Presence-Driven Pastors Tend, Not Run, the Garden

                                                                 (Redeemer Church building, Monroe, MI)

A Presence-Driven Church is a garden, not a factory. Gardens are tended. Factories are "run."

The garden soil is the hearts of the people.

God is the seed planter.

The people are taught to abide in Christ.

They bear much fruit.

Presence-Driven Pastors tend the fruit.

In the Christ-abiding connection, God sows dreams and visions, course correction and direction, into the hearts of the people.

The Presence-Driven Pastor is not threatened by this. They separate the good from the bad. They welcome and nurture good produce, like parents caring for a newborn baby. The Presence-Driven Pastor is an expectant parent who prays for the child to be born, prepares a room for it to flourish, and celebrates its arrival.

This is Real Church, a community where everyone (not just the pastor) gets to play. Everyone becomes part of the movement. Everyone is a leader. This is anti-top-down leadership.

As Scripture tells us,

When you come together, each of you has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. (1 Corinthians 14:26)

To allow this you must let go of control. Which is hard for an Entertainment-Driven Pastor to do. (Hard for many of us, right?) These pastors control the Studio Church. The many are not as talented or as beautiful or as camera-friendly as the few. So they run the garden, rather than tend it. The people become an audience of outsiders. The Entertainment-Driven Pastor of the Consumer Church has been seduced and trafficked by the American honor-shame hierarchy.

This, Eugene Peterson writes, is a dark vocational shift. It is the "radical fall from vocational holiness to career idolatry," which "goes undetected by all but the serpent." (Eugene Peterson, Under the Unpredictable Plant: An Exploration in Vocational Holiness, p. 7)

***

I write more about this in my book Leading the Presence-Driven Church.

See also my book Praying: Reflections on 40 Years of Solitary Conversations with God.

Nietzsche - Morality is Only About Personal Taste, or Aesthetics

                                                          (Redeemer Church, Monroe, MI)

If there is no God, then there are no objective moral values. Many intellectual atheists agree with this. What about, then, all the moral pronouncements being put forth, e.g., Racism is wrong? What about microaggressions? Here's how atheist Friedrich Nietzsche saw this. Carl Trueman writes:

"Nietzsche’s notion that morality is really about taste is very helpful in thinking about our current moral climate. So often the language we use confirms that Nietzsche’s perspective is now a cultural intuition. So often we will speak of morality in terms of taste or aesthetics: “That remark was hurtful;” “That idea is offensive;” “That viewpoint makes me feel unsafe.” Notice that such expressions do not make a statement about whether the matters in hand are right or wrong. In fact, the underlying assumption is that the offensiveness or hurtfulness of them is identical with the moral content. The subjective response has become the ethical criterion for judgment.

(Trueman, Strange New World, pp. 57-58)

Wokeness... to what?

Identity, and the Logic of Nietzsche's Atheism

 

                                                   (One week ago we had snow! 4/18/22)

The atheist philosopher Nietzsche had so many things right, given his atheism. That is, if atheism were true, then Nietzsche understands what follows.

Here's an example of this, from Carl Trueman's book Strange New World.

"For Nietzsche, the great task facing human beings is to break free of the metaphysical myths that religion weaves and to shatter the moral codes that hinder individuals from being strong. We might express Nietzsche’s thought this way: freed from the burden of being creatures of God, human beings must rise to the challenge of self-creation, of being whoever they choose to be. Put perhaps even more bluntly: be whoever or whatever works for you. You should feel no obligation to conform to the standards or criteria of anybody else." (Strange New World, pp. 56-57)

Robby Dawkins at Redeemer - Sunday Morning 04/24/22

LOVE DOES NOT AFFIRM SIN

Two Relationship Lies

 

Holland State Park, Michigan

The idea that every person has a "soul mate" who they must find is rooted in two relationship lies. Which are: 

1. I need this person to be complete.

2. If this person needs me, I'll be complete.

- From Real Relationships, by Les and Leslie Parrott.

The Parrott's write: "If you try to find intimacy with another person before achieving a sense of identity on your own, all your relationships become an attempt to complete yourself." (Ib.) That is bad news for your soul mate, which they will eventually discover as their ship crashes on the shores of your incompleteness.

"It is only when we no longer compulsively need someone that we can have a real relationship with them."
- Anthony Storr, in Ib.

Maintaining the Appearance of Happiness

Room, in our house

Donna Freitas writes: "The appearance of happiness has become so prized in our culture that it takes precedence over a person’s actual happiness." (Freitas, The Happiness Effect: How Social Media is Driving a Generation to Appear Perfect at Any Cost, p. xvii)

Note the subtitle of her book: How Social Media is Driving a Generation to Appear Perfect at Any Cost.

Christian Smith, in his Foreward to Freitas's book, comments:

"In our attempts to appear happy, to distract ourselves from our deeper, sometimes darker thoughts, we experience the opposite effect. In trying to always appear happy, we rob ourselves of joy. And after talking to nearly two hundred college students and surveying more than eight hundred, I worry that social media is teaching us that we are not worthy. That it has us living in a perpetual and compulsive loop of such feedback. That in our constant attempts to edit out our imperfections for massive public viewing, we are losing sight of the things that ground our life in connection and love, in meaning and relationships. 
Our brave faces are draining us. We’re losing sight of our authentic selves." (Ib., pp. xvi-xvii)

So what is the answer? You must go deep. It will explain a lot of things, including what's now happening in America.

Augustine understood the depth of our human condition. He wrote of our estrangement from God due to succumbing to three temptations: "the love of power, the pervasiveness of lust, and our inability to find contentment." (Richard Foster, Longing for God: Seven Paths of Christian Devotion)

These three temptations keep our hearts in a turbulent mess. We are reminded it was Augustine who wrote that, because God made us for himself, our hearts are restless until they rest in him. Centuries later Henri Nouwen prayed, Augustine-like, asking God if the restless seas in his heart would ever settle down.

Augustine's answer was this: 

"When we are unable to rise above our own self-love, we manufacture all kinds of diversions in an attempt to find a happiness that endures. But eventually we realize that nothing in this life provides the happiness and joy that come from God alone.... Our only hope for enduring happiness is to discover the enduring restlessness of our spirit." (Foster, 29. Emphasis mine.)

***

My Books

 Praying: Reflections on 40 Years of Solitary Conversations with God

Leading the Presence-Driven Church

Encounters with the Holy Spirit (co-edited with Janice Trigg)

Deconstructing Progressive Christianity

31 Letters to the Church on Discipleship

Pastors are Facilitators of Transcendence

(I took this picture of Dan and Allie and the Hagia Sofia in Istanbul.)

People need the Lord. Therefore, introduce people to the Lord. How can this happen?

1. Know the Lord yourself. Cultivate the God-relationship. Abide in Christ, hourly.

2. Teach people how to enter into the presence of God. Show them how to abide in Christ.

3. Tend the garden. The abiding person's life will bear much fruit.

That's it. 

That's all a pastor-shepherd needs to do. 

This is about the Presence-Driven Church, which is the only church worth living for. (During Jesus' time the Temple fell because the religious leaders shut the door to the presence of God.) 

Pastors facilitate this. Pastors facilitate transcendence.

Our main job is to usher in the Almighty. We point people to the Glory.

When transcendence happens, no one notices the program, the preacher, or other people. Anything resembling performance seems out of place. Because all that is visible is eclipsed by what is not: God Himself moving through the church in power and meeting with His people in multifold  ways.  

***

My Books

 Praying: Reflections on 40 Years of Solitary Conversations with God

Leading the Presence-Driven Church

Encounters with the Holy Spirit (co-edited with Janice Trigg)

Deconstructing Progressive Christianity

31 Letters to the Church on Discipleship

Why People Try to Control Others

(Sterling State Park, on Lake Erie, in Monroe)

I still have control issues. This is not good.

I meet a lot of control freaks and controlees. Many marriages are the coming together of these anti-types. Every control freak needs a controlee, and vice versa. I call these "master/slave" marriages.

Most people, if not all, struggle with control issues. I have, and at times still do. The Control vs. Trust polarity is an ontological reality; i.e., it lies at the base of human personhood. 

"Control" is the antithesis of "trust." Trust is huge in the Jesus-life, and life in general, since we control so very, very little.

Keith Miller writes: "control is the major factor in destroying intimate relationships." (Compelled to Control: Recovering Intimacy in Broken Relationships., p. 7) Why do we do this? Why try to control others when we can't control our own selves, and are often out of control? Miller writes:

"The fear of being revealed as a failure, as not being "enough" somehow, is a primary feeling that leads to the compulsion to control other people. When we were children, the fear of being inadequate and shameful was tied to our terror of being deserted or rejected and we had little control over getting what we needed. To counteract that basic terror, we have evidently been trying all our lives in various ways to "get control" of life. This includes controlling other people." (14)

A controlling person is an un-free person. Insecurity is the emblem of control. I like the way Richard Foster once put this: God wants to free us from the terrible burden of always having to get our own way. "Walking in freedom" and "controlling other people" ("always getting our own way") are oppositional. 

The control freak crushes the spirit of the other person, who wears a sign saying, "Crush me." "I'm in control of you"/"Control me" - "I'm in control of you"/"Control me" -  this is the cycle that destroys marriages and relationships. The antidote is trust. Because where trust is, control is not. 

Begin breaking free by learning trust in God. Pray to be less controlling than you now are. Pray to be less controlled by others than you now are. Trust God even when you don't trust other people. Understand this: You will rarely have all your ducks in a row, especially when it comes to people.

Go basic, repeating and praying Proverbs 3:5-6:

Trust God from the bottom of your heart;

    don’t try to figure out everything on your own.

Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go;

    he’s the one who will keep you on track.

Don’t assume that you know it all.

    Run to God! Run from evil! 

(The Message) 

To trust God when around distrustful people is an experiential act of freedom. God can use you to be the catalyst that heals others of their fear of not measuring up.

Worth and Dignity

(Photo taken in the Butterfly House, Whitehouse, Ohio)

Back in the late 70s I worked for one year and three summers at United Cerebral Palsy Center of Will County, Illinois. I was a teacher's assistant. A helper. There, I earned a B.A. I was a Bathroom Assistant. I took boys and men who could not toilet themselves into the bathroom, and assisted them.

I brought my guitar into the classes, and played and sang for the students. I carried out tasks given me by the teacher, Mrs. Gulick. I drove the Center's station wagon, picking up kids early in the morning for school, dropping them off after school was over. 

One of the students was an autistic girl named Gail. We had to tie her shoes in double knots, and fasten her clothing top and pants together with safety pins. Because, untied and unpinned, Gail would begin to take everything off, and throw it, with force! 

One day, driving through the northern Illinois countryside with Gail in the back seat of the station wagon, I was shocked when one of her tennis shoes whizzed by my right ear, slamming into the front window of the car. Gail had gotten her shoe off!

I remember David, a young man who was an idiot savant. David was mentally handicapped, but displayed brilliance and genius when it came to birthdays. David could instantly tell you what your birth date was, and what day of the week  your birthday will fall on in 2050, or 2051, or you-pick-the-year. 

Helen was a charming, beautiful, physically handicapped young woman who was intelligent and caring. She could not talk, and communicated through wearing a pointer strapped to her head, with which she touched letters on a small table attached to her wheelchair. One of my privileges was to feed Helen. I had to insert the food, using my fingers, into Helen's mouth, positioning it between her molars. She always smiled when I fed her. Helen was grace-filled and other-centered.

I remember James, whose legs were inoperative and atrophied, but whose biceps were huge. James could do push ups from a sitting position, skinny legs extended. I remember Jimmy, a Down's Syndrome boy. I loved his smile, and wrote a song about him, which I sang for Jimmy at our Annual Graduation Ceremony.

I learned so much from my time there. I saw human dignity on display, exemplified in the staff, the teachers, and the students.

Every person has worth. And dignity. Why?

The worth of a person cannot be in how they look, because a few of our students were disfigured. A person's worth cannot be in their accomplishments, since some of our students accomplished nothing. The worth of a person cannot be in their possessions, since many of our students not only had little, but could not comprehend how impoverished they were.

How, then, are we to understand the worth and dignity of persons? It can't be found in atheism. (See, as an example of this, atheist Steven Pinker's essay "The Stupidity of Dignity.")

It can be found in Judeo-Christianity. Beginning in the beginning:

So God created mankind in his own image,

    in the image of God he created them;

    male and female he created them.

Genesis 1:26

This imago dei is core humanity. It resides deep in us, and is unresponsive to our successes and strengths, our failures and infirmities, our wealth or poverty.


(For deep reading on human worth and dignity, see the 555-page report from the President's Council on Bioethics, Human Dignity and Bioethics.)

Robby Dawkins at Redeemer This Coming Sunday, April 24, 10:30 AM

 

A Healing in Nairobi

In 2010 I traveled to Kenya to preach in Nairobi, and lead a pastor's conference on spiritual transformation in Eldoret. Al Willingham accompanied me. Here are my journal notes of a healing in Nairobi.

Sunday in Nairobi

Nairobi, while on the equator, has a moderate climate - it's 6000 feet above sea level. Today was a beautiful 75 -80 degree day. Pastor Cliff Msioki picked Al and I up at the hotel and drove us to the place where, on August 7, 1998, the U.S. embassy in Kenya was bombed. It happened in downtown Nairobi, in a congested area. 291 people were killed, and 5,000 wounded. Responsible: al Qaeda. Now there is a memorial to those who died.

We then drove to Ongata Rongai outside Nairobi. Many of these roads have speed bumps the size of Mount Kenya. Literally, on some of them, your vehicle could get hung up and suspended. If it was dark and you were driving and didn't see them that is the end of your car's life mission (which is to transport you). On the way we stopped for a cup of coffee. And, I note, there are many, many Christian ministries and churches along this road.

New Life Mission is a beautiful and effective ministry to children, with a vibrant congregation. As we pulled in the worship was already happening. It was beautiful, powerful, and went on for a long time which, in some of our minds, is very good. "Three verses and we're outta here" is no longer for me. I'm a '7-11' worshiper - 7 verses sung 11 times. Or more. That's tribal, meditative, Hebraic worship, where the stuff gets a chance to sink into the heart. Better a 7-11 worshiper than a McWorshiper. Better one entire day of worship in God's courts than McWorship elsewhere.

After worship there was an offering, and a group of women sang a song as it was collected. Then - announcements. I'm guessing 700 people were there, many of them being young adults.

Cliff introduced me. I preached on the two-fold methodology of Jesus, which is: proclaim and demonstrate. I told the people about prophecy, then demonstrated it with two people God had given me prophetic words for. Please note: 1 Corinthians 14:3 prophecy is to strengthen, encourage, and comfort. It was well received by these two people; they felt it was from God, and for them. 

Then I told the story of Carl, the marathon runner in our church, whose foot was broken and then healed (I've got the hospital records that show this). I asked, "Are there any marathon runners in Kenya?" There was a slight gasp in the people. That's like asking, "Is the pope Catholic?" Kenya is THE long-distance running center of the cosmos! I then made a joke (it seems funny to me). I said, "After church today, I challenge all of you to a long-distance running race." Many smiles among the people... Just kidding, I said.

I asked if there was anyone who had a problem with their feet. A young woman, Julia, raised her hand. She came forward. I explained to the people about "authority" (exousia), and how Jesus gives his followers authority. She had sprained her ankle multiple times, and it was not getting better. I asked her what the pain level was on a scale of 1 to 10. "Eight," she said. I then said, "In Jesus' name, be healed." 

"How is your pain now?" I asked? 

Julia said "Zero." 

And immediately, as she said "zero," before the people could begin to clap and praise God, there was a "pop" as a ceiling light broke, shattered, and fell to the ground right next to this woman and myself.

The people erupted in praise and wonder. I told them that I felt the timing of this light popping (which Cliff said has never happened before) was perfect. It gave an exclamation point to the healing of Julia's foot.

That, I believe, was God. Now there was this increased sense of expectation in all our hearts, because God was in the house.

Why I Am Still A Christian

(Glen Arbor, Michigan)

(I re-post this periodically, with slight edits. If you are not a follower of Jesus, I invite you to join me on this beautiful journey that will make sense of your life, give your life meaning, and provide you with a life purpose. If you want to email me about this, please do!  johnpiippo@msn.com)

At the end of one of my Philosophy of Religion classes a student asked me, "Why are you a Christian. Why, among the world religions, would I choose Christianity? Why be religious at all?" My answer went like this (I'm expanding on it here). 

My Christian faith is based on the following.

1. My Conversion Experience
2. My Subsequent Studies.
3. My Ongoing Experience

I came to believe because of an experience that changed my life and worldview. The result of this experience included subsequent study and increasing experience. Credo (I believed); Intelligam (I grew in understanding).

Credo: My Conversion Experience

From ages 18-21 I was heavily into alcohol and drugs. I flunked out of college. Things were falling apart as a result of my substance abuse. I was in a deep hole, dug by myself. I was afflicted, and didn’t know where to turn. And, amazingly, I didn't think I needed help.

One day, when I thought I couldn't get any lower, I thought, "I am screwed up." I prayed and said, “God if you are real, and if Jesus is real, then help me. If you help me, I’ll follow you.” 

On that day, almost exactly fifty-two years ago, something unexpected happened. I stopped drugging. My worldview was rocked! My life has never been the same. This was my turning point. I attribute this to Jesus.

I see similarities between my conversion from godlessness to Christianity, and C.S. Lewis's conversion from atheism to Christianity. Lewis wrote:

"As the dry bones shook and came together in that dreadful valley of Ezekiel's, so now a philosophical theorem, cerebrally entertained, began to stir and heave and throw off its grave cloths, and stood upright and became a living presence. I was to be allowed to play at philosophy no longer. It might, as I say, still be true that my "Spirit" differed in some way from "the God of popular religion." My Adversary waived the point. It sank into utter unimportance. He would not argue about it. He only said, "I am the Lord"; "I am that I am"; "I am." People who are naturally religious find difficulty in understanding the horror of such a revelation. Amiable agnostics will talk cheerfully about "man's search for God." To me, as I then was, they might as well have talked about the mouse's search for the cat." (From Surprised By Joy)

The cat found the mouse. God found me. I was receptive. God exists. God loves me. (My conversion story is written in more detail in chapter 1 of my book Leading the Presence-Driven Church. You should be able to read chapter 1 for free at Google books here.)

Intelligam: Understanding What Happened to Me 

This didn't happen in a vacuum. The soil of my heart had been softening for some time. I was looking for help. Help came. My life forever changed. What shall I make of this?

I conclude...

• If this event had not happened, I don't know that I would have become a Jesus-follower. I needed something experiential that could waken me. It happened. 
• I agree with William James who, in his Varieties of Religious Experience, writes: "A mystical experience is authoritative for the one who experiences it. But a mystical experience that happens to one person need not be authoritative for other people." I'm good with that. (With the exception that the mystical-religious experiences of certain other persons have carried authority with me because of their credibility.)
• My initial religious experience ripped me out of non-reflective deism into full-blown Christian theism. I now believed in God, and in Jesus. This experience-based belief had an evidential quality, propelling me to go after an understanding of what had happened. Now, fifty years later, this has not stopped. Today I am a deeper believer in God and Jesus than ever.
• True religion (not the jeans - they are too expensive) includes experience. Theory without experience is empty. Hebrew-Christianity is essentially about a relationship with God; a mutual indwelling experiential reality. This includes prayer-as-dialogue with God, the sense of God's presence, being-led by God, and so on. (I write a book on my experiences of God - Praying.) And worship. Worship is experiential and logical in the sense that: If God is love, and God is real, and love is about relationship (love has an "other"), then it follows that one will know and be known by God. ("Know," in Hebrew, means experiential intimacy, and not Cartesian subject-object distance. For more see, e.g., the writings of James K.A. Smith. See also Notre Dame philosopher Alvin Plantinga's chapter of faith as knowledge, in Knowledge and Christian Belief. See Craig Keener's Miracles, and his Spirit Hermeneutics.)
• I realize certain atheists claim to have no religious experience at all. John Allen Paulos, for example, in his Irreligion, claims not to have a religious bone in his body. I don't doubt this. This fact does not deter me, just as I am certain C.S. Lewis's religious experiences don't budge Paulos from his atheism. (I'm now thinking of Antony Flew's conversion from atheism to deism. Flew was moved by the logic of the fine-tuning argument for God's existence. And, the case of the famous and brilliant British atheist A.J. Ayer who had a vision and began to be interested in God.)
• I keep returning to my initial God-encounter. It functions, for me, as a raison d-etre. Philosophically, it's one of a number of "properly basic" experiences I've had, still have, and expect to have. (See, e.g., philosophers like William P. Alston.)

I began to study about Christianity. Is there any epistemic warrant for my God-encounter experience? To accelerate this , I changed my major in college from music theory to philosophy (from one money-maker to another. And, I left majoring in engineering and math for this!)

My studies confirmed my initial act of faith. Here are some things I now believe to be cogent.

• Good reasons can be given to believe in God. I believe it is more rational to believe in God than to disbelieve. (As a philosophy professor I have examined nearly every argument for and against the existence of God. And, I have something to say about "rationality," having taught logic in our community college for seventeen years.)
• The New Testament documents are reliable in their witness to the historical person Jesus. (The recent minority Facebook claim that Jesus never existed is sheer unstudied goofiness.) (See, e.g., something like Richard Bauckham's Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, or Craig Keener's The Historical Jesus of the Gospels. And, see Craig's book, Christobiography: Memory, History, and the Reliability of the Gospels.)
• A strong inductive argument can be made for the bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead. (I shared briefly about this in my response to the student's question.)
• Christianity is qualitatively distinct from the other major world religions. Only Christianity tells us that God loves us, not for what we do or where we live, but for who we are. The Christian word for this is “grace” and, to me, this is huge. The other major world religions are rule-based; Christianity is grace-based. And, in distinction from other religious alternatives, Christianity's claim is that God has come to us. These kind of things make Christianity more plausible than the other alternatives.

My initial life-changing encounter with God led to a lifetime of Jesus-following, God-knowing, and God-seeking. God did, and continues to, reveal himself to me. My faith is experiential, relational, and rational/reasonable. And life-giving, exhilarating! (Note: it's not without questions. Anyone who studies their own worldview will have intra-worldview puzzles. This includes me.)

For these reasons, and more I am sure, I became a follower of Jesus and remain one.

Once again - want to join me on this adventure? 

johnpiippo@msn.com

The Ancient Easter Creed

(Cross, in my front yard.)

Yesterday was Easter Sunday. Tim Curry and I co-preached. We looked at the oldest words written about the resurrection of Jesus. This is the ancient creed that followers of Jesus recited, within months after the resurrection. 

It's found in 1 Corinthians 15:3-7. This is the "gospel." (See 1 Cor. 15:1-2.)

Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 

 he was buried, 

he was raised on the third day 

according to the Scriptures, 

he appeared to Peter

He appeared to the Twelve. 

After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 

 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.

We just celebrated Resurrection Sunday!

Jesus is risen!

He's alive!

See this, in yesterday's New York Times. "Why It Matters that Jesus Really Did Rise From the Dead."

What Produces Lasting Joy and Contentment

                                                               (Leland, Michigan)

In a recent Atlantic magazine (March 2022), in an article entitled "Spending and Saving for Happiness," we read:

"Many people believe that increased wealth on its own will invariably bring them happiness. But social science suggests otherwise. What truly matters, researchers say, is how money facilitates the parts of our lives that produce lasting joy and contentment - our relationships, faith, and sense of purpose."

Good Friday - Jesus Screams In the Absolute Darkness (The Atonement)

(I re-post this every Good Friday.)

SCRIPTURE - MATTHEW 27:45-46

From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land. 

About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, 

"Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"—which means, 

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

Priest, in Jerusalem

WHAT'S HAPPENING IN THESE VERSES?

As Jesus hung suspended on a cross, an unnatural darkness began in the middle of the day, and continued into the natural darkness of sunset. New Testament scholar R. T. France writes: “Given the symbolic significance of the darkness as a divine communication there is little point in speculating on its natural cause: a solar eclipse could not occur at the time of the Passover full moon though a dust storm (‘sirocco’) or heavy cloud are possible.” (France, Mark, 651)

N.T. Wright writes: “It can’t have been an eclipse, because Passover happened at full moon, so that the moon would be in the wrong part of the sky.” (Wright, Mark for Everyone, 215)

Craig Keener says that the darkness "could come from heavy cloud cover. But the Gospel writers use it to convey a more profound theological point." (Keener, Matthew, 685)

However it happened, this was a God-caused darkness. Jesus is bearing the load of the sins of all humanity. Sin causes separation; in this case, from God. Sin separates us from Light. Sin is a darkness machine, a separation app. Sin and light cannot coexist.

Years ago Linda and I and our sons visited Cave of the Winds in Colorado Springs. We were guided into the depths of these tunnels to a place where we were told that, when the lights in the cave were turned off, we would experience "absolute darkness." I thought, "This is cool!"

The lights went off. We stood there, for several seconds. Our guide said, "You are now experiencing absolute darkness. Place your hand right in front of your eyes. You will not be able to see it."

He was right. It was so completely dark I could not see what was right before me. Had the lights failed us that day we would not have been able to see each other. I imagine we would have said things like, "Are you still near me?" "Are you here?" "We've got to stay close to each other!" And, "Don't abandon me while I'm in this darkness!"

On that day 2000 years ago the physical darkness that covered the land was not absolute, but the existential darkness was. The thickness of this world's sin and failure and shame and guilt weighed on the heart of One Man. Out of this ungodly darkness, Jesus screamed.

"Screamed?" I think so. The Greek wording here is: ἐβόησεν  ὁἸησοῦς φωνῇ μεγάλῃ. Eboesen ho Iesus phonay megalay. Phonay megale. A mega-phone! Jesus mega-screamed these words over and over and over again and again, the verb indicating continuous action. 

He doesn’t call God “Father,” but Ὁ θεόςμου ὁ θεός μου…  Ho Theosmou ho Theos mou...  “My God… My God…”Jesus is in union with Abba Father God, but it now feels like separation. Six hours after he was placed on the cross, three of them being hours of darkness, Jesus feels abandoned by God.

We don't know how long the feeling lasted. Assume three hours. Perhaps he screamed over and over for that long. And know that, for Jesus, it was utterly real and all-embracing. (Craig Keener comments that "the early church would hardly have invented Jesus’ cry of despair in uttering a complaint about alienation from God, quoting Ps. 22.” Keener, Matthew, 682)
 

As the weight of this world’s evil converges on Jesus, he is giving his life as “a ransom for many” (Mt. 20:28). The sins of the “many,” which he is bearing, have caused a cloud to come between him and “Abba” – Father God. 

1 Peter 2:24 explains it this way:

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, 

so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; 

by his wounds you have been healed. 

Paul, in Galatians 3:13, writes: 

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law 

by becoming a curse for us, 

for it is written: 

"Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree."

The curse of sin is that it creates a great divide between us and God. Sin breaches relationship. As Jesus bears our sin he experiences the Great Separation. Listen to how N.T. Wright expresses this.

“Out of the unexplained cosmic darkness comes God’s new word of creation, as at the beginning… And it all happens because of the God-forsakenness of the son of God. The horror which overwhelmed Jesus in Gethsemane, and then seems to have retreated again for a few hours, came back in all its awfulness, a horror of drinking the cup of God’s wrath, of sharing the depth of suffering, mental and emotional as well as physical, that characterized the world in general and Israel in particular. The dark cloud of evil, Israel’s evil, the world’s evil, Evil greater than the sum of its parts, cut him off from the one he called ‘Abba’ in a way he had never known before. And welling up from his heart there came, as though by a reflex, a cry not of rebellion, but of despair and sorrow, yet still a despair that, having lost contact with God, still asks God why this should be.” (N.T. Wright, Mark for Everyone, 216-217)

REFLECTION

1. Take time today to slow down in your heart, get alone, bow before God, and think of the suffering of the Christ.

2. Refuse to take for granted what Jesus has done for you. Consider how and what it means that he bore your sins, and by his stripes you are healed.

3. Express thanks to God for what he has accomplished on the cross, which is: your justification; your being set right with God.