Companion for a Troublesome Journey

I woke up depressed this morning. It started with a troubling dream I had last night. I dreamed in two segments, (segment 1 about dismissing off an invitation to a small young congregation because it was just too far from me; segment 2 about suggesting a stranger to take care of it); and from both I derived the meaning behind the dream that I am just too casual and irreverent about ministry. (And I am not even starting in fulltime ministry yet!) On top of that, the drive to LAX and what I was watching along the way was just wearing me out. I picked my mom from the airport after a month traveling in Australia, sharing about her ministry to the blinds in Vietnam. She connected back to some of my long time friends (back 20 years ago when we were still teens from the same youth group). One of them, Trang, went through a divorce and a surgery and now on the second marriage. Another one, Thanh-Kieu, had been married three times and now a single mom trying to raise a small kid. Then A. Le Kinh Luan, who I was staying with through out my refugee camp period, he is now also hanging in there, ministering to a small group, holding down a job, raising his kid and trying to support his sick wife. And the churches there were fragmenting beyond repair. After dropping my mom off at home, I decided to get some breakfast, and asked Muc Su Thach to accompany me. I was hoping that I will be able to off-load some burdens. But not really; he pointed me to the harsh reality and to prepare for it; as if he believes that I could get some where in the future. He really believe that we should operate on the wholistic-framework of faith in relation to the body and the soul; to the thinking, the feeling, and the deciding; and the social-setting we are living in (these concepts are from Dallas Willard). As we grew up in the American culture, the university is excellent in cultivating intellectual people, and perhaps very good at making business decision; but we have no clue how to handle our emotions, our body and its desires, let alone our souls, and therefore our roles in our social-settings (of a student, a father, a husband, a friend, a worker, etc.) are completely fragmented. However, he gave me an insight about what we should do in the college fellowship group. He pointed to the standard maneuvering of sport coaches when they start losing: make sure the team goes back to the basic. What's the basic of the 6 components in the wholistic-framework? I asked. He wrote this down on a piece of napkin, and said: All movements in the past will die if any of the following four would be missing from them...

1. Vigorous thinking
2. Deep devotion to God
3. Sacrificial service
4. Constant contact with the lost

Is there any evidence of these four in our life right now? How do we know that we are thinking vigorously? (Most of the time we are too lazy to think through stuff). How's the Word shape and wrestle with our thinking? Is our devotion to God deep enough? (The funny thing is that you will not be easily spot deep-rooted stuff, while shallow flowers are more pretty). If our devotions to God are not taking root into our very, very personal aspects, then it's still shallow. As for services, sacrificial services are not convenient ones, sometimes not even rewarding. If we are tired from serving because we don't get anything out of it, or because we don't see any fruits from it, we need to watch out for the spirit of "charity work". The last item will need no explanation, all we need to do is to count the relationship around us and see if we are still in-touch or not.

The problem for me, as Muc Su Thach pointed out to me, is that I am panicking too much [1]. Rest on the Word, he said. My Psalm for this week said:

You are righteous, O LORD, and your judgments are right. You have appointed your decrees in righteousness and in all faithfulness. My zeal consumes me because my foes forget your words. Your promise is well tried, and your servant loves it. I am small and despised, yet I do not forget your precepts. Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and your law is the truth. Trouble and anguish have come upon me, but your commandments are my delight. Your decrees are righteous forever; give me understanding that I may live. Psalm 119:137-144

Muc Su Thach was zealous because many of us, including me, have not been steadfast in the Word of God. We know the Word, yet we too often forgot as we got freaked out by the environment around us. God's Word (His "promise") is well tried, and weathered a lot of ups and downs and it still remains true today. Even though we may be nothing in the scheme of things ("small and despised"), but we should not forget His Word ("precepts"). Trouble and anguish will come in the future, and what I need to do is learn how to draw my strength and delight from His Word ("your commandments"). God's Word ("decrees") will give me understanding so that I will live, not just surviving the future, but live fully.

Oh God of the Word, this is my prayer, that the Word masters me so that I can master the words.

How could we make the place more comfortable for our friends? May be we should start at the hearts.

Sunday morning, 30 minutes left before heading to worship at church. I hope will see Jen again this morning. She's a friend of Jess, who just start coming to our English Speaking worship for the past few weeks. She joined my class for Basic Christianity with three others. It was just wonderfull to be able to spend 30 minutes every week to show her the basic stuff she was seeking for. ("How do we know that there's a creator God, without the Bible?", "What do Christians believe?" "How do we know the Bible is the Word of God?"...) I prayed that I will see her again today. After the class, we often went to Starbucks, then chitchat for another hour or so. Just pure delight.

Jen was moved when "Christian people" like Jess and Will prayed for her. She wants to bring some of her friends over and worship with us. I was impressed, very impressed at the fact that she would want to do that, even though that she were "being new and don't know anybody". And I have been thinking a lot about what Jen said about being new at church...

Recently, this is what I read from the Bible...

Jesus told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, 'God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.' But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, 'God, be merciful to me, a sinner!' I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted." Luke 18:9-14

As I read this, I was thinking a lot about the similarity to the modern church situation...

My first observation is that at least the tax collector could enter the temple to pray. How open are our churches toward the people who doesn't feel belong there? We all making sure that the church is accessible to all people, but some how the people who need to be at church just won't go to church. Why did the tax collector go to the temple? "To pray", the text said. But what drove him to that point? Devout Jewish men were expected to go to the temple three times daily to pray (or so, I remember). But it's unreasonable to think that this tax collector was devoted. Perhaps he was there on business (recent scholars suggested that the Sanhedrin were the central tax collection point before they hand it over to the Romans). Or perhaps he was somehow in trouble and just want to pray to get out of it; the typical crisis prayer. From time to time I would see people popped up at our church. People who backslided in ages; sometime a complete stranger. Then the week after they disappear, and I forgot about them. "O well, those flaky people", I thought. As if they intended to stick around in the first place. For the tax collector, I am sure that he wouldn't come to the temple to pray if the doctrine of "God dwells in His temple" were drilled into his mind since his Jewish childhood. He was clearly feeling out of place, "standing far off, would not even look up". If he was in our worship service, he would be sure sitting among the back row, or may be standding in the foyer, and ready to slip out even before the service over. (Note to self: talk to the ushering team about this passage). The Pharisee, on another hand, were at home in the temple. He feel very comfortable there; he may be even grew up there all his life. He knew all about God's requirements, the scripture, the spiritual disciplines, the fast, the tithe, etc. He was set out to live an exemplified life in the midst of corruption, be "the lights of the world and salts of the earth". What interesting in this passage is that the two men never come into direct contact with one another. They both were just praying, directly to God, then leave. There were no hand shakes among the congregation, no introduction of new comers. (Perhaps if there were, things would be even worse). And in this direct relationship with God, the core issues of where they are with God came out in their view of where they are with men. Jesus had nothing to against the religious people who want to be salt and light and even rub the hurtful salt into the wounds of society. (He did that too). What He was against is the attitude of "trusting in themselves that they were righteous, and regarded others with contempt". So, even if we got the church open and accessible to all, even if we got the tax-collectors to come, even if we can get the Pharisee to shut-up from their malice disguised as prayer, even if we can get the congregation genuinely shake hands with the strangers, we still won't get no where if our attitudes were, "O, how pity! We've got to help those sinners!" No, the way Jesus wanted us to do is to realize that they really don't want to be in church in the first place (if it wasn't for God's dwelling), that they were there because God some how drove them there; and most importantly, that we should welcome them as fellow sinners as we gathered together at the foot of the cross. O God, help me to spot all the barriers in church which preventing others to come to you, whether it's environmental or spiritual. Help me to see your work in bringing people home, no matter how far they stand. And help me to lower the heart of the congregation so that we can be a comfortable place for your justification to be seen.

Why Nick and I buried Jesus?

Shalom! Good morning, My name is Joseph, (but according to your culture, you can call me Joe). I am from Arimathea, a region in the Northwest of Jerusalem [1]. I am a nobleman among the seventy members of the Sanhedrin of Jerusalem, (or Ruling Council in your term). I am here to debrief you about the incident of Yeshua, (or Jesus in your term), who was from Nazareth. First, what were the problems? Many of you have already been aware that He commanded a peasant to carry his mattress on the Sabbath. This is a serious offense. Our Ten Commandment stated clearly: “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” [Ex.20:8-11] Carry a mattress is breaking the Sabbath; consider how we were supposed to deal with Sabbath-breaker according to the Sacred Law of God in Numbers 15:32-34: “While the Israelites were in the desert, a man was found gathering wood on the Sabbath day. Those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses and Aaron and the whole assembly, and they kept him in custody, because it was not clear what should be done to him. Then the Lord said to Moses, 'The man must die. The whole assembly must stone him outside the camp.' So the assembly took him outside the camp and stoned him to death, as the Lord commanded Moses.” Now, with the progress of time, we may not be as vicious as back then, for we believe that this specific death penalty was pronounced directly by God in order establish a precedent for us all to follow. Therefore the only thing we can do today, is to confront our Jewish brothers and remind them when we see them breaking God’s Commandments. Often, people were just ignorant of the Law and they didn’t mean to break God’s Commandments; so when we confronted Jesus, we were expecting His quick compliance. But no; this is how He responded to us, as recorded in the transcript you have, verse 17: “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working.” This is a deadly claim! Immediately after this pronouncement, the Temple Guards went and escalated the matter up and down the authority chain. Any members of the Ruling Council available nearby were heading down to face off with this fellow right away. By the time I got there, there were more than a dozen of us from the Ruling Council surrounded him. On a balcony near by, I saw Caiaphas (the Council President in your term) observing the situation. Let me explain a bit more about the severity of that statement. It’s not just because the defiance of “Screw you and your rules!” in this fellow’s statement, but something more deadly than that. Which Father who “is always at his work to this very day”? Our Rabbis taught that God Himself, the Father of Israel, had continued to work since creation, sustaining the world even on the Sabbath.[2] Therefore, when this fellow said, “and I, too, am working”, He claimed to have the authority equaled with our God in order to ignore His commandment! I could not believe what was going on, so I turned to one of my Council friends I saw there, Mr. Nicodemus (you can call him Nick) and asked, “Were you there when this man mentioned God as, ‘My Father’, are you sure He didn’t say ‘Our Father’”? (We Jewish people regard God as our Father of the whole nation and in a communal sense, but not in a personal sense. Calling God as ‘My Father’ could be interpreted in a wrong way in our culture [3]) My friend Nick nodded, “Yup, that’s what He said. By the way, this is the same fellow who disrupted the Temple merchants last year Passover. At that time, He also used that same phrase, claiming the God’s Temple as ‘My Father’s House’. What He was saying is that ‘I am equaled to God!’” I and other Council Members all shook our head. This man was asking for a death sentence. Leviticus 24:16 stated clearly, “anyone who blasphemes the name of the Lord must be put to death. The entire assembly must stone him. Whether an alien or native-born, when he blasphemes the Name, he must be put to death.” In that same chapter the ancient Israelites stoned a man to death for cursing God; later on under King Ahab’s reign, Naboth was sentenced to death for charge of blasphemy [1 Kings 21]; and today our Ruling Council could hand out death sentence to people who blaspheme again our God (by special agreement with the Romans)![4] Ananias, a much older Council Member was there and wanted to contain any misunderstanding before things getting out of hand; he told all of us, “Ahem, sometimes young people didn’t mean what they say. Let’s not be hasty in condemning anyone here.” Jesus heard that, and looked straight into each one of our eyes, and said slowly: “Verily, verily, I say unto thee…” Oh, that was Old English, I see that your modernized transcript translated that as “I tell you the truth”; nah, that didn’t express clearly the formality of the situation. In your culture, it is as formal as placing your hand on the Bible to assert that you are telling the truth. This is what He said, “I (solemnly) tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does.” Oh, good grief! Not only He called God as ‘My Father’, now He claimed that He is the Son of God. This is out right obvious blasphemy beyond any misunderstanding. You see, in your modern culture the idea of “son” connotes a different person than the father, but in our Jewish culture, a “son” is the extension of his father. The word connoted identification with rather than difference from.[5] Jesus is saying that He work during the Sabbath because He is just like His Dad, the God who sustains the universe! This is bad. No one should exalt themselves to be Son of God! Jaws were dropping, eyebrows were raising, and we could not believe the gut of this guy! And He went on, “Yes, to your amazement he will show him even greater things than these. For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it.” There is no mistaken what Jesus was claiming here: Only God could raise the dead and give life, and here Jesus said that He could give life to people as He pleased! As if that was not bad enough, Jesus went on and said, “Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.” You hear that blasphemous claim? God alone is our Judge! God alone should be honored! And this guy wants us to honor Him as we honor God! I was about to slap Him across His blasphemy mouth, but Nick pulled me aside. He said, “Cool down Joe! Watch out for traps, Joe. He set this whole thing up. Don’t you see that He could have done His healing on any other day but the Sabbath? And now walking into the Temple with these arguments, He must have planned this out. Let’s see what He wants first…” I might be hot head, but I am not stupid; so I listened to Nick and got back in with the crowd. As if Jesus knew what was in our minds, He slowly said in a very serious tone, “I (solemnly) tell you the truth: whoever hears my word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.” O, is that what He wants? Later that night, when I and Nick got together and discussed about the event of the day, we both agree that this seems to be the central plot for Rabbi Jesus to stir up everyone’s attention. He wants us to believe that He is the Son of God; that He has the same power of God; that He has power over life and death, power over the afterlife, power to judge every living soul. Jesus qualified that claim immediately, “I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.” When I first heard it that morning, I was so outraged that a human being dared to blaspheme and called Himself Son of God, and have the power to grant life. How could anyone in their right mind entertain the thought that he is same level with the Most High God? This Jesus of Nazareth must be delusional on a grand scale. But as I went over the transcript again, I notice the other curious title; He called himself “Son of Man”[6] and God granted His judgment authority because He is a “Son of Man”[7]. I must admit that there is a possibility for God to be more fair in His judgment of humankind if He really know what living as a human is all about. Didn’t the prophet Isaiah express the same idea when he cried, “Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down…” [8] But back on the scene that morning, as I told you before, we were all outraged and shocked at the claim, and we thought this Jesus must be nut! And Jesus didn’t even back off, he kept on stretching our patience: “Do not be amazed (or shocked) at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out - those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned. By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.” Even Ananias the elder couldn’t put up with this no more; he shrugged and suggested, “This is all non-sense, why are we wasting our time listening to this lunatic. It’s all words. The guy was just babbling by himself and to himself! Let’s all get back to our tasks…” Jesus interrupted, Really? “If I testify about myself, my testimony is not valid. There is another who testifies in my favor, and I know that his testimony about me is valid.” “Alright”, I thought to myself, “let’s call the witnesses to the stance; proof to me that you are not a loony!” Jesus called on his first witness, John the Baptist. “You have sent to John and he has testified to the truth. Not that I accept human testimony; but I mention it that you may be saved. John was a lamp that burned and gave light, and you chose for a time to enjoy his light.” That’s true; we the Ruling Council often investigate new movements among the people in order to get a handle on stuff around here. When John started gathered a large following by the Jordan, we came and checked him out: “Now this was John’s testimony when the Jews of Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was. He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, “I am not the Christ.” They asked him, “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?” He answered, “No.” Finally they said, “Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, “I am the voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’” Now some Pharisees who had been sent questioned him, “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?” “I baptize with water,” John replied, “but among you stands one you do not know. He is the one who comes after me, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.” This all happened at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing. The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! This is the one I meant when I said, ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel...” And yes, for a while we “enjoy his light”, many of our people believe that John is a great prophet from God. Then Jesus appealed to his second witness, “I have testimony weightier than that of John. For the very work that the Father has given me to finish, and which I am doing, testifies that the Father has sent me. And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me.” The work huh? It’s true that Rabbi Jesus is widely known for the miracles he performed. The lame guy who carried his mattress earlier was a prime example. I don’t think we can refute that his miracles didn’t exist. Later that night, I and my friend Nick argued about this second proof from Jesus. Nick said, “Rabbi Jesus must come from God, otherwise how anyone could perform miracles like him if God were not with him?” [9] I argued back, “If He came from God like Moses, Elijah and the prophets, then wouldn’t He also must abide by all God’s Law and keep the Sabbath as well as other commandments? This is not counting his blasphemed statements earlier!” Nick thought for a bit and said, “Yes, unless He is NOT like Moses, Elijah, and the prophets; unless He is from God but NOT in the same class like the Great Prophets.” “You mean that He would be even greater than the Great Prophets?” Nick quietly nodded his head. Back to the morning incident, Jesus appealed to his third witness, “The Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form, nor does his word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one he sent. You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” Jesus called the whole Bible as testimony about Himself. How could we miss that? We study the Bible every week, analyzing each verse to find the “Techniques of Holy Living”, the “Methods to a Happy Being”, and even the “Standards for Eternal Life”. But Jesus said that if we don’t start with the belief in Him, then we won’t be able to understand that the promise of Redemption for Sin is about a Person, and not just a Code of Conduct. Later that night, as Nick and I discussed more about this incident, we agreed that through out the Bible, there seems to be a thread point to the promised one, the Messiah from the beginning to the end of (what you are now known as) the Old Testament. From the opening chapters of Genesis, when humankind chose to disobey God, God promised us someone to crush the head of Satan: “And I (God) will put enmity between you (Satan) and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he (The Descendent) will crush your head, and you will strike his heel” [Gen.3:15] From the last chapters of Malachi, we found the promise of God sending someone like Elijah before the arrival of the Messiah[10]: “I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes.” [Mal.4:5] I was willing to entertain Nick’s point, “I see that He could be the Messiah!” Nick thought for a bit, and shook his head, and pressed even further, “No, not the Messiah as our Jewish culture understood it. We have always thought that the Messiah would be like another King David, like another human being.” I gasped, “No, you are not suggesting that He is who He claimed to be, right?” Nick suggested, “Think about it, Joe. Can a lion behave just like a dog? Can an eagle walk like a chicken? Think about this, if God Himself were to show up at our temple and see all these merchants, what would He do? If God Himself were here and disapprove with the way we interpret His Law about the Sabbath, what would He do? Would He even care what we human have to say?” Earlier in the day, Jesus certainly didn’t care what our institution could have done to Him; he concluded with some harsh words, “I do not accept praise from men, but I know you. I know that you do not have the love of God in your hearts. I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him. How can you believe if you accept praise from one another, yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God?” Just right then we heard the windows slammed up there in the balcony where Caiaphas was listened in. The Council President was mad, I am sure. Down here, Ananias the elder sneered at the young Rabbi, “Sure, ‘The Son’ is careless about getting any approval from us mere human! I am sure that death row heretics need no approval from their executioners!” Rabbi Jesus had just signed his own death sentence. The wrath of Council is going to be on him. The old Ananias stormed off; we filed out after him. I and Nicodemus were the last to file out. As we left, Jesus caught the sleeve of Nick and held us back; he looked us straight in the eyes and said, “Don’t think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. If[11] you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?” That farewell statement haunted Nick that night. We found what Moses wrote, “The LORD said to me, ‘I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers; I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him. If anyone does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will call him to account’” in Deut.18:18-19 Nick asked me, “So if Jesus is who Moses wrote about, then we must listen to Him, especially if we understand that He is no human being but the Son of God. Not doing so would be eternal death by the hands of God! What do you think?” I didn’t know how to answer my best friend, and Nick went on, hesitant, “But then, if I seriously take Him for who He claimed to be, then I must be willing to take His side and I could lose everything, everything that I have been built up so far. I could end up condemning myself by support His deadly claim too.” I was getting nervous, “Nick, I see your evidences, and I hear your reasoning. But at the same time, I fear that line of reasoning. At this rate, you will get us both in trouble with the Ruling Council!” He sighted, “I know, I know. To be honest, I don’t have the gut to follow Jesus right now. For now, perhaps I should settle just to be a good religious person.” That was just the beginning. From then on, we closely observed Jesus. We have seen amazing deeds done by Him, and even heard even more outrageous claim from the man. More and more, we became convinced that He was who He claimed to be. But we still had no gut to identify with Him. Not until that fateful day when He was condemned to be crucified by the Ruling Council, we came to the realization that Jesus was deliberately breaking the Sabbath that day in order to earn a hearing before the religious leaders; and that He was so forceful with us, so that He could make this point heard: that we need to believe in Him to have Life. And He did all that, knowing that we would nail Him for it, literally. As I stood there looking at the cross under the purple sunset sky, I and Nick understood that Jesus died personally to reach out to the top 70 head honchos of the Jewish state. Sadly, only two of us got his message. And we were still chicken to stand on His side all this time! So, making one last decision before it’s too late, we stepped forward and asked Pilate for Jesus body as John recorded: “Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jews. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away. He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night.” John was very careful to make sure that his readers see the final tender act reserved for the Son of God, "Taking Jesus' body, the two of them wrapped it..." [John 19:38-40a] [Take off head covering] How about you all this morning? Do you have gut to follow the Son of God, or will you just settle to be a “Christian”? [12] Jesus had been always pushed His disciples to answer the question, "What about you? Who do you say that I am?" He asks that question to each of us. There is only one right answer. And it's not the type of easy answer where you can just check it off like on a test, but it takes gut to answer it correctly since it will require anyone who knows it to follow it. [13] Either Jesus was loony, or He was a phony or He really is God. And if you accept that He is God, then you also must accept that you are not; that you would have to follow and listen and obey to what He had to say. It meant that you may lose your control of what you want to do. It meant that you may have to make some tough choice. But it also meant that you are a true follower of Jesus Christ and not just a nice label you have. Do you have gut to follow the Son of God, or will you just settle to be a “Christian”?

Invalid Grace

'Who is this fellow?' The man who was healed had no idea who it was... - John 5:12,13

I want to tell you a story of God’s Pervasive Grace; it’s a story of His Personalized Grace. As with any story, it started out with the setting: “Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades.” If you visit St. Anne’s Church in Jerusalem, they will show you the deep excavation that has revealed the ancient Pool of Bethesda. The Hebrew name Bethesda has been spelled various ways and given differing meanings. Some say it means “house of mercy” or “house of grace,” but others say it means “place of the two outpourings.” There is historical and archeological evidence that two adjacent pools of water served this area in ancient times. We do not know which feast Jesus was observing when He went to Jerusalem, and it is not important that we know. But it’s important to realize this is not the place for Jesus to be to observe whatever the Jewish religious ceremony to take place. The five covered porticoes on four sides of and between the pools attracted a large number of disable people as the text described here, “Here a great number of disabled people used to lie - the blind, the lame, the paralyzed.” Why were they there for? All manuscripts earlier than 400AD omit the end of v.3 and all of verse 4, as your NIV footnote shows, “they waited for the moving of the waters. From time to time an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease he had.” Is this just a superstitious rumor? The fact that all the sick people gathered here (and the man’s words in verse 7) would suggest that something special had happened here. Why would anybody, especially a man sick for so many years, remain here if nothing were occurring? You would think that after thirty-eight years of nothing happening to anybody, the man would go elsewhere! It seems like something extraordinary kept all these handicapped people at this pool, hoping for a cure. Pervasive Grace Grace is what God gave us even when we don’t deserve it. But “Pervasive Grace” is the grace which available to all. For example, we don’t deserve to get any healing outside of the name of God, but He allows it. We all read reports of healing from other religions, sometimes even from questionable sources such as the one mentioned here. And here is also “Pervasive Grace”: it is the grace available to us, even when we don’t know about Him, or even when we stand against Him. This “Pervasive Grace” of God can be seen in the self-healing capability of our physical body. Don’t you realize that without that built-in capability, all medicine would be of no use? Students of medicine know that antibiotics were just like weapons for our white-blood-cells to use in order to kill off foreign cells. This “Pervasive Grace” of God can be found in our own internal psyche. Why is it that we just won’t get any satisfaction in drinking, partying, indulging and even achieving? Augustine said that our hearts will forever go wandering until it found God, because God had already “set eternity in our hearts”. The “Pervasive Grace” of God is available for all of us. Do you realize that even when people use God’s name as a curse word, God Himself sustains the air they breathe so that they could curse Him in their ignorance? Personalized Grace But God’s Pervasive Grace is also presented to us in a very personal manner, even when we don’t know Him. Here, the text go on, “One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time.” Invalid was from the Latin invalidus (from in, not; and validus, strong), it is like a form of paralytic from what we can gather from the story. There were many sick people there, but Jesus did not come to all of them; He singled out one man. Did He single out this man because of his enduring hope despite the long history of illness? Or did Jesus just pick a person, any person, to be a representative of the healing everyone would have in eternal life [1]? We never know for sure. The only thing we knew was that that Jesus came to the man, spoke to him, healed him, and then met him later in the temple. This is the proof of God’s wonderful grace and mercy, a grace that is personalized to each one of us, a mercy that is individualized for each one of us. Each one of us have already have God’s Pervasive Grace. Didn’t Jesus die for the sin of the world, including each one of us? But have you receive God’s Personalized Grace; the-grace-story-with-your-name-on-it? Here we see grace become personalized for this man: "Jesus asked him, 'Do you want to get well?' 'Sir,' the invalid replied, 'I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.' Then Jesus said to him, 'Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.' At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked." Some of you asked me how could I handle career, family, ministry, and seminary all in the same time? Beside the great woman I married to, I want to let you in on another secret: I have a low-stress day job! I have been working at the college for a long time. I started working part-time as a student there, then they gave me full-time when I was 23. The job was enjoyable, pay well, and low-stress! Without it, there is no way I would have any juice left for anything else. And what did I do to deserve such a treatment? Nothing! Worse, when I was 23, I was hostile to God, running my own life and didn’t care much about anything else! Yet, God granted me a great job anyway. That was my Personalized Grace story. What about you? What was your Personalized Grace story? Perhaps it was the story of God saving your life from a tragic accident; or the love you received unexpectedly from someone; or even a chance meeting which turned your perspective of life completely around. Remember, God’s Personalized Grace lavished on us even when we didn’t know who He was. The text here said, "The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, 'It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.' But he replied, 'The man who made me well said to me, 'Pick up your mat and walk.'' So they asked him, 'Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?' The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there." Notice that the Jewish religious leaders were asking "Who is this dude who told you to break the rules?" Back in those days, the temple authority had listed thirty-nine tasks that were prohibited on the Sabbath, and carrying a burden (like this mat) was one of them. By asking the wrong questions, focusing on the wrong things and they've missed seeing God's grace in life. What they should have asked was, "Who is this guy who turns your life around?" But instead of recognizing the wonderful deliverance of the man, the religious leaders condemned him for carrying his bed and thereby breaking the law. But God's Personalized Grace could become so Pervasive and hard for us to realize until we choose to see it. The miracle would have been easier to see if it didn’t occur on the Sabbath Day. Jesus certainly could have come a day earlier or even waited a day later. But He intentionally did it on the Sabbath. God’s grace was designed so that everyone will have it, but only the one who choose to see it will see it. So, if you struggled with finding a Personalized Grace story in your life, it was not because God didn’t write it in your life, but because you are not familiar with His handwriting. Stop looking for His signature, for He doesn’t sign everything He have been written, but look for His hand writing and you will see His handiworks everywhere. [3] Why Would God Gives Grace? Often, it's the job of the patients to look for the Doctors to thank them after they were cured. But our story was different, the man didn’t find Jesus, Jesus found the man! The doctor goes look for the patient! Our text read: "Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, 'See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.'" Why did Jesus go find the man? Can God just do good deeds anonymously without seeking for recognition and appreciation? This is the biggest misconception of our time: Some people proposed that God is bigger than any of our religions. They believed that all roads will lead to heaven, that the Christians’ God, the Muslims’ God, the Buddhists’ God, the New Age’s God, and even the Wicca’s God were all the same God; may be with different names, but it is still the same God! That is far from the truth! That’s not what we see here! God do care about us knowing that He is the source of His Grace! And this is why Jesus came to the man: so that he knows the healer. The man was in the temple, no doubt thanking and praising God for healing him. And Jesus came to him in that temple, to reveal to him God, in the flesh. God is not an abstract universal and transcendental life force, but he can be known specifically and personally in a person: Jesus. As we see next week, Jesus spent the rest of his time talking to the religious leader on this precised point. But back to our story here: Jesus Himself went to find the man so that he could know him personally. He said to the man, "Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you." Some people think that the man’s sin caused his sickness 38 years earlier, while some other people jump, “Woa, what a guy! Just back on his feet and he had started sinning already!” For me, I think that sinning here was referred to the man’s spiritual condition: he was healed physically, but personally he was not in a personal relationship with his healer yet. Warren Wiersbe put it this way: “It is possible to experience an exciting miracle and still not be saved and go to heaven!” Yup, it is possible to be in the midst of the temple back then or in the middle of the church today and still not have any relationship with God. It seems strange that the man did not actively seek a closer relationship with the One who healed him, but many of us today are in the same boat: we often would have gratefully accepted the gift and ignored the Giver. Person of Grace Finally, it is hard to classify the relationship this man had with Jesus. John concluded the story with this line: "The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well." In the context here, the “Jews” were the same religious leaders who harassed him back in verse 10. So, did the man “report” Jesus to the authority because of fear, so that the Jewish leaders leave him alone and go after Jesus? (In chapter 9 later we will find out another guy who was thrown out the synagogue for siding with Jesus). Or may be this man was just naively think that he was honoring Jesus for telling them about his healer? We will not know for certain. There is no evidence for us to say that he believed Jesus and was converted; yet we cannot say that he was opposed to the Savior either [4]. What do you think? How did he respond to the grace of God? As I studied this text with Yen (over Email), he offered this observation:

This passage is about Grace of God vs. the apathy of man: Man suffers, God comes and offers grace, man doesn't really realize the significance, God extends grace anyway, God goes away, man is satisfied but doesn't follow after God, God comes back, God gives warning.....Now, it's up to man to respond appropriately. This same pattern played out over and over again in the Old Testament narratives. In this case of the invalid, it's the same way: He suffered, Jesus offered to heal, the invalid guy didn't realize who is talking to him, Jesus healed him anyway, Jesus quietly left, the guy is now happy and didn't even know who healed him; Jesus came back to him and gave him a stern warning about his condition. The guy now realizes who saved him, and is left with a choice.

But enough about the poor guy; how about you? How do you response to the grace of God? Have you ever realized how Pervasive his grace was in your life in the stuff that didn’t have his signature on, even before you knew Him? Was God’s grace personalized to you; is your name there in the story? Or are we a just a bunch of ungrateful people? To overcome ungratefulness and become a person of grace, we need to start with what we see every day.

1. First, we need to see the gifts of grace all around us, and be grateful in everything; drop that attitude of “I deserve it!” or “I deserve better”; but instead start thank God for everything He had already provided for you. (Eve’s original sin was not disobedience but that she was ungrateful with all that God had provided for her).
2. Secondly, we need to see The Giver, the one who able and love to give, but not compelled to give. If we just occupied ourselves with seeing only the gifts from an abstract God but not realizing the love of the Giver for us behind everything, we are missing the point. We could become people who considered themselves fortunate, but not the people with a grateful heart.
3. Thirdly, it would help if we understand what we stand to lose without these gifts. Unlike the secular concept of grace as in “grace period”, “grace note”, graceful moves”, a concept of something extra; the grace of God is something totally essential. Two men losing their job from a company which went bankrupt; their boss took both of them to work for a new company: one was a new college graduate, the other was a middle-aged man; who would be more grateful? The middle-aged man, of course, for he stood to lose much more if he won’t have a job. [6]

Are you grateful for God’s grace, both Pervasive and Personalized?

Let us walk boldly in thanksgiving and honoring God for the grace He lavished on us.

How do you make a big splash?

(Or - the Rock-Throwing Theory) Consider throwing a rock into the water, the impacting splash would be the result of: 1. How big is the rock, 2. How deep/wide is the water body, 3. The appropriate contact point (don't miss the middle of the lake), and 4. Then there also need to be enough clearing space for the aftershock waves to be spread. If you throw a pebble instead of a rock, you will make wave but not splash. But if you add more and more mass to a small rock, it will grow into a boulder, and the effects of the splash would even be bigger. This explained why events with more preparation are not only more enjoyable but also often make more impact. If you have big event but have no depth (for example where people don't know each other and don't participate) then the event was just a rock throw in a puddle of water, barely making any splash. But if we have much more depth (where people know each other, where they personally committed some stakes into the event) then the body of water will be wider and deeper and the splash would be possible. If you get both of the above but aim for the shallow end, you won’t make a splash either. This is why we need to be very intentional in our planning process. We need to think through the whole event and how it hit the target audience. Finally, if there are not enough clearing space around the lake, say too many trees in the surrounding, then the splash would not be felt far away from the impact point. Often, we fail to build the anticipation leading up to the event and the follow up for post-event processing. The big lake is the community of faith. It needs to be wide open with relationship among each other and it needs to be deep in authentic relationship with God. We must continually foster the environment space to anticipate and process rocking events. Rocks are ministry events, which got thrown by our heavenly Father into the lake all the time to make waves. Really big one like asteroid, once happens will change the landscape forever. But smaller ones got thrown by God's hand via ministry and individuals all the times and their accumulative impacts are not less important. No matter what size of rock God gave us to throw, we need to maximize its effectiveness by faithfully consider all four factors of the rock throwing theory. Now, only if I can back up this theory with Biblical support...