i'll be sure to post more pictures once i have them edited.
but for now i just need to download all that i've learned this week.
i'm sitting in the san diego airport and i'm just thinking about how incredible these last few days have been. they've been a retreat, a challenge, a meditation, a hilarious glimpse into the future, a desperate cry for restoration, and a profound conviction of my lack of heart understanding of the gospel.
now everything is different.
it started with a story. an old story that took hours to walk through.
the group was about 30 in number and the leader had told the story so many dozens of times, he knew it by heart.
his name is cesar and he is a pastor in tacoma.
he worked in southern sudan as a younger man and came across some missionaries who were using the oral telling of the story of God to teach sudanese pastors to share the gospel with people. he said that he realized that most north americans would also benefit from the oral telling of the gospel. we are natural story tellers. there is a reason that a huge portion of the scriptures are a narrative. God created us to know and understand story and to be able to understand deep truths through them.
he could have prepared a two million point sermon, but instead he told us a 66 book story. no doubt infinitely more effective.
story summary:
there's a being called "God." he is the creator of all things. he always is and always does with is good, right and perfect.
he created human beings to rule over the earth. adam and eve were the first two.
and he gave them a choice. they were created in his image and were able to walk with him in the cool of the day in the perfect garden he had created for them. but they could also choose to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, giving them the ability to manage their knowledge of good and evil, a privilege which should have been reserved for God alone. they chose to eat, to disobey, to not trust that their creator knew what was good and right and perfect for them.
they severed the relationship between God and themselves.
but God remained faithful to them. he continued to do what was good, right, and perfect for them.
he promised their children and their children's children that he would be there God and they would be his people. but they continued to sin. so God set up a way for them to be near to him. it was a place called the holy of holies. in the holy of holies was where God dwelled. and in order to atone for their sins, they had to make sacrifices to him once a year in the holy of holies. the sacrifice was a pure, spotless lamb. the place where God chose to dwell went from the heavens, to a beautiful garden, to a holy slaughterhouse. yuck.
but that's our fault.
i'm amazed that he continued to pursue his people even after they let him down so many times.
and he promised them, as he had from the beginning, that he would provide a sacrifice once and for all for his people so that they could dwell in his presence and continue to be his people.
many years went by, many seasons of silence, many lambs sacrificed, many questions about a messiah (or the final sacrifice, their savior), many expectations in their good, right and perfect God had probably been disappointed.
but then in a small village called bethlehem, from a virgin, was born Jesus, the Christ.
he came that we might have life abundant.
he came that the curtains seperating his people from the holy of holies would be torn, allowing us to draw near to the throne of grace.
he established a kingdom that would someday, in its fullness, fulfill the promises of the garden.
he provided a sneak peak into heaven saying, 'if you have seen me you have seen the Father.'
he said taught us how to live, how to pray, how to eat and drink of the life he provides.
he taught us what it looks like to love our neighbors and to honor him with our hearts, not merely our actions.
Jesus was God in human form. he was tempted in every way, just as we are. he can sympathize with us in our weakness. he lived life just as we are, with a body, with a family, in a community, with friends and with people who were difficult to be around, with work and meals and parties and funerals. sometimes i forget about all of this because the scriptures only give us very small glimpses into his life.
people hated him because he told them that he was the messiah, the one they'd been waiting for. he is the one who would fulfill the promises God had given them long ago. he would heal their disappointments and give them abundant life.
but they misunderstood him. they hated him and the promises that he made. they didn't believe that he could possibly be who he said he was.
so they arrested him, put him on trial, and executed him. he died a brutal, painful, horrible death, nailed by his hands and feet to a wooden cross. after a few hours of agony, they stabbed him in the side be be sure he was dead.
a wealthy man buried his body in his own tomb where it lay for 3 days.
on the third day, some of his closest friends came to tend to the tomb when the found it open and empty!
he came to life again.
like God had told Adam and Eve in the garden from the beginning, the consequence for sin was death. Jesus was the only man in history to never sin. how could he stay dead if that punnishment didn't apply to him? he died as a final sacrifice, tearing the curtain to the holy of holies, and providing a way for humanity to live in God's presence.
he was triumphant over death, paying the price for all of the sins and restoring our relationship with God to its right function and status.
thanks Jesus.
there's not much else to say.
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