Summary
The Feast of Tabernacles (Booths) was to be the greatest party that any person could imagine. Every great party has weird people that would NOT normally hang out together — hanging out together, and, for some reason, enjoying one another.
John 7:37-8:1, “On the last day of the feast, the great day [the endless 7th day], Jesus stood up and cried out, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. The one believing in me, as the Scripture has said, “Out of his belly [or womb] will flow rivers of living water.” ‘ Now this he said about the Spirit [the Breath], whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit [the Breath] was not, because Jesus was not yet glorified… there was a division among the people over him… the chief priests and Pharisees said… ‘Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee.’ They went each to his own house. But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.”
The Feast was all about people journeying through the wilderness in their own tabernacles but then losing themselves and finding themselves in one tabernacle, one living temple, the New Jerusalem, the bride and body of Christ. The establishment said “Impossible!” And went each to his “own house.” But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. That’s an ominous picture of judgment and an outrageous hope.
Zechaeriah 13:2; 14:4, 16, 21, “On that day there shall be a fountain opened…On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives… Then everyone who survives shall keep the Feast of Booths…And there shall no longer be a trader in the house of the Lord of hosts on that day.”
On the Mount of Olives, Jesus told His disciples about the destruction of the temple (70 AD) and the end of the age (the day He delivered up His breath on the tree in the garden on the Holy Mountain, Hebrews 9:26). That’s the 7th sign that is the substance. “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” But . . .
They went each to his own house. Scripture refers to your body of flesh as a tabernacle or house. The problem that Scripture has with “flesh” is not that it’s physical, but that it’s your “own” — it’s alone, and it’s “not good for the adam to be alone,” said God.
It wasn’t always like that. You began your journey through space and time in the body of your mother, not knowing who she was or if she even existed. Even after you were born, you drank from her fountain. But one day, you began to judge yourself in order to make yourself in her image, and of course you took knowledge of the good to make yourself good. And you grew a body of “flesh,” a self-sufficient, self-made, self-righteous, lonely old man (adam).
Your flesh literally eats life and excretes death. “I’ve got a river of . . . something… coming out of me” — and it doesn’t smell like life. Recently, my daughter had something coming out of her, and it wasn’t death but my grandson, James. She didn’t eat another life to make her own life; she communed with another life and out came sweet baby James. It’s wild to think that each one of us is just like sweet baby James but trapped in a big old body of aging flesh.
This is kind of weird, but although he can do nothing for me, I just can’t stop kissing him. It’s like I lose myself and find myself kissing sweet baby James.
He has no trouble drinking from his mother’s fountain and no trouble with all of my kisses. But I know how this goes. At some point, he’ll try to earn my kisses. He’ll draw pictures, give them to me, and I’ll kiss him — but not because of the pictures that he’s drawn, but because I just love James drawing pictures, and drawing pictures for me. But one day, he’ll draw me a picture, I’ll give him a kiss, and he’ll be tempted to think his drawing earned the kiss. And he’ll no longer be able to truly receive my kisses or draw pictures in freedom, for our relationship will have become a “house of trade.” And he’ll hate the fact that other children (like a brother or sister) would draw me a picture, and I would give them a kiss. It happens to all of us; don’t blame sweet baby James.
If I think that a sermon earns me a kiss, how could I believe the Gospel, preach that Gospel, enjoy the Gospel being preached, or actually incarnate the Gospel — the Gospel of Grace?
My dad used to kiss me all the time — not because he had to; he just couldn’t help himself. He’d drop me off at Grant Junior High, and even though I’d beg him not to do it, he’d find a way to give me a big ol’ wet kiss. I used to wipe them off — they burned my ego, especially in front of my “grown up” 7th grade friends. Now I’d give anything to feel one of those kisses. Now I know what they are: They’re better than anything in this world.
My point is that you have a self that receives love like a little child, and you have a self that thinks it must earn love like an adult. You have a true self and a false self (no man creates himself). The one lies within the other, the way the Holy of Holies lay inside the Old Stone Temple — the temple built by man. It seems that my consciousness can reside in either one: within who I AM or in who I AM not.
People often ask me: “What does God want me to do?” And I have a very hard time answering. If it’s the old man that’s asking, I know the answer: “Do nothing! Shabbat! Stop, for all you do will be sin.” And if it’s the New Man, I also know the answer: “Do whatever you want, for all you do will be good.” And of course, people ask, “How do you know the difference between the two?” And I have to say, “I usually don’t, not even in myself. It’s like a field of wheat and weeds. I can’t judge; however, I can point us toward the Judgment — that is, the Fountain.”
“Adam” means “man,” and each of you is “a man,” a creation of God, a little child of God. But, at some point, you took knowledge of the Good to make yourself like God; you took the Life to make yourself alive. But you didn’t live; everything died. You didn’t make yourself good; you trapped yourself in a body of “sin and death”—a monster. But there was Seed in the fruit, and the Seed is the Promise. He rises in you and brings you back to the tree where you see that all you’ve taken has always been given. Everything is fore-given to you from the foundation of the world; it’s all Free. That revelation destroys the monster and liberates the man, so that once again you can receive your Father’s kisses, draw Him pictures, and dance in His love — you can love Love. Once again you can drink from the fountain and be the fountain, but now you know what — or I should say, “who” — He is.
“In this is love,” writes John, “not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son (who is his own heart) to be the sacrifice.” Life is a constant communion of sacrifice; life is bleeding. Jesus is the fountain that turns the old stone temple into the eternal body of the living Christ. Every member of my body constantly bleeds for every other member of my body, and I experience all of that bleeding as delight (“Eden” in Hebrew). The thing I get from the fountain is the desire to give from the fountain — the fountain that fills all things with delight.
If Love is only a law, nothing could be more terrifying.
But when Love becomes the Life in me, nothing could be a greater delight.
Jesus is the Fountain. Jesus is the Judgment of God, hanging on the tree in the garden on the holy mountain in the inner sanctuary of the temple. The tree was there in the beginning in Eden; it is revealed in the middle on Calvary; and it is there in the City in the End. We don’t change the Judgment of God, but the judgment of God changes us. . . into Him.
It destroys the monster and makes the man — not just “a man,” but The Man, the Eschatos Adam.
On the last day of the feast — when and where eternity touches time — the Fountain cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink…”
“If anyone thirsts.” The only requirement for communion is thirst.
How ironic that we have manufactured so many requirements.
“Let him come!” Who is Jesus talking to?
The little child in you is thirsty for the fountain and the river of kisses. But the monster (“who was, is not, and is to come”), the one in which the little child is imprisoned, refuses to acknowledge that thirst. Maybe you identify as both, but you have a hard time sorting them out. You’re like a field of wheat and weeds. Well, bring them both to the Fountain. Come as you are and let the Father kiss you.
He’s always present, but you and I are rarely present in space or time, present in the moment that eternity touches time — that is, now. The false self will always try to hide from “now.” The false self needs the past, for it thinks I have created myself. And the false self needs the future, for it thinks I need to create myself; I need to worry about myself. The false self is my anxious self-that’s worried about me, that’s stuck on me, that thinks I am not enough… while the true self is who it is that I Am.
Abiding in His presence, simple awareness of Love destroys the monster and makes The Man.
My ego likes to think it earns my Father’s kisses. And once upon a time, that illusion was easier for me to maintain. I received quite a bit of “glory from men.” But 17 years ago, it all came crashing down. One night, shortly after we had started The Sanctuary Denver, while worshipping, I felt a little puff on my neck. I turned and looked, but no one was there. …I felt it again… and again over the next several weeks. One night, it was just ridiculous — and I realized it must be God. But I was worried that it might stop . . . and that night, it did stop. Then I saw my wife writing frantically on a little slip of paper. It read: “Peter, sometimes my kisses are sweet; sometimes my kisses burn. But you must believe this: I am always kissing you.” It makes me actually want to sing, draw pictures, and write sermons . . . even if no one is listening.
His body, broken for you: I think it’s the kiss.
His blood, poured out for the forgiveness of sins: It’s the fountain.
Listen closely: Sometimes His kisses are sweet. Sometimes they burn. But He says to you what He says to me: “You must believe this: I am always kissing you.”