When All is Said and Done

Well hello again friends it is April 2022 and again spring has sprung as as one writer put it there is resurrection life in every leaf here's what we're going to do in April I'm going to go theological on you. Everybody's inherent at least embryonic theologian you say really what if I don't believe in God well what we say when we say that is we don't believe in some other God than ourselves let's say or whatever takes our time and our money but when I talk about being a theologian I'm saying speaking to the things that are critical that are core that can change the trajectory of who we are how we think and where we go so by saying that I'm going to get theological on you I want to do a deep dive or a deeper dive than maybe I might ordinarily do on this program into the story of the death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ from Nazareth in Galilee and by doing that I'm going to reprise from last year the reading of the last two chapters of the book known we're right there anyway so we're gonna do it again we're gonna bring it back and chapter 21 is called a dream over dinner so let's get after it he said to them I've earnestly desire to eat this Passover with you before I suffer Jesus of Nazareth Luke 2215 on the eve of the most pivotal weekend in human history Jesus wants to have dinner with his friends but why there is no theme more central to the kingdom story or your story for that matter than the idea of who gets invited to the table unlike 21st century Western culture where food is grabbed on the way to something else Eastern culture just lands on the experience around the table the word most often used is hospitality it is friendship centered in food and conversation in the broadest sense hospitality is inviting someone into your space it invites intimacy and foster friendship food is foundation part two eating and eating begins the human saga and a meal in the heavenly city culminates it from Moses and the manna to Elijah fed by Ravens food is center stage every time you turn around some food event becomes a teachable moment from Joseph in Egypt to Jesus in Bethany we find ourselves sitting at the table but why eating is what humans do from day one we eat to live beyond geopolitical racial or religious boundaries eating makes us one we made different foods but we all eat being invited to a home for dinner has a closeness that a forced our restaurant cannot match the place that gives us food for strength often gives us food for thought and so it is on the night before the cross it's quite a meal time eat dinner break up a squabble between your followers wash their feet call out an imposter introduce the new covenant drink to it give a lengthy teaching on love and unity be blunt about what's coming next then close with a song go to a small prayer meeting outside the city in an all our grove get arrested go to jail all in a night's work the three years of walking with Jesus chosen friends as winding down he's eaten hundreds of meals on the road and in homes with them this is different he knows what's coming they haven't a clue five days ago crowds cheered Hosanna and called my king tomorrow they'll be calling for his head what do you say when you know that before the sun sets tomorrow you'll be pinion to a Roman cross as you suffocate by inches your blood will seep out of you taking with it the sins of every man and woman who will ever live on earth what do you say when you know the clock is ticking I'll tell you what Jesus said he told them one more time what they were designed for and what makes life work scholars call the teaching his farewell discourse words of person might say on a deathbed to those he loves though the evening featured a fight at the dinner table in high drama with Judas scurrying off to sell Jesus out at the heart of the evening were his final thoughts this is the ultimate quote if this were my last lecture end quote talk he illustrated what he expected of them by washing their feet and talking about grapevines but the phrase that hung in the room reddled in with the smell of lamb and bitter herbs was love one another how the way I loved you the fulcrum on which his challenge rests for me is found in John's record this is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you greater love has no one than this that someone lay down his life for his friends you're my friends if you do what I command you no longer do I call you servants for the servant does not know what his master is doing but I have called you friends for all that I have heard from my father I've may known to you you did not choose me but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide so that whatever you ask the father and my name he may give it to you these things I command you so that you will love one another how fascinating is that he doesn't ask suggest or beg he commands how can you command people to love I guess if you created them with the capacity and a will you can if you've shown them a thousand times and a thousand ways in all of human history and more precisely over the last three years what love looks like you can if you've told them your story and affirmed them and walked with them and covered and dreamed out loud with them you can if you are God Almighty the creator of heaven and earth you can if you're the line of Judah about to be slaughtered as the Lamb of God you can we have said before in this book that the word love in Western culture is amorphous and used to describe many things with different intensities not so here the word that Jesus used is agape gods unconditional love there are several words for love in Greek another one of which is filet oh friend that's where he gets specific the highest expression of that agape is that someone lay down his life for his friends filet oh it's like he's saying pay attention man the laying down of your lives is what your future holds but for whom does someone lay down his life that's the question he doesn't say lay down your life for a spouse or a child or a parent those are the relationships that we would most readily describe as our closest ones but he says that the greatest love is to lay down your life for your friends perhaps friendship is the baseline for any good relationship I actually think that friendship is an atmosphere within which any real relationship grows but Jesus is precise in what he means by it he says that friendship is about sacrifice which is easy to talk about but tough to do just as Simon Peter in this same conversation with Jesus Peter had boasted that he would lay down his life for Jesus Jesus his friend and truth teller in essence said hmm not right now you won't in commanding us to love each other he set the sacrificing of self for friends as the gold standard although earlier Jesus took the servant's role and watched their feet he made a distinction here he said that friends are closer than servants because both paraphrase they have the inside scoop on their master's business servants going about their duties naturally over here bits and pieces of the master's conversations but friends are different they are told everything directly intentionally but servants become friends when they're invited in they have been extended hospitality they are not serving the guests anymore they are the guests he was very clear in his dinner talk that he had shared everything about the father's heart and plans that they'd need to know they were now friends who had the ear of the king privy to the most important information there is to know about life as friends they would also serve just like their master catch the context here Jesus is connecting hospitality come on in with sacrifice lay down your life they would be intimately familiar with both practices there's as a culture that is God centered observant Jews go to temple daily all day long they can hear the sounds of animals being sacrificed going home to eat they often invite friends to join them this practice is natural in Middle Eastern culture and personal identity is wedded to the people with whom you eat Jesus will die in a few hours in no small part for befriending the wrong people eating at the wrong tables he was vilified for being a friend of sinners to follow Jesus is to give people your space and to give them your life all at one shot throughout the evening at different moments he emphasizes the importance of loving well his point is clear by this will all men know that you follow me that you love one another your distinguishing mark will not be that you love the world it will not be that you love the great unwashed it will not be that you love the down and out or the epin others your distinguishing mark is that you sacrifice for each other when that happens all those other folks will see real love Jesus will show his eleven men by this time tomorrow night exactly what that kind of love looks like his farewell address has been meet for scholars and the ologians for centuries and well it should be one could read it a hundred times and not fully wrap his mind around all the pieces and nuances it helps me however to sense that in his final hours Jesus main concern was for his friends he wants them to get it right by standing strong and staying together in the face of all that was to come and to end the evening there is a song friends in food or a natural combination aren't they and now and again at a birthday party or anniversary or just cuz folks like to sing together music breaks out music in a meal or universal all seven billion plus people on the planet eat and most all respond to a tune many actually singer play instruments you know how it is to pull up to a red light with your buddies or girlfriends in the car you're sipping a coffee or favorite station is on the radio loud suddenly there's that great new song the windows come down as the volume is cranked and you just start belting it out pity the older couple in the crosswalk but they might just smile because they remember eating and singing have something in common when done in a group the brain starts pulsing a hormone not just any old hormone is a very particular one called oxytocin which elicits feelings of trust between people a feeling of togetherness emotions after all are generated in the frontal over the brain the disciples had no clue about that of course the linguistic root of hormone means to impel or set in motion and on that Passover night once Judas was gone moving toward trust was the desperate need the eleven who remained had to be nervous feeling together would help on that night together would mean something that those eleven men from the countryside of Galilee would never forget in the Passover celebration the song is a part of the meal that song sung by Jesus as followers would be the chaleil sounds 113 to 180 these are sung on feast days to remind Israel of Yahweh's love and provision for them they are songs of praise for his character and his actions look at the verbs in Psalm 113 that convey how they see Yahweh and what he does he is exalted over all the nations sits enthroned on high stooped down to look on heaven and earth raises the poor from the dust and needy from the ashype seats them with princes and settles the childless woman in her home as a mother of children Jesus knew his followers and comrades did not that within hours the ideas expressed in those action verbs would take on a transformed meaning in those hours the line of Judah would become the Lamb of God sacrifice to cleanse us from sin no matter our station and life at birth we would become royalty through that work Psalm 114 expresses the joy of rescue in the Israelites were freed from bondage in Egypt Psalm 115 extolls the love and faithfulness of a living acting God unlike the impotence of an idol made of wood or stone by the hands of man the task then is to fully trust him and know the blessing that comes from that kind of trust as that impromptu men's chorus sang out Psalm 116 only Jesus would know the import of the words here it is I love the Lord for he heard my voice he heard my cry for mercy because he turned his ear to me I will call on him as long as I live the cords of death entangled me the anguish of the grave came upon me I was overcome by trouble and sorrow Psalm 117 another call to praise praise the Lord all unations extoll him all you peoples for great is his love toward us and the faithfulness of the Lord and yours forever praise the Lord the crescendo of Psalm 118 carries the tagline his love and yours forever give thanks to the Lord for he is good his love and yours forever let Israel say his love and yours forever let the house of Aaron say his love and yours forever let those who fear the Lord say his love and yours forever then a prophetic punch that would capture precisely what it means for someone to lay down his life for a friend the stone that builders rejected has become the capstone the Lord has done this and it is marvelous in our eyes this is the day the Lord has made let us rejoice and be glad in it as the winsters the olive trees across the brook kidrun 12 voices joined thousands in the same songs being sung in hundreds of other homes across the city rich Hebrew melody some with marching cadence pours out of windows into the spring night flows down the narrow cobble streets and washes up over the court yards of the great temple and Jerusalem the ancient city of David hears that song for the ages one more time you are my God and I will give you thanks you are my God and I will exalt you give thanks to the Lord for he is good his love and yours forever and they went out from that place to another outside the city walls a place called gets semeny that's where together would have its first test what a story they would have to tell for the rest of their years it would be their story unique to that moment but seen through 11 different lenses we know a little of that feeling ourselves in our own adventure call life don't we because quote my story and your story are all part of each other too if only because we have sung together and prayed together and seen each other's faces so that we are at least a footnote at the bottom of each other's stories when Jesus put out the invitation let's eat together I have something to say to you that disciples would get more than they bargained for this would be no typical satire meal this would be a Passover like none other they had known this would go way beyond tradition this night would transform them little did they know that when their best friend began to speak he would speak a dream over dinner and they would ride that dream for the rest of their lives so that closes chapter 21 and we're coming now to when I would say in a speaking context and now in closing Ruth and I have called this closing chapter when all is said and done there's an old saw an old adage that says when all is said and done more is said than done that's not true about this story more is done than said in this story so let's wrap this up when all is said and done chapter 22 friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another what you two I thought I was the only one yes Lewis the telling of our stories is the entry point for every friendship we will ever have as we tell them we remember our friends there's some of the main characters and in the telling of the story those characters live again Jesus of Nazareth died at the age of 33 by today's reckoning he was a millennial what a man accused by corrupt power brokers he's condemned by a kangaroo court to death by crucifixion roman soldiers strip and spit on him taunt and curse him rip his back with the cat and i tales jamming a crude plate of Palestinian thorns into a scalp bursting the capillaries they then toss a robe on him and shove him down narrow streets toward the killing place called golgatha here the jails here the shouts of bloodlust wasn't it just last night that the rhythmic sounds of the chaleil flowed here on that golgatha hill high up in the sight line of a watching world he is pinned like a butterfly against the sky spikes through hands and feet there he hangs shredded back with raked muscle exposed ribs press into splintered wood relief only comes in the arching of his back to gulp air he gets just enough to form some words just enough to grant a request just enough grace in his long slow dying to make friendship live and he remembers here at the epicenter of the greatest story ever told jesus remembers he remembers his father's place where he came from and where he's now going he remembers his mother marry the first face he ever saw on earth and perhaps the last one he will ever see as his eyes dim in death he remembers his good friend john to whom he entrust the care of his mother and if you can believe it in his dying agony he makes a new friend dependent thief who asks to be remembered who wants to die unremembered in that remembering there is redemption the one being executed for being a friend of sinners does it one more time the thief guilty no doubt of many bad things does a good thing at his moment of death unwittingly he walks into life he simply says remember me remember me when you get where you're going but friendship goes beyond words doesn't friendship takes an action toward another person's world jesus does that in my mind i hear him say teeth clenched against the pain oh i'll do more than remember you why why don't you come along come with be with today you'll be with me in paradise what an outrageous friend we live in the digital age where what we know has been preferred as a thing that gives us life makes us interesting and gets us ahead some of that may be true but in the process of gaining knowledge we might lose wisdom the thing that takes us wide cannot take us deep in the end who i know outweighs what i know a hundred times it isn't satisfying friendships that we find wholeness and on the backstroke happiness the question is how do we move that direction so one last time friendship starts with story and ends with it is what we know it is who we are when we tell our stories in an authentic and vulnerable way they become journals with velcro markers to which others can connect from our shared stories come affirmations and covenants and dreams perhaps best of all our stories are the one place in our lives that we do not have to compete and we always i love this we always get an A we do not need and are not able to walk with dozens of people closely the god man walked with 12 and was intimate with three we should be so fortunate he said we're two or three gathered i will be present that two or three number just might be the most powerful number in the world so i encourage you to think small but to think deep think deep about god and man and know if you do your life will have meaning and wholeness and joy a joy centered in a profound kind of knowing if to know and to be known is at the core of our deepest friendships the ancient troubadour is singing our song oh lord you have searched me and you know me what a deal so on to the last questions when all is said and done and you walk into the father's house what a deep sense of belonging might you feel when he spies you across that infinitely crowded room and shouts i know you my friend welcome home i will never ever ever get over this story this good news there is no story from my perspective in human history that captures dreams takes care of flaws gives us hope gives us a family beyond our unbiological family meaning in life light in the dark place i mean we can just stack the phrases one on top of the other but when when they do that old traditional thing in some churches where somebody says he is risen and the congregation says he is risen indeed that my friends is a mouthful so i'm gonna stop there we'll get into it more in the coming weeks thanks for listening being a part of this and thanks for subscribing and on whatever platform you're listening and if you happen to be listening on the iTunes platform please consider giving it just a quick review just a sentence or two even if you say you know it's okay but not so much whatever just do that for us it'd be great god bless catch you next week bye bye you