(He has given me vacation indeed.  Alleluia!)

I will be taking some much-needed rest this next week.  Stay tuned for my next post on 30 April or 1 May 2007.

I am John.  I was just in the story you heard read.  You never heard my name, though.  There’s a reason for that.  I wrote a story about Jesus, so that people would come to believe in him, and through believing, find life.  But it’s hard to keep the focus on Jesus when your own name keeps popping up.  So I rarely put my name in there. 

I’d like to tell you a story this morning - a story about something that happened after Jesus rose from the dead.  It’s a story about Jesus and Peter.  I saw the whole thing.  I heard it.  I was amazed by it.  So amazed, in fact, that I have remembered it for many years and I chose to include it in my story of Jesus. 

You have to understand: I’m not really like Peter.  Our personalities are really quite opposite.  You’ve met Peter before - brash and imposing, always getting into trouble because of his mouth, you know the drill.  I guess you could say that I’m the quiet sort.  I don’t like getting up in front of people.  This public speaking thing today has me positively terrified.  I’m one of those guys whom you don’t notice until I’ve been standing there for five minutes.  I’m James’ little brother, and, let me tell you, that was a survival tactic being around him.  He was much more hot-headed, kind of like Peter.  Yeah, I can be, too, but not like them. 

So we were out fishing one day a few weeks after Jesus first appeared to us after he rose from the dead.  I think I was the first one that realized that it was Jesus who was standing there on the shore of the lake.  Well, splash - there goes Peter, over the side.  He’s so tickled that Jesus is back.  The rest of us rowed the boats back to the shore.  My boat, of course, minus one rower. 

We had breakfast, and somehow Jesus had already caught and cooked fish.  Don’t ask me how.  He’s Jesus, right?  Well, after breakfast - I think that’s how this goes - Jesus and Peter were left sitting by the fire, as everyone else cleaned up.  I was sitting there, too, playing with the embers by poking them with a long stick.  I began to half-listen to their conversation.  I don’t know what I expected. 

Actually, maybe I did expect to see something interesting.  I expected to see the sparks fly.  I expected to see Jesus lecturing Peter for his “I don’t even know that guy” statements on the night that Judas - ugh - can’t even say his name without … well… anyhow, I thought Jesus was going to lay in to Peter for all the ways Peter messed up by not doing what Jesus wanted. 

But that’s not what I saw.  Instead, I saw something radically different, and it was much more interesting than what I thought I was going to see. 

There wasn’t any long lecture about Peter’s misdeeds.  Jesus didn’t chide him on how he should have acted, or how he should act differently in the future.  There was none of that.

Moreover, there was no going back through the past.  Jesus didn’t review Peter’s breach of trust. 

Instead, it was simple. Do you love me?  Jesus seemed to know Peter’s heart was divided.  Peter did try hard to please Jesus.  Peter was one of Jesus’ disciples - like me - one of his closest followers.  But Peter still had some places in his heart, it would seem, that were not really fully discipled. 

Jesus didn’t really enquire as to whether Peter was fully on board with Jesus.  Whether he believed what he should believe, or whether he would “try to do better next time.”  To get into that, well, it misses the point.  One thing about Peter, there wasn’t any lack of trying.  He just screwed up, that’s all. 

No, Jesus merely says, “do you love me?”  That’s all he really needs to know.  If Peter loves him (which, really Jesus already has seen demonstrated in the leap from the boat), if Peter truly loves him, more than the fish, maybe more than the rest of us, then everything will fall into place, eventually.  The denial, the cluelessness, the lying - that hurt Jesus, no question about it.  But Jesus wasn’t going there.  “do you love me?” 

Peter answered, “yes, Lord, I love you.”  Jesus’ response?  “Care for those young, new, weak disciples that I care about.”  In other words, “since you love me, love those whom I love.” 

But then Jesus asks again - “do you love me?”  Almost as if he had to make sure.  Peter’s response, “I love you.”  Jesus instructs him to care for those whom he has shepherded.  Jesus invites Peter, a second time, to love those Jesus cares about. 

But when he asks Peter a third time, Peter gets upset.  Is Jesus that insecure?  What is going on?  Peter’s offended.  He almost starts raging at Jesus like he has in the past - but then he checks himself.  I think it was at that point that it dawned on Peter: Jesus had asked Peter if he loved him three times - equal to the denials.  And the third denial was with an oath!  The third response of love was nearly so as well.  But Peter is learning and growing.  That one wasn’t so bad. 

Jesus moved to restore Peter and reconcile him to himself, not by entering into a blame game or a scolding session, but through the invitation to love, and to follow his commands to love those whom Jesus loves.  Only then, does Jesus tell Peter what the price will be for that love.  And after all that, he simply says, “Follow me.”  They got up and walked away.  I followed them, to listen.

I was amazed.  I was dumbfounded.  And then… well… they saw me.  Peter saw me first.  Jesus was facing the other way.  “What about him?”  Peter asks.  Oh dear.  Spotlight.  I don’t really want to know, you know?  Not what Peter knows, right? 

But Jesus doesn’t tell him.  And that’s the next amazing thing: Don’t worry about everyone else.  They’re not your responsibility.

This experience has changed my life because now, whenever I do something that isn’t quite what Jesus had in mind, I know his love is still there.  And his love is what draws me into following him ever more closely every day.  Sure, I could get a lecture any day on something I did.  I could hear about how I messed up.  My heart - well, it’s with Jesus almost all the time.  But every once in a while… well…

Jesus’ love draws us into reconciliation and gives us the desire to live for him.  So I know now that I have to model that kind of love in my disciple relationships.  If they love Jesus, and they love me (secondarily of course), then they’ll be all right. 

Just like with the book I wrote, I hope that this story today can draw you up into the love of Jesus to give you a greater desire to believe and to follow him.  I didn’t give you anything organized, like “three steps to peace with Jesus after you did something stupid” (actually, that’s more like Peter or Paul), but I hope it has spoken to you, nonetheless.  As I said at the beginning, I don’t like being out in front of people speaking.  I’d rather be off to the side, writing what I’ve seen in my amazing visions.  So I’ll leave you with this.  Jesus asks, “do you love me?”  What is our response?

The city of Rome, that is.

SPQR.

Alleluia, Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen, indeed.  Alleluia!

Today I had the opportunity to pray with some people and we saw God at work doing emotional, physical and spiritual healing all at once.  This is a sign of the Resurrection!

Alleluia, Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen, indeed.  Alleluia! 

If you want to run a Marathon, you train by running mile after mile after mile.  If you want to practice medicine, you spend years in school and then years in training in hospitals. 

If you want to bring the Kingdom of God to bear in a community, you log hours and hours of prayer.  You walk the soles right off your shoes as you pray.  Even in the mere one-month-plus experience I have gained in prayer walking (see here for some preliminary reflections), I have observed that the atmosphere of a place begins to shift as you pray. 

It seems especially potent if, as you pray, you are doing so in tongues.  Now I know that’s just weird to some people, so let me explain.  It seems that praying in tongues transcends our normal way of praying and is always active to do something in our environment.  When we gather together, there are visions and prophecies (etcetera) as it occurs.  The observation I would make is that the practice of praying in tongues while prayer-walking begins to alter the atmosphere of the areas through which we pass regularly.  In doing so, light and life are brought to bear on those places. 

So what if we went prayer walking in hospitals?  In schools?  In bad neighborhoods?  What kind of Kingdom power could we unleash? 

In this season of new life, let us consider ways to pray a new atmosphere into existence!

Alleluia, Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen, indeed.  Alleluia!

As the new life of Christ takes root in our body, it begins to flower and bear fruit.  These days we are seeing the first signs. 

The funny thing is, as things begin to emerge, you can’t actually tell what the plant is going to look like.  They all sprout up and have a couple of leaves right out of the seed that all look rather alike.  It is only later that they begin to differentiate. 

We’re seeing a little green coming out of the earth.  What will it be?

Alleluia, Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen, indeed.  Alleluia!

You get excited when you first start getting visions and dreams and messages from God.  It’s really cool when you start to see things happen.  It’s especially interesting as long as you can pretty much correspond one-for-one what you were seeing with what is happening. 

And then it happens.  The gift becomes a burden - but a delightful one.  You realize that for God to do what he says something else that seems set to happen has to not happen.

I can say that God is up to something here.  What is happening is beyond anything I’ve experienced.  Stay tuned.

Alleluia, Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen, indeed.  Alleluia!

As you declare what God has shown you in vision, others pick up on it and begin to own it.  This helps it expand in influence.  Theologically, we call this “the inbreaking of the Kingdom.”  Anyone experienced this lately?  I have!

Check out this post from the dive.  Emphasis mine.

Holiness is a church word, which is to say that it has baggage–popular usage that has diminished its helpfulness for contemporary discourse. If someone seeks holiness, they are seen as aloof and odd. But what does holiness mean? Is it about moral superiority, escapism, and self-righteous finger-pointing? No. Holiness is about the elimination of things that destroy.

It is important to note the connection between the word ‘holiness’ and wholeness and healing. David Bosch brought this out briefly in discussing the mission of the church. I wonder if many people who are put off by the current connotations that come along with the word ‘holiness’ would be more willing to seek it if they understood it in terms of wholeness and healing. Would it not be good for us to find that in our lives, the relationships around us, and society in general?

Holiness is about breathing life, and not death, into our actions and relationships. We often see people who eliminate certain actions which are, no doubt, destructive, but still hold close other actions and attitudes which, though more socially acceptable, are equally as dangerous and destructive. Arrogance about one’s abstinence from certain destructive behaviors is itself a sure sign of sickness. The holy person is not the one who shakes his finger at ’sinners,’ but rather the one who helps her fellow brothers and sisters to see the way toward healing.

I hear our call to holiness as a call to consider everything that destroys and to refuse to embrace those things–embracing, instead, things that breathe life, love, justice, healing, and beauty into the world around us. No wonder these acts come from God and require our dependence and cooperation. We need to reclaim holiness as a word, as an idea, and most urgently as a practice.

Comments?

Alleluia, Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen, indeed.  Alleluia!

Because of the life of Christ, and even more because of the new life of Christ in the Resurrection, we are just as likely now to experience healing and deliverance from the devil when we encounter Jesus and his Kingdom as people were 2000 years ago when they encountered Jesus and his Kingdom before he went to the cross. 

Jesus is alive and since Jesus is alive we can experience the fullness of his power as we encounter him, alive, even now. 

Perhaps we don’t really know him as “alive” - even though we say we believe it.  We know Jesus is alive, but only in our heads.  If Jesus is alive, and if his Kingdom is among/within us, then healing, cleansing, resurrection and deliverance can still be a regular part of our interactions with Jesus. 

Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped.  Then shall the lame man leap as an hart; and the tongue of the dumb shall sing! (Isaiah 35:4 - 5, KJV)

Comments?  Questions?

This morning, I’d like to say just a few words to the four of you who were just baptized today.  The rest of you listen in, because I think this applies to you, too.

A few moments ago, we heard a passage from the book of Acts as Peter and the other apostles answer the authorities as to why they are still talking about Jesus, even when they have been ordered not to.  They respond that they must obey God rather than human authority, because they are witnesses to the Resurrection of Jesus. 

You today have witnessed to the work of God in your lives - the risen Jesus Christ who has changed your lives.  You have proclaimed your allegiance to him in front of us.  This may have been a scary experience to do this in front of us, and we agree with you.  It is likely, no, probable - it will happen - that people will oppose you for being a Christian.  At school, they may tease you and mock you.  In your job they may try to get you to do unethical things just to see if they can.  Your family may even oppose your participation in the life of the Body of Christ. 

Your testimony and your actions in Baptism have already been our Sermon this morning, so let me close with this: Never quit proclaiming the message of Jesus and the changes he is bringing about in your lives.  Even in the face of opposition, do not fear being rejected for your faith.  God is with you and will stand with you to give you the words to speak and the actions to do so that you may follow him even in the face of opposition. 

You have joined with us in new life - and have died to your old way of life.  Never quit proclaiming this new life in Christ.  You are his witnesses with us now.  We will support you.  Never quit proclaiming the Good News.  Amen.

Alleluia, Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen, indeed.  Alleluia! 

The whole world is resting on this day - at least in this area of the world.  It is the Sabbath, and on it we can do no work. 

So what do we do?  Instead of our normal relaxation activities, instead of going to the Synagogue (we can’t be seen there!), we spend time at home.  Waiting.  Anticipating.

Why?

Because tomorrow it will be one week since Jesus’ resurrection.  We anticipate he will be with us again.  We can’t wait!  What will he do next?

 Alleluia, Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen, indeed.  Alleluia!

 Six days from Jesus’ resurrection, what are we doing?

We realize that life will never be the same - and yet, we have the sense that, unless Jesus does something radical, we may be watching to keep the mundane from overwhelming us.  We expect the Kingdom to be restored, any time now.  What is Jesus waiting for? 

He has risen from the dead, but he seems to be keeping this resurrection thing about as secret as some of his miracles.  Why is that?  What does he have to show us during this time that he can’t show the rest of the world quite yet? 

What is he doing?

Alleluia, Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen, indeed.  Alleluia!

New life is springing up from the ground.  It is exciting to see.  It looks good when you look at it.

But everything gets all out of whack if you expect it to grow as you watch.  It’s not supposed to.  And things get all messed up if you try to make it grow faster or expect it to be taller before its time. 

Do not rush the new life.  It takes time.

It seems today that having a vision as to where God is going with something can be just as much a faith-building experience as when you don’t have a vision as to where God is going.

Because it’s still hard to reconcile the current state of things with where they’ll end up when you can see no clear path.