New Message: “Can you hear me now?” John 10:1-21

For anyone who is interested, I was given the opportunity to teach at REALITY on Sunday on John 10:1-21.  Great time preparing and sharing.  It was really neat to me to see how the Spirit put the message together in the end.  Hope you enjoy it if you take a listen.

Can you hear me now? John 10:1-21

Easter Beyond Chocolate Crosses

Chocolate cross anyone?

A couple of months ago I attended a conference where they asked the question, “What if Jesus was supposed to determine the things the church was supposed to be about?”  Far out there right?  Maybe it was a shocker for someone there, but most I think were a little underwhelmed.  Well, prepare yourself to be underwhelmed, cause I’ve got a question…

What if Easter was supposed to be about remembering Jesus’ resurrection?

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying you shouldn’t do your part to vanquish the army of Peeps amassing at your local grocery store or that you shouldn’t do your customary line of Jellybeans.  This post is not about what Easter shouldn’t be about.  This post is about reconsidering what Easter is about.

For many Easter is about family, for some it about traditions, but for nearly all (in America at least) Easter is about sugar.  Or at least the stats would lead us to believe that.  The Chicago Sun-Times reports that the average American will spend $131.04 filling Easter baskets this year.    Infoplease.com claims that Americans buy more than 700 million Marshmallow Peeps and 16 billion jellybeans each year (nearly enough jellybeans to circle the globe three times!).  Chocolate sales in 2009 were said to make up 71 million pounds of the total 121 million pounds of candy sold in the week leading up to Easter (according to here, here and here)

So what does it look like to remember Jesus’ resurrection on Easter? A couple thoughts:

• Celebrate new life. Do you know anyone in a season of renewal?  Anyone with a new baby?  Anyone entering a new phase of life?  Any new initiatives to invigorate the city?  Why not celebrate them on or around Easter?
• Engage Jesus’ mission. Jesus said that the Spirit was upon him to “proclaim good news to the poor…release to the captives and the regaining of sight to the blind, to set free those whoa are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18).  What would it look like to engage the needs of one of these communities on Easter?
• Remember God’s great acts. Easter comes in a long line of remembering the great acts of God.  Take communion.  Set time aside to review God’s great acts in your life and those around you over the last year.
• In conclusion to Lent. Granted it is a little late this year, but perhaps remembering Jesus’ resurrection for you would start weeks in advance of Easter through celebrating Lent.  (More in a helpful pdf here)

What would you add to this list?  How do remember/celebrate Jesus’ resurrection at Easter?  What do you do to make sure Easter goes beyond chocolate crosses?

Jesus the Prophet

In Deuteronomy 18:18-19 the Lord said something amazing to Moses: “I will raise up a prophet like you from them, from their fellow Israelites.  I will put my words in his mouth and he will speak to them whatever I command.  I will personally hold responsible anyone who then pays no attention to the words that prophet speaks in my name.”  What grounds for expectation, right?  What if you missed his coming?  What if you fail to pay attention to what he speaks?  I mean who wouldn’t be looking for this person?

It is no surprise then that one of the first questions the Jews put to John the Baptist is “Are you the Prophet?” (John 1:21).  Thousands of years after Moses and this prophecy is still in the front of their minds.

Not long after this Philip tells Nathanael, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the law, and the prophets also wrote about” (John 1:45).  Though Nathanael is incredulous over Jesus’ origin, he goes to see him nonetheless.  Upon meeting Jesus, “the one Moses wrote about”, we find Jesus speaking prophetically about Nathanael and what the disciples will experience and see in the future (John 1:47, 50-51).  And it is not the last of his prophecies in John either (John 4:44; 13:21).

In John Jesus is clearly displayed as the one who makes the Father know, who speaks by the Father’s authority what the Father has told him (John 12:49-50) and who is himself the Truth (John 14:6)

Jesus is the Prophet who not only speaks but also fully embodies God’s truth and makes the Father fully known.  This is Good News, because it tells me that we can stop looking for truth apart from him.  He is our teacher.  He is the one who tells us what is true and what is not.  He shows us the Father, sanctifies us by his truth (John 17:17) and has sent us the Spirit to lead us in to all Truth (John 16:13).  No longer must we search asking “What is truth?” (John 18:38). Now is the time to know him and to believe the truth he shows us and to worship him in spirit and in truth (John 4:24).

Fractal Church

Yeah, I know.  Most people reading this don’t have a clue (or care) what a fractal is.  And, the fact is, the guy who popularized them (building on the work of others)–Benoît Mandelbrot–recently passed away, so in lieu of the man himself, we’ll just have to settle for Wikipedia (Wow, did Wikipedia just replace a brilliant man?).

According to the freely edited wisdom of the crowd, a fractal is, “a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole.”  So, zoom in on a fractal and what will you find?  Basically, another re-presentation of the whole.  Zoom in further.  What do you find?  Another representation of the whole.  Zoom in further…you get the idea.

So, what does this have to do with anything?  Only this: at every layer of the Church, no matter what “zoom”, we should find the in-containable, incomprehensible Christ ubiquitously present (Ephesians3:16-19; Colossians 1:15-20).  And the implications are huge.  Because every part–individual, missional community, Olympia’s churches, and the big “C” Church–carries Christ, every part carries within them the possibility of the whole.  Put another way, “In the seed the whole tree lies coiled, and in the tree, there lies the potential for the production of countless other seeds.  In the tree is the full potential of the forest.” (Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways, 206).

I’m not saying that every follower of Christ is meant to plant a church.  I am saying that the presence of Christ in you and within those of us who are his body, are enough for him to breathe a new movement of life in this world.  Here’s the reality: If we believe any less than that Jesus could repopulate the earth with a people passionate for his name and Kingdom through us, then we are living with a truncated Jesus who is not truly Lord at all.

As much as I may struggle to believe the incomprehensible Christ lives in me, he is calling and leading you and I believe that he can and will do incomprehensible things through us.