Uncreated Light
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedThis week we continue our series on coming into Reality.
One of my daily prayers is
"Lord,
help me be in the right place at the right time."
Friends know that this is a very good prayer,
and the often doors will open for me
in unexpected ways.
And sometimes,
I am just blessed.
One of these "right place at the right time"
experiences for me
was during Covid.
I was locked down in London,
and lived on Portobello Road in Notting Hill.
If you have seen the movie
Notting Hill,
the little bookshop in the movie
was at the end of my driveway.
It was a very strange time,
and of course,
Belonging House went through a major change
in that year.
What we do now was formed because of the lockdown.
You can grow and advance in any circumstance.
God works in all things for our good.
I had several surreal experiences in Europe during that time,
like riding a boat down the Siene by myself in Paris.
And being allowed into the National Gallery of Art
with twenty other people.
They let twenty people come in to the gallery every hour,
and once you were in
you could stay as long as you like.
And because of the size of the museum,
twenty people in there was like being in it all alone.
Much of the time I didn't see another person.
So I walked around
the museum for a while,
but you were not allowed to go everywhere,
just where "social distancing" allowed.
And so,
I found myself in front of Caravaggio's painting
of the Supper at Emmaus.
People are no longer taught how to read a painting.
Sometimes,
if you know what to look for
the artist will tell many stories
with the underlying design principles,
the angles,
and the placement of people.
And a real master
will throw in a detail that says a big message
and many people will miss it,
even if the message is right in front of their eyes.
The Kingdom of God is like this.
Jesus said in Matthew 7:22 that many people would come to him
at the end of the age and say to him
"Lord, Lord,
we did all these great things in your name!"
And Jesus said,
that he would say
"depart from me,
for I never knew you."
You can do a lot of good things for God
and it will look good for a while,
but eventually the drift will set in.
The spirit of Anti-Christ
is the spirit that denies reality.
There are a lot of things that look good,
that look like Christianity,
like healing the sick,
feeding the poor,
and reforming injustice.
But if you do those things
without the Jesus as the center,
they are not reality.
I have been confronted with a lot of church activity lately
that doesn't lead to Jesus.
The focus is not the king and his kingdom.
This will only last for a season,
and then the fruitless tree will start to manifest.
It gets harder and harder to great things in his name
when you are not connected to Jesus.
This was the struggle
that the two characters in our gospel today
are facing.
They had followed Jesus
and now,
it's all over.
The wife of one of these two disciples
was at the Cross,
and she is identified
as the sister of the Virgin Mary.
So this is a member of Jesus' family.
And these two disciples
are in shock,
and are overcome with the unreality of death.
We were never made to die,
and so human beings
have to navigate grief and we are not equipped.
This is why death takes months and years to process.
And as they walk
a stranger joins the couple
and they begin to talk.
And Jesus
starts asking them questions.
Always pay attention
when Jesus asks you a question.
And then,
Jesus
begins to confront the unreality that they are living in.
They think its all over.
They are limited by their experience
and they can't possibly think that something new is going to happen.
Jesus starts
at the beginning of the Bible
like we did at the Easter Vigil,
and he begins to recount all the stories
where he was hiding.
He points to all the prophecies
about his death and resurrection.
And he gently rebukes them
for their misunderstanding
and lack of faith.
Gently,
he reminds them
that they know not the scriptures
and the power of God.
And the two disciples beg him
to come home with them.
We forget
that this was the holiday season.
This day
is a feast to Orthodox Jews,
the Sunday after Passover
is the feast of the first fruits
and they are still in the eight days
of Unleavened Bread.
And they go in,
and the Greek says they were reclined at table,
like a Passover Seder.
And when Jesus takes the bread
and says the blessing,
he breaks it.
And they eat,
and he vanishes.
And they say
did our hearts not burn with in us
while were walking along the road.
So many of us are materialists in our thinking.
A lot of people
think that if you have a logical argument
that is enough.
Reality in the kingdom is not about information
or logic.
Left to logic and material experience
will lead you astray.
Reality
is the person of Jesus Christ
God in the flesh.
Jesus was giving these disciples a supernatural encounter.
We would call this an impartation.
On Friday I was in Queens, New York
because the Lord asked me to go to a conference
where John and Carol Arnott were speaking.
I don't do conferences anymore,
so I knew the Lord must have been in it.
And the Lord spoke to me
and told me I was going to get an impartation.
John Arnott pastored the Toronto renewal that happened
in the 1990's.
Friday night
he told the back story about what happened to their church
before Toronto,
that they had been seeking God
and a move of the Holy Spirit started,
and he killed it.
And after he did this,
he repented
and begged God to give him a second chance.
Toronto was his second chance.
And then John
opened the floor to questions.
And nobody raised there hand.
So I prayed
"Lord, what question should I ask?"
And the Lord said to ask about stewarding a move of God.
He said several things:
like you have to move from a one person model of ministry
to releasing others.
You have guide and pastor people back on the path
rather than control them
when things start to get unusual.
And you have to ask Jesus what to do in every situation.
And finally he said,
"I guess you just need to listen to the Lord and do what he tells you."
I didn't receive prayer,
I received wisdom.
Thank you Holy Spirit.
Jesus walked with them
and gave them an inpartation of his living word,
and showed them the scriptures
and they burned on the inside.
They know they were having an encounter
but they did not know with what.
And so the disciples
invited the stranger in.
And Jesus does what he does many times in the gospels.
Jesus took bread.
Jesus gave thanks.
Jesus broke the bread.
And Jesus gave them the bread.
And the breaking of the bread
opened their eyes.
And they knew him.
And they ran to tell the others.
Jesus is alive.
He has risen as he said.
And knew him in the breaking of the bread.
So I was standing in front of the painting
by Carravagio
and I noticed something odd.
As a painter
you look for the light source
and where the light, midtone and shadows belong.
And I saw the light on the figures in the painting,
but I did not see a light source.
I looked and looked
in the empty gallery.
And eventually
my eyes were opened.
The light on the faces
was an uncreated light coming from the bread.
There was not light coming from the bread,
but as they looked at the bread
there was light on the faces of the figures in the painting.
The bread
was the source
of light.
There is a move of the Holy Spirit
beginning.
God is imparting to us
his reality.
And this move is going to be marked by several things
It is going to be a move of power and
heavy weighy, reverential glory.
God is bringing his gravitas,
and the season of silly is over.
The Holy Spirit is breathing on the Word.
This is going to be a move of solid Biblical teaching.
And finally,
God is calling us into his established Kingdom reality.
When I was in Akron,
I had many conversations with Jesus
about what he was doing.
And one day I asked Jesus
why he made all those people in Toronto laugh.
And Jesus said,
I wanted to offend people.
And then he said,
I am about to really offend people.
I am going to restore the sacraments to my church.
This next move of God
is going to be one of order
and power.
Jesus wants us to know him
in the breaking of the bread.
The Holy Spirit
is moving in our midst,
and the days of doing whatever is right in our own eyes are over.
God is moving us
from the days of the sons of Eli
to the Sons of Asaph
who ministered before the Lord
in order
and beauty in holiness.
The days of getting a zap from the man of God are over.
We have already seen a foretaste of the Lord healing and delivering people
in the breaking of the bread.
We are going to see Jesus
and you are going to receive an impartation
of solid transformation
as the Holy Spirit meets us.
This is the reality of the Kingdom.
Next week we are going to talk about moving into
our true selves
in the voice of God.
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