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Summary
When I was 8 ½ . . . I suffered a debilitating medical condition. I had been tightly bound due to an inability to control my own body. Confined to a dark room and placed on an entirely liquid diet, I was deeply confused and profoundly isolated; I was alone. My parents worried and prayed constantly. And then, just when it seemed that things couldn’t get any worse, they did. My entire world turned against me, and I suffered a tremendous tribulation, until on August 5, 1961, at the tender age of 9 . . . months old, I was born.
This week’s message is a continuation of last week’s message. You’ll remember that Nicodemus, the Pharisee, came to Jesus by night — terrified, for he had seen some of Jesus’ signs and felt like he was losing control. Biblically speaking, death is rather hard to define, but it’s at least a feeling of “losing control.” Life is also hard to define. Perhaps, the hardest of all to define is us.
“What we shall be has not yet appeared,” writes John in 1 John, “but we know that we will be like him.” He’s “The Last Adam,” and yet we are also Adam. From Genesis 2, we know a little of how he is made; he’s made from Thing 1 and Thing 2.
Thing #1 is “The Breath (neshamah in Hebrew, pnoe in Greek) of Life (hayim in Hebrew, zoe in Greek).” It’s the Spirit, Breath, or Wind of God; it’s the breath of “I Am.” It’s not a thing on the timeline; it’s — dare I say it — Uncreated Creator.
Thing #2 is “The dust of the ground (adamah).” It’s the ground, land, or earth that God has created. It’s a thing in space and time; it’s created creation which can be uncreated. In Genesis 2, God breathes some Thing #1 into Thing #2, making Thing #3.
Thing #3 must’ve looked like a naked baby. In Genesis, it’s called a living soul (nephesh in Hebrew, psyche in Greek). You are Thing #3, plus “something” else: Thing #4.
Thing #4 is fig leaves, fear, and shame. What we call a “grown up,” and what I commonly refer to as “me,” by which I normally mean “Me-sus,” the man that I think I have created — you are Thing #1 infused into Thing #2, making Thing #3, trapped in Thing #4.
So, what happens if Thing #4 dies?
Thing #1 is “zoe.” Jesus said, “I am the zoe.” And Hebrews 7:16 tells us that Jesus had “an indestructible zoe.” So, if death means destruction, as in “ceasing to exist,” perhaps Jesus didn’t die. However, if death means separation, Jesus did die. Perhaps a bit of zoe can be entombed in us like blood in a blood clot, or breath in the lungs of a child holding his breath in fear. Perhaps spirit is “living” when it’s moving in and out of lungs or flowing as a river in a body — a river of life.
Thing #2 is “Adamah.” It can cease to exist, and yet it can also be made new. The Lord tells us, “I make everything beautiful in its time… I make all things new.” Whatever the case, death can only exist on the timeline, that is separation only happens in space (zoe) and time (adamah).
Thing #3 is the “psyche” that God has made. “The dust returns to the earth as it was,” writes Solomon, “and the spirit to God who gave it.” And yet, in a weird way, that happens all the time. A baby in a womb constantly loses its zoe and finds it through the umbilical cord. And the dust you have today is almost entirely different than the dust you had last year. I brought my dad’s dust (ashes) with me. He doesn’t want them anymore. My dad’s “psychikos body” has been transformed into a “pneumatikos” body (1 Cor. 15:44), more real than anything confined to this world.
So, what happens if Thing #4 dies?
This is a bit of a shock, but according to Scripture, it’s already dead.The zoe is imprisoned in the adamah for the psyche refuses to lose itself and find itself in the Body of Love, which is a Communion called Life. The death of death must be something like . . . being born.
John 3:7, sitting alone with Nicodemus in the dark, Jesus (The Word of God) says, “You all must be born again, anew, from above.” What else could this be other than the judgment of God?
Jesus “The Firstborn” whispers to Nick, “The Must Be Born,” saying, “Nick, you’re afraid to die, and you haven’t yet been born.” Faith in you is Jesus in you, whispering, “You’re afraid to die, and you haven’t yet begun to live. Die with me and rise with me; I am your courage to be born. I am your Faith, Hope, and Love.”
Jesus didn’t die so that we wouldn’t have to die; Jesus came to help us die to ourselves that we might live with him and never be dead again. That’s why he said, “Pick up your cross and follow… unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone.”
John 3:16, “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son (and he just told us that we must be begotten and born of God) that all the one believing in him (“everyone believing in him”), would not be lost but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to judge the world but that the world might be saved through him. The one believing in him is not judged. The one not believing is judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten son of God. And this is the judgment (krisis: crisis, division, the cut).”
If you believe in “God is salvation,” Jesus, you can no longer believe in “Me-sus,” that is Thing #4. It dies, or perhaps, it never actually existed — at least not in the way you thought that it existed; it was a lie. You made choices… but only because you were chosen to choose; all arrogance is an illusion.
John 3:21, “The one doing the truth comes to the Light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been worked in God.”
Your flesh thinks that you are something that you have done. And the Spirit in you knows that you are something that God has done and is doing. You’ve been born of flesh, but you must be born of the Spirit.
Just think of it: In your mom, you lived and moved and had your being, but you — the conscious part of you — never actually touched your mom. You didn’t know your mom. You were separated from your mom by the placenta and amniotic sack — a part of you, but the unconscious part of you, flesh with no spirit, the part that cannot feel.
You were not alone, and yet, entirely alone, and “it’s not good that the adam would be alone.” We are each a spirit (capable of hearing the voice of God) trapped alone in a psyche of flesh (diametrically opposed to God) and discovering that it’s “not good to be alone.” We are each born out of isolation and into communion, a great party, the Kingdom of God, the resurrected Body of Christ.
Last week, I told of the birth of my firstborn; this week, I told the story of my last born. Coleman was born on my wife’s 34th birthday. I knew he was coming, so I had a party all prepared and waiting. But when he was born, I heard no cry, and the doctors didn’t hand him to me to cut the cord. He was blue. The doctors looked terrified. The cord was wrapped twice around his neck. Thanks to those doctors, the cord was soon cut, Coleman turned pink, he let out a huge cry and didn’t stop crying until they put him in my arms. I spoke his name, and he knew he was home. He is the life of the party.
But just think of it: What had brought Coleman life in the womb-world, was killing him in this world, his home. It’s ironic, but hanging onto this world is what traps us in death. And it’s trusting the voice of our Father in Heaven that sets us free. It’s actually the Life of the party, the Spirit of Christ within us, that’s doing the trusting. We are baptized into His Body — the Body of Christ.
That’s Thing #5.
“Whoever loves his psyche loses it,” says Jesus in John 12, “and whoever hates his psyche in this world will keep it for eternal zoe.” That must be the psyche of Christ. In the body of Christ, the New Jerusalem coming down, all things are made new, even the old you.
John 3:35, “The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand. The one believing in the Son has eternal life; the one not obeying the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”
Some of us have been terrified of the wrath of God… and yet, we’ve been experiencing it all our days.
Some of us have been terrified of death… and yet, we’re already dead, and so terrified of Life.
Some of us have been terrified of the judgment of God… and yet, all of us must be born again.
If that’s true, then what we thought was heaven might actually be hell, and what we thought was hell might actually be heaven, for what we thought was death might actually be the first step into the Great Dance of Love that is Life — eternal Life.
Good Friday is coming, and we’d all like to avoid a trip to the cross, just like a baby would avoid that door at the bottom of the womb. But the only way out is through. On the other side, all things have become new. Jesus is the door, and he came to walk you through.
Don’t be alarmed… When Jesus returned, He showed them His scars, the stigmata of the second birth. You have stigmata of the first birth: It’s called a belly button. Every now and then, just gaze at your navel…and remember the judgment of God: “You must be born again.”