Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Dad, I had younger kids and I would read to them, and I'm a professional voice. Like, I could have done cartoon voices. I just feel like that's like one of my career paths. I was acquainted with the first. Remember the cartoon, Doug? Remember that? I was. Had a road into that world and I opted out of it. But I decided not to go that route. But instead I read to my kids, and they hated it when I did voices. It just. No one liked it. But Clara and Macy would say, dad, can you just read it regular?
[00:00:40] And I'd say, no. And then I would just keep going.
[00:00:46] That was always disappointing to me. But I loved reading to the kids. Like, let's just. Let's. Let's read to them as much as possible. That's. To me, like, that's just one of the stalwart. If you. You want to love your kids, well, read to them as much as possible. They. They will imagine worlds. And it's just a great little trick you get to make them better people by reading to them. Well, I would. I was reading. Once they got old enough, I was reading Chronicles of Narnia to them, particularly the lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. And that. That book's been out for a while. The movie, I think, came after the book, but it's all been around for a while. And so I'm not spoiling anything here. When I tell this story. If you haven't read it, I'm just sorry.
[00:01:35] So I was reading the lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to my kids, and they had a.
[00:01:41] We got to the part where Aslan the Lion dies.
[00:01:49] I mean, it's about two thirds through the book, and it's a very dramatic and big scene.
[00:01:57] And Aslan dies.
[00:02:00] And I close the book and I say, good night, trauma children.
[00:02:08] Now just close the book and say, hey, this is. We'll finish the rest tomorrow.
[00:02:13] And Macy says, aslan dies.
[00:02:17] And Clara says, it's fine.
[00:02:23] Which, I'll be honest with you, I wasn't expecting that response. It's fine. She said, he'll resurrect tomorrow like Jesus.
[00:02:36] I was like, first of all, who told you that Aslan was Jesus? And second of all, who told you Aslan was Jesus and ruined this whole experience for you? It had been great to show up the next little bit and open it up. She said, he's going to resurrect like Jesus did.
[00:02:57] Now, I don't know if she made the connection that Aslan was the Jesus character or if she knew deep down, because she knew the gospel that we all resurrect like Jesus does our kids.
[00:03:17] A month before Clara was born, my grandfather passed away. And a month before Macy was born, his wife, my grandmother, passed away. And so just a month before each one, they lost. And so Clara knew Mimi for 15 months, but still into the. Into her 4 and 5 year old, she would just, she. Sometimes she would get sad and she would say, and Mimi's dead. I was like, okay, now hold on. You barely knew her one, but let's not like, make this into a big thing. But she, it was just death bothered her.
[00:03:56] And we would say, when Jesus comes back, we all come back. When Jesus comes back, we are all resurrected. And when Jesus comes back, so does Mimi, so does Papaw, so does in Arkansas, we have Papaws, so does Mimi, so does Papaw. All those who we missed and loved and who went on before us, it isn't just Jesus that is resurrected. It is everyone that we have that hope.
[00:04:32] And I'll tell you, that's a gospel that's a little more extensive than the small gospel we settle for sometimes. The small gospel we settle for is, I have sins and they've been forgiven. That's true, man. That is true. I have sins, truth. They have been forgiven by the blood of Jesus. Truth.
[00:04:56] But if I just live there, and then someday, because my sins have been forgiven, I'm gonna float off to heaven, and then I'll be there with God.
[00:05:04] Does it dig deep into the whole story of scripture? Because that next step is because the tomb is empty, my grave will be empty too, because the tomb is empty. Because Jesus is resurrected, I too will be resurrected. And the scriptures end with heaven invading earth instead of us floating off to heaven.
[00:05:25] Revelation, the end of revelation, here comes heaven showing up, and the new creation is found because God created it and restores it and makes all things new and makes all things right. That's the big gospel of Jesus. And everyone in the first century, that was their gospel. Not just that I needed forgiveness and I got it. True and true.
[00:05:52] But also that we have hope that death is not the final word, that resurrection wins out and rules.
[00:06:02] We have hope in the resurrection, as much hope in the resurrection as we have in the death of Jesus. That the burial doesn't hold and the resurrection wins.
[00:06:14] That's our gospel.
[00:06:17] And so when Paul said, or no, sorry, when John says, at the end of his gospel, I write this to you so that you might believe he's speaking to a group of people who might be having a little bit of trouble believing there's Not a soul that John writes to who walked with Jesus.
[00:06:46] Most of them had not walked where even Jesus walked.
[00:06:51] John is writing his gospel to a group of people in the church.
[00:06:56] They don't speak Hebrew, they don't live in Israel, and they weren't around in Jesus's time. So John is writing his gospel to people like you.
[00:07:07] That's why a lot of people read John's gospel and they feel very connected to it. Well, the church in Ephesus, they were disconnected from the gospel of Jesus or from the life of Jesus by language, by time and by geography.
[00:07:23] And just because their language was Latin or Greek and my language is English or whatever it is we speak in Arkansas.
[00:07:33] Hic. Latin.
[00:07:35] I just came up with that phrase just now that just came to me. Holy Spirit or something. I don't know.
[00:07:42] Pretty good. That's all right.
[00:07:47] So we're separated out of context. We are from Jesus context.
[00:07:54] And so sometimes we look around and we say, well, we didn't see him. We weren't with him.
[00:08:00] We don't.
[00:08:02] We believe. But.
[00:08:06] And then at the very end of John's Gospel, there's this thing that happens.
[00:08:09] There's this guy who doubts that Jesus was resurrected. His name is Doubting Thomas, which we should have seen it coming with his name being. Doubting Thomas shouldn't have shocked us.
[00:08:24] But they. Jesus. Jesus resurrects. He presents himself to the disciples. Thomas just happened to be at the grocery store. He was the only one there. And he walks in and everyone says, we saw Jesus. He's alive. And he says, unless I touch. Unless I touch the wounds on his hand and on his side, then I won't even. I don't believe you. And then there Jesus shows up, which is a beautiful act of grace, and says, what you need, I will give.
[00:08:56] John 20, verse 29, says, Jesus said to him, have you believed because you have seen me?
[00:09:05] The Greeks hide the answer to their questions, to their rhetorical questions in the language. And it doesn't always translate real well. But basically here he's saying, you have believed because you've seen me. Right? Yeah.
[00:09:20] Blessed are those. And it's almost as if Jesus turns to the page, to the hearer of John's Gospel, to me, and says, blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe they are blessed.
[00:09:40] The reader of John's Gospel, for the first time or for the millionth time, we look at that page and we see Jesus saying, you who have not seen, you've come to believe, and you are blessed because of it.
[00:09:58] So there we sit.
[00:10:01] He goes on, and he says, now, Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples which are not written in this book, but these are written so that you may come to believe or continue to believe that Jesus is the anointed king, the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing, you may have life in his name, a new life in his name, a resurrected life in his name, and not just one that starts after I die, but one that starts now. I live with resurrection in mind. I live with salvation in mind.
[00:10:43] John does this a lot. He has.
[00:10:46] It's almost, you know, the phrase. It's too on the nose.
[00:10:51] Like, the metaphor is just pointing straight at you.
[00:10:56] He does this. John does this in his works. He has these things that he's pointing to, these things called signs. He calls them signs in his gospel. And he'll say, this is the first sign and the second sign. The earlier signs are pretty straightforward. And then the later ones, you kind of have to figure out yourself. He teaches you how to walk or ride the bicycle, and then he sees if you can do it on your own. But the very first sign, man, he winks at the audience over and over again, like, you get it. It's a sign.
[00:11:34] In comedy, we know that if you have to say, get it, it's not a good joke.
[00:11:43] But when you're messing with kids, when you're teaching kids, like, how to tell a joke, like, just you say, hey, do you understand what it's like? Do you see the connection? And they'll go, oh, yeah. You have to sometimes explain the joke, explain the metaphor.
[00:12:01] And so this first sign, John keeps looking up at the audience going, right.
[00:12:10] Do you get it?
[00:12:12] Starts with the very first phrase on the third day.
[00:12:24] Doesn't even make sense in this. In this, like, the full arc of John. Like, it would be the way the whole thing structured. You'd look at it and you'd go, well, I can't think. I thought we were on the fifth day, he says, on the third day. And then he paused and looks around.
[00:12:45] There was a wedding.
[00:12:47] What?
[00:12:50] In Cana of Galilee.
[00:12:54] And the mother of Jesus was there.
[00:12:59] Jesus and his disciples had been invited to the wedding. He had. He got an invitation. And it said +12.
[00:13:09] When the. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, they have no wine. And he said, good. It's a sin anyway. Actually, no, that's not how it goes.
[00:13:26] And Jesus said to her, woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet, come now, hold on, a couple of things here. He is not saying, woman. He's not. That's not the phrase here.
[00:13:47] This is a term of endearment, a term of respect.
[00:13:53] This is almost. You can best translate this as saying, mom, why does that matter to us?
[00:14:00] My time hasn't come yet.
[00:14:07] He's not saying, as we'll see in a second. He's not saying, it's not time for me to do my cool tricks.
[00:14:18] That's not what he's getting at.
[00:14:21] He's getting at something bigger, as we'll see.
[00:14:26] His mother brilliantly ignores him.
[00:14:33] He says, what does that have to Mom? What does that have to do with us?
[00:14:38] My hour has not yet come. My time has not yet come. And she goes, do what he tells you. Then she leaves the room.
[00:14:46] She just, okay, now standing, there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification.
[00:15:04] Get it?
[00:15:07] Do we explain the metaphor more, or are we just aware that all this stuff that's happening, this wedding on the third day, uniting of those who love each other on the third day, the purification rights being turned into wine itself, that water and blood, water and wine are all mixed here into the story and into the metaphor.
[00:15:36] These large stone water jars used for Jewish purification rites, each holding 20 or 30 gallons.
[00:15:51] Jesus said to them, fill the jars with water.
[00:15:56] Fill these purification jars with purification water. They didn't have a special tap for purification water.
[00:16:07] What made water purification water is that it was in purification jars.
[00:16:15] And so once the water is in a purification jar, it's purification water. I've already said purification too many times.
[00:16:27] Fill the jars with water. And they filled them up and to the brim. And he said to them, now draw some out, take it to the chief steward.
[00:16:40] So they took it.
[00:16:42] When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, he did not know where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew and just paw time out, that the ones in charge don't know where the wine comes from. But the servants who had done what Jesus asked them to do, they know.
[00:17:11] The steward calls the bridegroom over.
[00:17:15] He says, hey, listen. Everyone serves the good wine first so that everyone enjoys it properly. And then they wait to serve the bad wine whenever everyone is too tipsy to tell. That's what the Greek actually says there.
[00:17:34] But you, however, have kept the good wine until now.
[00:17:41] So the best that they could offer at this wedding didn't compare to what Jesus had to offer from the purification water that was now wine at a wedding on the third Day.
[00:18:01] And Jesus did many other signs, but this was the first of his signs in Cana of Galilee and revealed his glory. And his disciples believed in Him.
[00:18:15] Water that purifies, wine that delivers.
[00:18:27] What we have in our world, and maybe we don't pay attention to it enough in our religious context. We have our baptism and our table, and they are not two different moments, although they happen at different times, they are not two different moments, separate and apart from one another, where, when I'm baptized into the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, when I, when, when the whole gospel happens at once, that my death and Jesus's death are one and my resurrection and Jesus resurrection are one. And I, in front of all of my brothers and sisters, declare that I am in Christ and with you in Christ.
[00:19:30] When you are baptized, you are baptized together.
[00:19:40] You ever been to a wedding that just made you happy? You're married, not just you didn't want to have to ever, ever go through a wedding again, but just watching it and just, oh, well, they just love each other and I love you, and then you're happier when someone else gets married or when someone else gets baptized and they unite with Jesus, it reminds us of our uniting.
[00:20:11] We recall that.
[00:20:14] And the uniting isn't just this individualistic thing.
[00:20:19] I have a church camp with middle school kids that I run in the summer, which is the worst time to have church camp, by the way. It should be fall or spring, but we're out of school. So they go, we go, and it's hot. And they're middle schoolers, middle schoolers, that's about the time that they want to get baptized.
[00:20:40] And we could really harp on that and get them riled up. And we got a swimming pool. And we had 13 baptisms at camp this week.
[00:20:50] But every time some kid comes to me and says, I want to get baptized, I say, go tell your church.
[00:21:00] Be baptized in front of the people who you're going to walk with as you walk with Christ.
[00:21:08] Be baptized with the people you take communion with every Sunday. Let them hold you to that standard.
[00:21:17] And so we go tell our church when we get baptized. We're telling our church, I'm in Christ, I'm with Christ. And then we all gather together around the table and we remember that the purification waters were turned to wine, that the body of Christ and the blood of Christ and the water of purification.
[00:21:44] It's this one great thing that is impacting my whole life.
[00:21:52] And it's not just water, and it's not just blood, and it's not just Wine. It's not just Welches. It's not just bread.
[00:22:02] It's all Jesus right at the center of everything we do. We are not baptized for the forgiveness of sins. Time out. Don't judge the sentence yet.
[00:22:16] We are not baptized for the forgiveness of sins. We are baptized into the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus the King for the forgiveness of sins with the gift of the Holy Spirit.
[00:22:31] We don't gather around the table to do some remembrances.
[00:22:37] We gather around the table to remember specifically this Jesus who purified us, who fills us and whose spirit is all we need in this life. Life.
[00:22:57] When we worship God, we worship what God has done for us. We don't worship just because God loves a good round of applause.
[00:23:11] We worship because what God has done is bigger than we could have ever imagined.
[00:23:21] What God has done has brought us out of our seats.
[00:23:27] What Jesus has done with our pure, like he's made us pure.
[00:23:35] He's offered to be in relationship with us. We are buried in Christ. Raised in Christ, in Christ. Go and count the in Christs in scripture and let me know when you give up.
[00:23:51] Don't use your phone, that's cheating.
[00:23:55] But it's all throughout what Jesus is doing that we see what he has done. The sign that he has done, both in purification and through the blood, through the wine.
[00:24:10] And when we see it, we give God the glory.
[00:24:19] And as his disciples, we believe in him.
[00:24:28] When I was a kid at church camp, it was a more conservative church camp than what I run. Same one, but you know, time happens.
[00:24:38] Mountain Fork Christian Camp. It was actually in Beavers Bend State Park. We would go. We rented out Beavers Bend State park several years ago. We moved up to Little Rock because Beavers Bend State park was turning into Hocha town.
[00:24:56] And our camp on July 4th weekend would have too many Texans at the river.
[00:25:04] So we moved camps. But man, we had so many memories. Rachel and I met at Mountain Fork Christian Camp. These old a frame cabins that looked like they were designed by like the Egyptians, a little pyramids of heat and disease.
[00:25:32] We had no air conditioning which was, you know, still is the case at some camps. But we. I just remember the evolution of that camp. As we went, we used to go. We had two swim times.
[00:25:46] One that was boys. We had a boys swim time and girls swim time. And that was done down at the public swimming area.
[00:25:56] That one we wore our swim trunks and a dark T shirt.
[00:26:02] No one told the other residents of that beach to wear dark T shirts but it was, we wore them.
[00:26:11] But then we Went to the creek.
[00:26:15] The creek, as it's called in some places.
[00:26:18] We went to the creek and the creek was down this long dirt road that I remember. The windows were down in the church bus. We were. It was a regular bus, but with church people in it. And it was a church bus. And I remember the windows were down and they were just. The limbs would just flick through. You had to lean in so that the limbs didn't swat you in the face.
[00:26:39] And in that creek, you couldn't wear regular swim shorts because we were together.
[00:26:49] Boys and girls.
[00:26:53] They didn't want any mixed swimming because they were afraid some dancing might break out.
[00:27:01] So we get to the.
[00:27:04] We get to the creek and we are splashing around in that creek, full jeans and dark T shirts like the Lord called us to swim.
[00:27:18] One of the most.
[00:27:20] One of the neatest times of. I don't even remember the kid's name, but some kid decided they wanted to get baptized. They wanted to get baptized right then.
[00:27:32] And we stood in that creek with them, stood around them and watch them confess their love for Jesus, their commitment to Jesus, and be washed in the death, or to be. And enter into the death, burial and resurrection with Jesus. To be purified, to be committed, to be married. All the ways we can explain what's happening.
[00:28:01] Back then, I thought it was cool because we just.
[00:28:05] We were there.
[00:28:07] I was wet too, you know, like, we were in the water together. Neat thing.
[00:28:12] But as I've grown up and enjoyed church, I remember all the tragedy that has happened to me in the past year and a half.
[00:28:28] One of the things that helps me is that y'all are in the water with me.
[00:28:38] It's not that I'm alone. There's people who have lost their father here.
[00:28:44] There's people who have lost their brothers. I'm walking with people who are losing their brother as I lose mine.
[00:28:53] Like you guys are in the water with me, around the table with me.
[00:29:02] And that, my friends, is church.
[00:29:05] It's not something we've created or we figured out or we've decided that, well, if you have the right elders and the right minister and the right worship and so on and so forth, you'll create a good church. No, man. My goodness. Jesus just stands there and puts us around a table and stands us in the water together.
[00:29:22] The water that purifies, the wine that remembers, washes us clean in the river together.
[00:29:31] Today is your day to recommit to Jesus or to reconnect with someone maybe you haven't connected with in a while or to pray about that thing that you've just wanted to keep to yourself. Sometimes you come into church and you want to keep it to yourself. But the glory of God has been revealed and we are in the water together.
[00:29:58] If you want to come, have the whole church pray for you. If you want something more private, there will be people at the back ready and willing to pray for you to go to God. But you are not alone in this place. And for that we worship.
[00:30:13] Let's stand and sing together.
