distinctions between things that seem rather similar.
Joel Brooks:A
Speaker 3:little more and the other I mean, there there are other portions of the bible that are, you know, just I don't have my mind around it yet. Colossians 124, is that is that the right verse where Paul says, you know, I bear in my body the wounds of Jesus, and I continue his, you know, what was lacking in his own suffering. You know? 2nd Corinthians 4, I I bear about in my body the death of Jesus. Stephen is being stoned, and, and then Saul is on the road to Damascus, and Jesus asks Paul why he's persecuting him.
Speaker 3:Are you persecuting me? You know, Saint Augustine, the early 5th century theologian from North Africa, you know, Augustine had a a notion of the of the church that he referred to as the as totus christus, the total Christ. And that is he understood Jesus as the head, but the church is his body. And those 2 are organically related, the one to the other. You cannot have the one without the other.
Speaker 3:It's it's the total Christ. So when we say things, I mean, we can say this in a very chick, you know, sort of campy way. We are the hands and the feet of Jesus. You know, it's got a great Christian bumper sticker or something like that. But it's actually there's there's there's theological and biblical rationale behind a claim like that.
Speaker 3:So and I think, by the way, that's a little bit behind what Jesus meant when he said we'll do greater things. Part of that is because of the limitations of his body. I mean, did Jesus go to Rome? You know? I mean, in other words, the the power of the spirit spread out through his people allowed the ministry of Jesus to be spread throughout the world by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 3:And that's his body doing his work all in organic relationship to the head. So I think thinking those sort of organic terms are important. But again, we want to make distinctions between those. His unique status cannot be I get a little maybe I'm saying more than I should. I do get a little bit nervous about when people start banding about the term we do incarnational ministry.
Speaker 3:Right? And I think what they mean by that is we want to be embodied and present to a place like Jesus was. And the whole notion of being embodied and being in a place, I think I'm I'm is very, very important. But I get a little nervous when the incarnation gets predicated on that because that is you that is something unique in the life of God as it pertains to the second person of the trinity taking on flesh. And I I so I get a you know, I wanna I wanna keep a distinction there between what we do in embodying and being present to people from Jesus and the significance of and the uniqueness of his incarnational status?
Speaker 3:I don't I don't know if I can say what you're asking, but kinda. Come by the house later. We'll talk. Yes, ma'am. Newly married.
Speaker 3:You know, I think we we don't we can never really understand fully where we are. I was thinking about this recently, you know, in relationship to I just finished a study on Hebrews with folks at Covenant Presbyterian. And I was we were working through Hebrews chapter 11. And here you have this chapter that's talking about people getting sawn in half and being raised from the dead and being suffered and tortured for Jesus. And, and, you know, I'm on my way to Avondale Park for baseball practice.
Speaker 3:It's like, that's so removed from my life. I mean, I'm I'm I'm not, you know, so I was thinking how does something about the life of faith and the looking forward to the future promises of God intersect with my very normal existence in this buckle of a Bible Belt world that I live in? And it dawned on me that I think the differences are in degree and not necessarily kind, because we have our own cultural pressures as well that really, I think, more often than not, we're not aware of. We're not conscious of them because we're in it. And you have to look back to see things clearly.
Speaker 3:And I think the issue that you're raising here is one that sits right on one of the more complicated aspects of what it means to be living in the modern world as an American. Because part of that American sort of ideology is and I am an American. I'm very thankful for my country. But part of the American ideology is a libertarian view of individual freedom and individual autonomy. I am me.
Speaker 3:I am my own person. I will authenticate myself, and that's sort of at the core of what it means to be a human. And I think the Christian faith is a real challenge to that. I think it is. And I think it's something that will I have to struggle with, we struggle with, what it means to live in community, what it means to find my identity outside of myself and not by turning into myself, not by authenticating my true whoever I am but being authenticated by the reality that something's happened outside of me and has moved toward me so that the gospel shapes my understanding of my individuality and my selfhood and not, individual autonomy and and a kind of libertarian notion of freedom.
Speaker 3:Boy, these are this is gonna get tricky. But these are hard things when we live in a kind of God and country culture here in the South. You know? I go to my church on Sunday and I, you know, got my gun and, you know, I I don't care about the guns. I'm just saying, you know, it's just I I'm, you know, I serve I love Jesus, and and and I have a bumper sticker in my car that says, shoot them all, let God sort it out.
Speaker 3:And, you know, I I just I you know, we got we just have to think about these things. And and I think what's happened to me over the over some of the things that have happened this past week, right, in our in our world, is to recognize that the church from the app from the from the new testament's own compositional history until the current moment. The best thinkers in the Christian tradition have always wrestled with what is the relationship of the Christian to its his or her culture, And where is our primary citizenship? And it's why the 5th century theologian Augustine has one of his classic works is the city of God. Here, Rome is falling.
Speaker 3:Well, that's not our primary home. That's not our primary citizenship. My primary citizenship is that I am already in another time in another place. I'm a Christian. And we live in the tension, I think, between being indigenous.
Speaker 3:We're planted in a place. I love it that you're here. Your church is here. This this brewery and your church building's right there. I mean, that is so good because you're planting in a place and you're wanting to be indigenous to this place and minister to this place.
Speaker 3:It's wonderful. And we live in the tension between that and also recognizing that our real status is also pilgrims. This is not our place. We're waiting for another the new heavens and the new earth. And I think we will live in that tension.
Speaker 3:And your question about true and authentic selfhood and what it means to be a self and an individual and how to sort through the morass of competing options that the e channel is telling me and ESPN is telling me and whatever else you're watching is telling me and then what I'm reading in scripture and learning from the history and the tradition of the church. That takes some real sorting out, I think. And I think it's a real challenge. And I and by the way, if we're not thinking about that, then we've dulled ourselves into a sort of sleepless something or the other. I don't know.
Speaker 3:So we've got we've got to think long and hard about that. I think about this as a dad. I really do, and I'm not good at it. I'm just not. But what is it that the world around me tells me makes a child successful?
Speaker 3:Academic success, social success, and athletic success. We want them to do those things. I want them to be a good athlete. I want them to get really good grades, and I want them to be socially liked by their peers so that they can achieve and be something. And none of those things in and of themselves are bad.
Speaker 3:I just spent a whole year this spring coaching baseball. Or even failure, is that how the gospel is primarily understood as shaping what it is that my true hopes are for my children? What are my real hopes for them? It's just a challenge, and I'm not I'm I'm not going to the coliseum tomorrow with Polycarp to get burned at the stake. I'm not.
Speaker 3:But I gotta think about that tomorrow. You know? I don't know. Was that what you were asking? That wasn't practical?
Speaker 3:Well, you know, I mentioned the means of grace. I mean, I don't I don't take that lightly. I mean, it's, you know, going go to church. And that's kind of funny thing to say, but, you know, maybe I'm talking to the choir tonight, but being at church is really important. And it seems sounds so simple, but going and being at a place where I'm with other Christians, and I'm being this is what we get to do when we go and worship together.
Speaker 3:Now I don't know what you ought. I've never been to church of redeemer. It's kinda weird for all the times I've been around you. I've never been to your church before actually in the service. I don't know what you do.
Speaker 3:But isn't it something that we come together to worship? And every week, I get told in a prophetic and a beautiful way through the singing and the preaching and the and the confession of faith and sin, that my personal story is not really just about me. That my story gets wrapped up into a much bigger story than just my own individual narrative. And I get to go to church, and and I get to be told that. Now beyond that, I think, you know, reading Paul, reading a book like Colossians, prayer, you know, putting yourself under the spiritual mentorship of somebody who's further down the road.
Speaker 3:There there are a lot of practical steps to that. For me, and this is the geeky side of me. Alright? So I wouldn't impose this on anybody else. For me, that happened when I started to read Karl Barth.
Speaker 3:I mean, I read a theologian and I read Barth and Calvin together and they had a I mean, they though that's not I don't necessarily encourage that. Right? But for me, that that that was like, wow. Jesus is much bigger. Whatever conception I had of Jesus, it needs to be bigger.
Speaker 3:And I say that to myself a lot even now. Whatever view of Jesus you have, you have, and I have, it needs to be bigger. It's not big enough, and that's what we're gonna tell ourselves till the day we die. It's not big enough. Your your Christology cannot be big enough.
Speaker 3:It cannot be profound enough because it's everything. It's everything. Yes. Okay. So I'm so glad you asked that.
Speaker 3:That's a clarifying question. Very good. So what are the sacraments? What did you say? What are they?
Speaker 3:Why are they important? Are they important? Why are they important? Sacrament is a term our English word sacrament is built off of a Latin term sacramentum, which just means simply mystery. And that's a controversial term.
Speaker 3:Some people don't like sacrament. I grew up in a in a world, an ecclesiastical world, a church world where sacrament was kind of a bad word because it sounded too Roman Catholic, you know, something like that. For me, and this is another, like I mentioned with Brian, this is another real debate in the history of the church. But the Protestant tradition, which your church is a part of and that stream of redeemer is, has traditionally understood there to be 2 sacraments, and that is baptism and the Lord's supper. And I genuinely believe that both of those have significant value and that they're central to what it means to be a Christian and to enjoy the living presence of God in our midst.
Speaker 3:I mean, in baptism, right, whenever I am baptized or whenever I view someone else's baptism. Right? And that's why it's it's a public ritual in my own tradition. Don't tell anybody I said this or I'll deny it. But in my own tradition I'm in now, they sometimes do private family baptisms.
Speaker 3:I don't like that. I don't like that. Don't tell anybody I said that. It's a public ingredient aspect of the Christian faith. Do you know why?
Speaker 3:Because whenever I see now I'm in a world that baptizes children. Hope that's okay. But if if it's a child, or if it's an adult that's being baptized, you know what I'm being reminded of? I'm being reminded that I've gone under those waters as well, and I've been claimed. I've been marked.
Speaker 3:I've been set aside as God's own. If you if John Calvin walked in here tonight or Martin Luther, I mean, as different as those 2 could be theologically, if either one of them in here walked in in this room tonight, that'd be we'd stop. But but if they did, we, we and we asked them as pastors, what do you think is one of the more important things for you to do as a pastor? I think we'd be shocked, but I do believe that both of them would answer probably first out of the gate. They'd say, we need to remind our people that they've been baptized, We need to remind them that they've been claimed in the waters and that they've gone into death and been raised again to life in Jesus and that that's who they are.
Speaker 3:That's their identity. And then in communion and the bread and the wine, I know it's kinda hocus pocus crazyville. I get it. But I genuinely believe that in that bread and in that wine, God by his spirit communicates the very body and blood of Jesus to his people. And we feed on him.
Speaker 3:He ministers to us with the word that's preached and with the word that we walk we we see in the bread and the wine and we ingest. So those are life giving. And I'm very careful to apply my own story to other people. Right? It's like like marriage stuff.
Speaker 3:You know, my marriage is unique. I got my own kind of problems in my marriage. We're still working it out kind of stuff. And for me to say, you know, this is what we do in our marriage,
Joel Brooks:you you marriage is just too weird. You gotta work
Speaker 3:I I would be a horrible pastor. That's why I teach in divinity school. Like, What would be my marriage counseling? Go work it out. I don't know.
Speaker 3:God bless you. You gotta work that thing out. Right? So I I don't wanna impose my own story on you, but I will say that my wife and I, we've been married 15 years now. And we've we come out of a real out of a fundamentalist background, real fundamentalism, not just, you know, the people do your right, but real fundamentalism.
Speaker 3:And I'm grateful for my upbringing. I'm very grateful for that. But we I was a youth pastor. I was in a it was a big fortune 500 kinda church, a lot of public profile sort of thing. And and, and we were just a mess.
Speaker 3:My wife and I, we brought in all these kind of expectations of one another. Spiritually, we just began we were a mess. And then we left Greenville, South Carolina 2 years of marriage and went over to Scotland where I was doing my postgraduate work. And and I was already drawn to the liturgical tradition. Right?
Speaker 3:I was always already drawn to a tradition that had set prayers and regular practice of communion. I was drawn to that. So I know that's not everybody, but I was. And my wife was too. And so we said, we're gonna go to the local Anglican church.
Speaker 3:And my wife will tell you that part of the healing process that happened in her own soul and me too was weekly taking of communion because in that moment, our identities were being shaped again about who we were. You know where we were? We're beggars on our knees coming every week saying we're hungry and we're hungry for Jesus and we want him to feed us. And my wife will tell you one of the greatest experiences in our life is being on our knees in this stonewalled old 16th century Anglican church with Betty blue hair next to us, old, old lady right there. Right?
Speaker 3:And here we are. And there's Richard Balchem, probably one of the premier New Testament scholars in the world. And there's another and there we all are equalized at the foot of the cross. Betty Bluehair, Richard Balchem, us. We're all just there coming to be fed.
Speaker 3:And that that that has shaped us. And that's good. I don't wanna apply that story to anyone. I mean, that's our story. So when you ask me, are the sacraments important, I think that they're not they're they're crucial.
Speaker 3:They're central to the shaping of our own identity. Yeah.
Joel Brooks:Griffin. Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know, the there's certain there there certain aspects of Jesus' life and ministry are episodic. In other words, they're they're they're irreducible. They're not transferable to sort of larger patterns of x, y, or z. What's happening in Gethsemane, for example, I would think is something that's unique. It's not transferable.
Speaker 3:And it's unique to that particular moment. And it reveals, I think, something to us that that from a humanity standpoint should be quite encouraging, and that is Jesus had to look full bore into the wrath the potential wrath of God poured out on him, and he would prefer not to do that. But nevertheless, thy will be done and not mine. Right? So that that that that is a very unique sort of encounter that we have there.
Speaker 3:I think what gives us the assurance from a standpoint of the book of Hebrews and say Romans 8 and anywhere that talks about the intercessory role of Jesus, what gives us an assurance that Jesus will be heard, this is Paul's logic, is, the resurrection of the dead. Jesus has been raised. He has been confirmed in his resurrection. Romans chapter 1. Right?
Speaker 3:He was confirmed as the son of God in the resurrection of the dead. It's the resurrection of the dead that was God's imprimatur, God's stamp to say everything that he was saying, everything that he did, his living and his dying, that was according to our will together. Because we don't talk about multiple wills in the life of God. This is another theological point. That was a big controversy.
Speaker 3:Isn't that crazy these things? There were controversies in the 4th and even early 5th century. How many wills of God is there? It's Christian orthodoxy to claim there is only one divine will. Jesus does not have his own will apart from the spirit, apart from the father.
Speaker 3:There is only one divine will. And I and I think Gethsemane kind of taps into that as well. But theologically speaking, I think it's the resurrection of the dead, Jesus being raised and seated at the right hand of the father. And that's another significant claim, by the way, about Jesus' divinity. No one in the bible and even in the intertestamental literature, and you've read some of this, Griffin, even in intertestamental literature, no one gets to sit on the in the throne on the throne room of God.
Speaker 3:That space is unique to God, and here is Jesus occupying that space. What that says is we cannot speak about the identity of God without including conversation about the identity of Jesus as well. That's that Trinitarian logic. So that's my sense on that, but I'll I'll give some more thought to that, actually. I think that's the resurrection of the dead is central there and the sharing of one divine will.
Speaker 3:Yeah. The the son's not praying something that's not in accord with father. That's actually a really good question. And I don't think I'm going to have all that satisfactory of an answer, to be honest with you. But I do think at the basic level from a Trinitarian perspective, we do pray to the father by the spirit in the name of Jesus.
Speaker 3:I think that's basic sort of prayer 101 Trinitarian out the gate. But does that mean that it's inappropriate to make prayers addressed to other members of the Trinity, again recognizing that they share a common will and a common essence? There's only one divine essence, and they're all, equally sharing in that. And my sense is that that that is appropriate. I do think that that one can run dangers there, and one needs to be careful because I do think there are aspects of the Christian faith that can highlight one member of the trinity to the exclusion of the others.
Speaker 3:And that runs into its own kind of problems. But I do think that it's it's legitimate, to make prayers addressed to individual members of the trinity. But I think our basic patterns of prayer are to the father by the spirit in the name of Jesus. Now, patterning our prayers after Jesus, like John 17, I I don't know. I'm I'm actually more inclined to say that we pattern our prayers the way in which Jesus patterned his own, and that was on the basis of the book of Psalms.
Speaker 3:I mean, I think Jesus's instincts were to pray the prayer book of Israel, and that's the Psalter. And I do look it's kind of crazy we're talking about prayer tonight. We haven't brought the Psalms up once, but the Psalms are ready made prayers and gives us a kind of shape and a structure to a prayer life that meets us in all the various vicissitudes of life, on the mountain and drowning in the pool, standing outside the pool dripping wet, having just been saved, searching for wisdom, needing a king. I mean, it's it covers the gamut. No.
Speaker 3:I think if I if I had to if I
Joel Brooks:had to pick one book of
Speaker 3:the bible to go to an island with, that probably would be it. Yeah. And Habakkuk. I'd probably take that one too. Are there more?
Speaker 3:Oh, there are a lot more. Okay. Bring it. Yes, sir. Probably something like that actually.
Speaker 3:And please let it be. I mean, on a base on the basic level of what we read, for example, in the gospel of John, whether it's Romans 8, whether it's Hebrews, his intercession has to do primarily with mediating to the father the atoning work that he's done on our account. In other words, he's he's and again, this is this is human language that we're using to kind of talk about something that's behind us, but but he's he's claiming he's claiming us as his own. And he's reminding the father and again, I don't like that because not the father needs to be reminded, but he's reminding the father that we're his and that he's made the atoning work, affect he's he's he's made it effectual for us. But I have to imagine that it goes infinitely beyond that, and I don't really know how to describe it.
Speaker 3:You know, what his prayers are, don't don't get you know, he blew it again. Don't get him this time. I I, you know, I don't I I don't I rather doubt it's as, you know, sort of as that, but I but I don't know. No. I'm I'm struggling with language on this because I think the our language just fails us.
Speaker 3:I came off of a week my poor student as I taught a class over June, and I bored them to tears telling them about this because I was in the middle of a week long Sanford event with colleagues around Sanford. We read through Dante's Divine Comedy together. Great experience. And as you move from hell all the way up into the Paradiso, one of the things you begin to observe is that Dante's language is incapable of expressing the ineffable, the indescribable, but yet he does it in such a profound way. But he's he is cognizant that he can't describe what it is that he's experiencing.
Speaker 3:He's also cognizant by the way when you think about music as Dante rises up into the realm the higher realms of heaven. Oh that's kind of weird and medieval. I've had my issues with that. But I'm just saying Dante's writing of the realm realm rising the realms of heaven, music becomes indescribable as well. These are chord structures, melodic
Joel Brooks:lines, librettos that I can't communicate to
Speaker 3:you all anymore. Sing right along. But when I got up higher and I was around the throne near the throne of God where Christ is exalted, I don't know what that is. I can't explain the music that I'm hearing anymore. So I don't know.
Speaker 3:We're entering into the very mysterious life of God. But I do think on one side, we can say clearly that he is claiming the he's claiming the effects of his redemption for us. He's claiming the effects of his own obedience and his goodwill for us, and I think that's at the core of it. It's salvific, but I'm sure that it is infinitely beyond that. I mean, it's a great question.
Speaker 3:I don't know. It's profound, isn't it? You know, Thomas Aquinas, I've got a colleague who has a Thomas Aquinas shirt, says the original deep fat fryer. That's what I'm saying. Anyway, Beckwith has that shirt.
Speaker 3:I know Aquinas writes Summa Theologica in the in the 4th in 13th century, one of the greatest theological achievements in the history of the church. He's 3 months from finishing, has a vision, a beatific vision, a Dante kind of vision, and he stops writing. So I'm done. I won't write anymore. Because his his experience is so profound that he said anything that I write is just is drivel.
Speaker 3:That's a that's a true story from from Aquinas. It's so powerful, isn't it? I mean and and and and if you ever read Aquinas, you realize this is probably the one of the finest tuned theological minds the church has ever known, whether you agree with them or not. Just the acuity of mind is absolutely impressive. And he says, I'm done.
Speaker 3:It's drivel. So, I mean, your question taps into something that I think is profound and mysterious, but whatever's going on should give us hope. In other words, if you hear all that and you go, ah, right? Well, maybe. But the other side of it should be confidence and hope because whatever that is, he's there for us.
Speaker 3:And I know on the basis of the revealed word that he's there for us. So in the profoundness of the mysterious intertrinitarian communion of God with himself forever, he has us in mind, and he's for us. I mean, that's that's that's the that's the big news. That's the big news. I saw that hand.
Speaker 3:How we live in community? So the question is I'm not I've not been repeating these. The question is, how does how does the, intercession of god in our account affect our understanding of community? Well, I mean, it's it's it shapes the way in which we view the others, doesn't it? That that's I think that's probably at at at the core level of what we're getting at.
Speaker 3:It shapes our view of ourselves, but it also shapes our view of the other. And that and you know, this is hard for me to say because I I I got people I don't like too. Right? That means that the the person that really just drives you bananas in your community group that won't stop talking I was in a community group once and had to remember a couple in there, and they just could not stop. It was just all the time.
Speaker 3:And I remember thinking to myself, Jesus prays for them. He loves them. He gave his life for them. Right? I wish I could say I was sort of superhuman in that.
Speaker 3:I'm not. But I think it shapes our view of the other. And that is God has created space in himself for communion with us by his son, and that includes people that we don't like. It also creates an appreciation for the other and for difference and differentiation, whether it's race or whether it's gender or I mean, it creates a space for us to appreciate otherness and to come to terms with the fact that it would not be a nice world. It would not be our Christian community would be deficient if everyone were just like me.
Speaker 3:It'd be deficient. So I I think it has profound implications for how we understand community and what it means to be in community one with another. And and that sounds all very airy fairy to me because I'm I mean, I'm I'm around Christian community enough to know that the blessing of Christian community is community, and the curse of Christian community is community. I know that's just you know, it's all we all talk. We did I'm gonna tell them myself.
Speaker 3:When I was at Saint Saint Andrew's, Scotland, I was all into the I wanna have a sort of Christian community experience. I mean, we're in a small group of people that we love. We're gonna see them this this Sunday night in Carolinas. People that we love. Let let's let's all kinda live together and barbecue together, and we'll do bible study.
Speaker 3:It's just gonna be great. And and my wife was my wife is an introvert. She's much more private than I am. I tend to be a little bit more extroverted. And she's like, no.
Speaker 3:Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Not doing that.
Speaker 3:Not doing that. And then our final summer, really because of financial necessity, we're like, we gotta live with somebody. We gotta we gotta split this rent. So our Christian community thing is gonna happen. And and my wife was like, okay.
Speaker 3:I'm ready for this. Let's do it. So we had a good friend. He teaches theology out of Biola. Now a good just a good guy.
Speaker 3:Matt moves in with us, and we're living together. And and my wife is just handling it swimmingly. I'm a week into it and I'm like, I hate this. Right? So it's awful.
Speaker 3:You know? So I'll I'll just say, I recognize the Christian community is a complicated thing, and we can sometimes idealize it. But I do think that understanding of selfhood and otherness as it relates to the fact that we are all living members of the body of our Lord and it helps us to appreciate differentiation. And let me say one more thing because I'm on it here. It also will guard us from gift projecting, I think.
Speaker 3:In other words, you have that one thing that God has put on your heart that you are passionate about, and you cannot understand why everybody else isn't as passionate as you are, and you're just angry about it. Alright? I think, you know, recognizing the fact that God the the the body and the gifts that God gives his people, the passions that he gives them, the talents that he gives them, the vision that he gives them for creating whatever, and and the cultural desires that they have for x y or z. I mean, support it and embrace it, but also recognize, we're different on this. And we need to be careful about gift projecting on others as well.
Speaker 3:Okay. There was a hand over here that's been up a while, and I keep and then I'll go over here. Yes, ma'am. You. I I have to I I need to be careful how I answer this because, Jesus demonstrates I mean, I think you make the point well.
Speaker 3:He demonstrates that he he prays for those that are that are not his own. Forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. So again, I mean, I I would I I don't know the answer to that. I mean, I I assume that that's probably the case.
Speaker 3:I mean, this will depend a lot on your views on election and how election relates to the general cold, offer the gospel that goes out to everyone, but recognizing that it will land by God's grace and spirit on on those that he calls and, and how all that works in the eternal prayer life of God. I mean, that that's, you know, I think that's a dynamic reality, I think. I don't think that's something that's static. I think it's dynamic. But I also recognize when you think about this from the standpoint of the I'm an old testament guy, I like the new testament, I'm glad it's in there, but I really like the old testament.
Speaker 3:And you think about God's care for the nations. Again, I don't I don't know how to articulate this in the sort of the intercessory prayer life of of gee and I don't know. But in the patterns of god's relating to the world, he cares about Nineveh and Jonah. Right? He sends a prophet to them.
Speaker 3:You have in Isaiah, it says that eunuchs and foreigners will become priests to God. That's crazy talk. Nebuchadnezzar is not outside of the purview of God's care and concern in the world. God calls Cyrus in the book of Isaiah a messiah, a mashiach. I mean, that's Cyrus, the king of Persia.
Speaker 3:So, I mean, we can see that God's gracious care, technically, this is called common grace, but God's gracious care for the world isn't necessarily always redemptive. And this is complicated. I recognize it. But his gracious care for the world is a recognition that it's all his, And he cares about what's going on in the South Sudan and in the mountains of Peru and in China and in the Middle East. That's in these Islamic countries that are not Christian like these islands of Indonesia where there is no Christians.
Speaker 3:Right? That's not outside the purview of the lordship of Jesus and his care and concern. So do I locate that in the prayer life of God? I locate it in the concern and the passion of God for his world, so I guess so. Yeah.
Speaker 3:That's a good question. Are we done? 1 more. One more. I think I there it is.
Speaker 3:I'm not good at this. I'm just gonna tell you. I mean, this is me just being candid, and maybe it's the beer at work now. You know, about the beer? He the question was how do we relate and correct me if I'm not articulating this right, but how do we sort of relate our pursuit of an intimate life with God, the experiential side, from just the normal everyday existence of the ordinary means of grace?
Speaker 3:Is that what you're asking? Yes. K. I struggle with this. I mean, I was just back in the back with my mom and dad during our little little break saying, you know, the dangers for someone like me is I talk about this stuff all the time and, you know, trying to think about the way in which it intersects with my daily pattern of life.
Speaker 3:I mean, that that's that's a I'm in I'm in a very dangerous position because and pastors are too because God is our business. This is what we do for a living. So I pay the bills in a God way. That's how I do it. I teach Bible, and I mean, it's dangerous, I think.
Speaker 3:So I think about that kind of question a lot, and I don't know. I mean, patterns are different on this. I can tell you that there were moments of time in my own spiritual existence. There were sweet seasons where my communion with God was palpable and profound. It was all the time.
Speaker 3:It was prayer life was not a moment. It was an existence. I mean, I remember moments like that, patterns like that. And I know that there are patterns where it's like I just praying is like a brass ceiling. It's like chalk in the mouth.
Speaker 3:I think that's a part of the maturing process of a believer is to believe in the saving promises of God. This is what I'm learning from the prophets. It's what I'm learning from Hebrews. It's what I'm learning from the book of Psalms. That the challenge in the life of the believer is to believe in the saving promises of God even when my current experience is yelling at me that that can't be true.
Speaker 3:And I think that means for some of us that we remember those mountaintop experiences with Jesus, and that just doesn't seem to be happening anymore. You know, so I I the question that you're asking for me is that there's a lot of sensitivity to that because you maybe have those memories as well. And either for laziness I mean, it's not just I can create this to be and now when I pray, it's all difficult. Someone's just lazy, slothful, don't want to do it, rather watch TV. I mean, whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 3:I mean, just life. Right? You know, I think that there's a there's a there's there's there's patterns, and there's seasons to these things. And if you read, for example, any of the journals from what I think are some of the best examples of people who live these deep experiential reformed encounters with Jesus like Jonathan Edwards or David Brainerd. I mean, when I was in my early 20s, I just cut through the life and remains of I mean, the memoir and remains, which was kind of a funny thing.
Speaker 3:Like, is there a bone in there or something? But The memoirs and the remains of Robert Murray McShane, I just cut through that stuff. Loved it. The Puritans give me more and more and more. But if you read something like David Braynard and you actually read his journal which, by the way, when Jonathan Edwards published that journal, it became the catalyst for the modern missionary movement.
Speaker 3:It's incredible. And he die you talk about a movie. This is like a a, one of those who who does The Notebook? Spark. You're talking about a Nicholas Sparks movie?
Speaker 3:David Braynard and Jerusha Edwards. There's a Nicholas Sparks movie. Right? I mean, this is a guy that wants to be a missionary. He is passionate for Jesus.
Speaker 3:He contracts tuberculosis in Jonathan Edwards' house. Jerusha, Jonathan Edwards' daughter loves David Brainerd, wants to be with David Brainerd, nurses him in his sickness, sees him to his death. Never they never get married. She contracts tuberculosis like a month later, and she dies too. You can go to the tree in Northampton, Massachusetts right now and see the big tombstones of David Brainerd and Jerusa Edwards side by side.
Speaker 3:That's that's a Sparks movie right there. Alright? That's good stuff. But if you read David Brainerd's journal, it's like one day he is like, I mean, to the point you go, come on, man. Tone it down, man.
Speaker 3:And the next day, I mean, it almost seems like he's bipolar or schizophrenics. Like, I I I'm a worm. I'm less than a man. Whatever. You know, and I think that marks just the patterns of our existence when it comes to this life with God.
Speaker 3:And that's why a book like the Psalms is so wonderful. There's a whole book of Psalms that authorizes for us in an inspired way what it means to live a complicated life in the presence of God. Mountaintop, lament. I don't even like you today, God. I mean, saying that in the book of Psalm.
Speaker 3:I don't even like you. You don't tell the truth, but I'm gonna praise you forever. Right? I mean, that's no. I mean, the book of Psalms is is profound in that way.
Speaker 3:So I think the disciplined engagement and enjoyment of the ordinary means of grace are the gateway to some of those special encounters, not necessarily the other way around. That's my sense. And there's a sense in which I think we're called to something stable because, again, the danger with that kind of piety is it can become a turning into the self and recognizing that the quality of my faith is about my faith and not the object of my faith. And I think what the ordinary means of grace do to us is they force us to turn our eyes outward and look again to him. Okay.
Speaker 3:Done.
Speaker 2:Join me in thanking Marge and Alette for being with us. Thank you so much. Alright. And thank you all so much for being here, and thank you to Avano Brewery. Make sure you close out because you'll get, like
