Latest / Deep-Grace Diving with Tim Wright and Terey Summers / #122 Going into the Dark with Jesus

Transcript

#122 Going into the Dark with Jesus · Deep-Grace Diving with Tim Wright and Terey Summers

• 0:00
  [music]
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  SPEAKER_01: Hey, everyone.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: Tim Wright here along with Dr. John D. Burgess.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Hey there.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: We are here with you, the Deep Grace Diving Podcast.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I think I might have said this last week that we were wrapping up our series
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  SPEAKER_01: on living in the darkness,
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  SPEAKER_01: but we're going to go one more week because I came across a story that we've looked
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: at before, actually.
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  SPEAKER_01: But it's got some great stuff on how Jesus meets us in the darkness.
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  SPEAKER_01: We talked about that moment when Jesus said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
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  SPEAKER_01: Which is the ultimate experience of darkness.
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  SPEAKER_01: And he discovered that God was there.
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  SPEAKER_01: And so we're going to look at a story where Jesus shows up in the darkness
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  SPEAKER_01: and hope it will be inspiring for you.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: Before we do that, you will notice that Terry is still not with us today.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: And she is now done.
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  SPEAKER_01: With her plays doing Les Mis.
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  SPEAKER_01: She was doing like eight shows a week.
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  SPEAKER_01: And this is not a short show.
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  SPEAKER_01: She wasn't on stage the whole time,
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  SPEAKER_01: but it's a two and a half hour to three hour program, Les Miserables.
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  SPEAKER_01: And she did that from June through October, maybe May through October, something like that.
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  SPEAKER_01: And not only does she do the show,
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  SPEAKER_01: She had injured her foot prior to the show and she has to do a lot of walking on
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  SPEAKER_01: the stage and never really healed up for her, but they worked around it.
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  SPEAKER_01: She did a great job.
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  SPEAKER_01: And then near the end of the run,
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  SPEAKER_01: some sort of really vital sickness was passed throughout the whole cast
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  SPEAKER_01: and she got back.
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  SPEAKER_01: So she did miss some performances, but she was able to finish out the run.
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  SPEAKER_01: But anyway, she told us she's exhausted.
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  SPEAKER_01: And needs some space, which you can imagine she probably does.
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  SPEAKER_01: So we're going to give her some space.
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  SPEAKER_01: And she did write me the other day and she's going to try to be back here in the next few weeks.
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  SPEAKER_01: But when she comes back,
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  SPEAKER_01: we'll have her and we will spend some time talking about
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  SPEAKER_01: that great experience she had with Les Mis and the many,
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  SPEAKER_01: many things that God sort of did in her life and in the life of the cast
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  SPEAKER_01: because she was there.
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  SPEAKER_01: So it was very, very cool.
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  SPEAKER_01: So today we're going to look at a story.
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  SPEAKER_01: We've looked at before when we did our series on Mark,
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  SPEAKER_01: but it's just a story that lends itself well to those moments when we're going
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  SPEAKER_01: through darkness or to speak metaphorically when we're going through storms.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I have said many times, as many of you know, my wife died coming up on six months ago.
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  SPEAKER_01: Now, as we record, the longest six months of my life.
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  SPEAKER_01: I would call that dark time.
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  SPEAKER_01: I would call that a storm,
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  SPEAKER_01: though I've seen glimpses of the sun from time to time,
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  SPEAKER_01: S-U-N and S-O-N.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I know many of you are going through or you will go through dark times.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's just inevitable.
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  SPEAKER_01: If you live a certain period of life, you're going to go through something.
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  SPEAKER_01: And scripture does not back away from that.
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  SPEAKER_01: And we're grateful for that.
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  SPEAKER_01: So I'm going to have John read for us a story.
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  SPEAKER_01: This comes from Mark's Gospel, Chapter 6.
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  SPEAKER_01: And to set the context, this comes right after Jesus has fed the 5,000.
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  SPEAKER_01: I think it was the 5,000 or was it the 4,000?
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  SPEAKER_01: It would have been a 5,000.
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  SPEAKER_01: And there would have probably been, when you add in women and children, 15,000 people.
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  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus fed them miraculously using just a couple of loaves of bread and a few fish.
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  SPEAKER_01: And so after that, we pick up the story.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_00: And just a quick reminder, Tim,
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  SPEAKER_00: for anybody who stumbles on this particular episode,
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  SPEAKER_00: this is the fourth in a series of Where Is Jesus in the Darkness?
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  SPEAKER_00: And so it's, yeah, it might be even the fifth.
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  SPEAKER_00: You know, people have been telling me that it's been fantastic.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so really encourage folks who stumbled on this episode back up for more
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  SPEAKER_00: and start at the beginning because it's been really great work for sure.
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  SPEAKER_00: So here's the here we are in Mark chapter six, starting at forty five.
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  SPEAKER_00: Immediately,
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  SPEAKER_00: he made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side
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  SPEAKER_00: to Bethsaida while he dismissed the crowd.
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  SPEAKER_00: After saying farewell to them, he went up on the mountain to pray.
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  SPEAKER_00: When evening came, the boat was out on the sea, and he was alone on the land.
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  SPEAKER_00: When he saw that they were straining at the oars against an adverse wind,
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  SPEAKER_00: he came toward them early in the morning, walking on the sea.
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  SPEAKER_00: He intended to pass them by.
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  SPEAKER_00: But when they saw him walking on the sea, they thought it was a ghost and cried out, All right.
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  SPEAKER_00: Good stuff here.
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  SPEAKER_00: A lot of stuff to unpack.
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  SPEAKER_01: Let's start here.
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  SPEAKER_01: Every once in a while,
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  SPEAKER_01: we do a little discussion about how to interpret Scripture and how to read
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  SPEAKER_01: the Bible.
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  SPEAKER_01: And there's a couple things that guide us.
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  SPEAKER_01: One, the Bible wasn't written to us.
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  SPEAKER_01: It was written for us.
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  SPEAKER_01: And so we always want to remember the original audience, what their worldview was.
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  SPEAKER_01: People reading this story, for example, didn't have CNN.
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  SPEAKER_01: They didn't have Fox News.
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  SPEAKER_01: They didn't have social media.
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  SPEAKER_01: They didn't have Facebook.
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  SPEAKER_01: They didn't have internet.
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  SPEAKER_01: They didn't have electricity.
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  SPEAKER_01: They had stories.
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  SPEAKER_01: They didn't even have really newspapers, right?
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  SPEAKER_01: They had stories that they would tell.
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  SPEAKER_01: And so this is a story that they are telling.
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  SPEAKER_01: So we want to sort of remember the Bible wasn't written to us.
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  SPEAKER_01: It was written for us.
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  SPEAKER_01: So it was written to them.
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  SPEAKER_01: And so we need to sort of understand how they would have heard this story and
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  SPEAKER_01: then ask the question, what does it mean for us?
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  SPEAKER_01: A second guiding principle is we need to read the Bible as it wants to be read.
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  SPEAKER_01: We don't want to impose 21st century writing rules.
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  SPEAKER_01: Onto a first century document.
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  SPEAKER_01: They wrote differently than we do because they lived in a different world than we do.
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  SPEAKER_01: Now, there are some things that are somewhat similar,
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  SPEAKER_01: but the point is we want to read the Bible as it meant to be read.
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  SPEAKER_01: So there are always different kinds of genres or styles in the Bible.
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  SPEAKER_01: And we take those all seriously.
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  SPEAKER_01: So we've talked before about the Genesis story, Genesis chapter one, the creation story.
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  SPEAKER_01: That's not a literal story.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's a poem.
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  SPEAKER_01: And so poems are not read literally, poems are read metaphorically.
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  SPEAKER_01: And if you try to take a poem and make it literal,
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  SPEAKER_01: you kill the poem because it's not the point of the poem.
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  SPEAKER_01: So you read poetry differently than you would read narrative or history or a newspaper.
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  SPEAKER_01: And we've got many different kinds of genres in the Bible,
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  SPEAKER_01: and we need to take all of those seriously.
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  SPEAKER_01: That brings us to the Gospels,
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  SPEAKER_01: and it's important for us to understand the Gospels,
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  SPEAKER_01: and I want to be very careful here in what I'm saying,
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  SPEAKER_01: so please don't hear what I'm not saying and hear what I am saying.
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  SPEAKER_01: The Gospels are not, first and foremost, historical documents.
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  SPEAKER_01: They do speak to history, and that doesn't mean that these stories didn't happen.
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  SPEAKER_01: But these are not first and foremost historical documents.
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  SPEAKER_01: They are gospels, meaning they are meaning stories.
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  SPEAKER_01: They have stitched their stories together to help us understand who Jesus is.
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  SPEAKER_01: And so they will use Poetry,
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  SPEAKER_01: the way that they place the stories will tell us something about Jesus.
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  SPEAKER_01: They will use images in their storytelling that we may miss,
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  SPEAKER_01: but the Hebrews would have understood.
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  SPEAKER_01: And that's what this story does for us today.
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  SPEAKER_01: I'll make that clear as we go.
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  SPEAKER_01: This is not to say that Jesus didn't walk on the water.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's not to say that Jesus didn't send his disciples out and the boat got stuck in
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  SPEAKER_01: a storm, right?
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  SPEAKER_01: But there's something deeper happening with this story.
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  SPEAKER_01: This isn't about Jesus walking on the water.
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  SPEAKER_01: This is about who it is who's walking on the water.
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  SPEAKER_01: Just like the story of Genesis 1 is not about creation, it's about the God who created.
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  SPEAKER_01: So again, I'm not saying that these stories are not true historic stories.
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  SPEAKER_01: Not all of them are, and there are clues always for that.
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  SPEAKER_01: But sometimes they will use these stories to give us an identity as to who Jesus is.
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  SPEAKER_01: So let me give an example.
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  SPEAKER_01: The Luke story, chapter two, the birth of Jesus.
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  SPEAKER_01: All right?
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  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of language in that story to suggest that Luke is not telling a historic story.
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  SPEAKER_01: He is telling us a meaning story.
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  SPEAKER_01: Because essentially all the language that he uses in the birth story Is language
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  SPEAKER_01: that would have been used about the Roman Caesar.
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  SPEAKER_01: And so what Luke is doing with his birth story is saying this baby
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  SPEAKER_01: who was born 2000 years ago is the new Caesar.
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  SPEAKER_01: So he's not telling a historic story.
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  SPEAKER_01: He's telling a poetic metaphorical story about who this Jesus is.
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  SPEAKER_01: And now I want you to understand as you read my gospel that this is the new Caesar
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  SPEAKER_01: and he's radically different than the Roman emperor.
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  SPEAKER_00: And his audience would have caught that.
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  SPEAKER_00: His audience would have caught that.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, a specific message for a specific audience.
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  SPEAKER_00: It sounds odd to us right now, but we're 2,000 years displaced.
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  SPEAKER_01: Right.
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  SPEAKER_01: And they would have understood.
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  SPEAKER_01: Luke is the only Gentile writer, the only non-Jewish writer.
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  SPEAKER_01: He is writing to Christians who have been persecuted by the Romans.
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  SPEAKER_01: They know who the Roman Emperor is.
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  SPEAKER_01: They know that the Roman Empire
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  SPEAKER_01: They know the burden that the Roman Emperor places on them.
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  SPEAKER_01: And this is a story about God who sends a new kind of Caesar into the world,
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  SPEAKER_01: one of justice and love and mercy and compassion,
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  SPEAKER_01: who will die for us, who doesn't kill, but who dies for us.
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  SPEAKER_01: And so he sets the stage for his story of Jesus with a form of poetry,
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  SPEAKER_01: a form of metaphor that connects Jesus to the language that would have been used of
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  SPEAKER_01: the Roman Caesars.
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  SPEAKER_01: So, we always want to keep in mind when we're reading the Gospels, yeah,
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  SPEAKER_01: there are stories about Jesus in there that are true stories,
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  SPEAKER_01: but these are truth stories about the identity of Jesus.
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  SPEAKER_01: So, having said all that and having confused most of you,
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  SPEAKER_01: let's look at this story,
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  SPEAKER_01: what it's saying about Jesus,
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  SPEAKER_01: and what it says to us about a God who comes to us in the dark times of life, right?
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  SPEAKER_01: So this is a strange story.
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  SPEAKER_01: John, I want you to read it for us again and then I'll stop you
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  SPEAKER_01: when I think you've read enough of it to kind of get a sense because it really is
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  SPEAKER_01: a strange story.
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  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
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  SPEAKER_00: You know,
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  SPEAKER_00: one of these days,
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  SPEAKER_00: Terry's going to be back and she can actually read this stuff 12 times better
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  SPEAKER_00: than any of us, but you just have to make do with me.
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  SPEAKER_00: Immediately,
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  SPEAKER_00: he made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side
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  SPEAKER_00: to Bethsaida.
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  SPEAKER_00: While he dismissed the crowd.
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  SPEAKER_00: After saying farewell to them, he went up on the mountain to pray.
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  SPEAKER_00: When evening came, the boat was out on the sea and he was all alone on the land.
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  SPEAKER_00: When he saw that they were straining at the oars against an adverse wind,
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  SPEAKER_00: he came toward them early in the morning, walking on the sea.
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  SPEAKER_00: He intended to pass them by.
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  SPEAKER_01: All right, I'm gonna stop you right there.
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  SPEAKER_01: Why in the world would Jesus see his disciples struggling in the storm and want
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  SPEAKER_01: to pass them by?
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  SPEAKER_00: This was my first question I was going to ask because I honestly have never read
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  SPEAKER_00: that sentence before.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I've read this passage many times, but for some reason, I never read that sentence.
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  SPEAKER_00: So while you were talking, I even checked another version and they all say that.
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  SPEAKER_00: He intended to go right by them.
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  SPEAKER_01: So it's strange, isn't it?
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  SPEAKER_01: Because it doesn't sound like Jesus.
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  SPEAKER_01: So let's set the scene.
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  SPEAKER_01: He has just fed 15,000 people.
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  SPEAKER_01: And through the feeding of the 5,000,
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  SPEAKER_01: we can talk about how the miracle happened.
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  SPEAKER_01: But what the miracle said about him is that this is the new Moses.
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  SPEAKER_01: Remember, the manna came down from heaven.
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  SPEAKER_01: Uh, under the leadership of Moses.
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  SPEAKER_01: And now Jesus is feeding the masses miraculously as well.
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  SPEAKER_01: Right?
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  SPEAKER_01: So in, in a,
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  SPEAKER_01: in a sense,
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  SPEAKER_01: the people there, the Jewish people would have said, wow, this is the new Moses.
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  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
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  SPEAKER_01: Um, so he goes off because the crowds are going to try to grab him now
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  SPEAKER_01: and make him King, sends his disciples out into their boat.
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  SPEAKER_01: Go ahead, John.
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  SPEAKER_00: So Tim, right.
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  SPEAKER_00: I think we should say right before this is the feeding of the 5,000,
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  SPEAKER_00: but if you're not familiar, Jesus is preaching.
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  SPEAKER_00: There's 5,000 men, probably 15,000 people because we're not counting women and children.
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  SPEAKER_00: At one point, the disciples say, send them away so they can go eat somewhere.
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  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, you feed them.
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  SPEAKER_00: And the disciples are looking.
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  SPEAKER_00: The image in my mind is they're pulling their pockets out and all they have is pocket lint.
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  SPEAKER_00: But what they do have is five loaves and two fish.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus gives thanks for that,
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  SPEAKER_00: performs this miracle where everyone gets fed and there's 12 baskets of leftovers.
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  SPEAKER_00: Right after that, we move into this, walking on water.
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  SPEAKER_01: So this is an example here of a story that is told to give us an identity of who Jesus is.
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  SPEAKER_01: So part of it is he's the new Moses.
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  SPEAKER_01: But it's also interesting language in that story where he took the bread.
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  SPEAKER_01: He gave thanks.
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  SPEAKER_01: He broke it.
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  SPEAKER_01: And he gave it to his disciples.
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  SPEAKER_01: Now, what does that remind you of?
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: Well, if you go to churches that have communion every Sunday, it would remind you of communion.
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  SPEAKER_01: Because the pastor will always say,
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  SPEAKER_01: he took the bread, he gave thanks, he broke it, and he gave it to his disciples.
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  SPEAKER_01: And that's a reference to Jesus being the host of the meal, the Messianic meal.
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  SPEAKER_01: And it's the Messianic meal that we celebrate in communion.
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  SPEAKER_01: So you can see meaning happening there.
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  SPEAKER_01: So now we've got this story where the disciples are in the midst of a storm.
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  SPEAKER_01: And just to remind folks,
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  SPEAKER_01: they're on the Sea of Galilee,
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  SPEAKER_01: which is one of the most beautiful spots in the world.
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  SPEAKER_01: Right, John?
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: Indeed.
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  SPEAKER_01: I could go and just sit there for hours and stare across that water and all
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  SPEAKER_01: the history there and knowing Jesus was there.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's just the spot.
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  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: It is.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: But it's surrounded by hills.
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  SPEAKER_01: And it's notorious for certain winds coming down and hitting that lake
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  SPEAKER_01: and causing instant storms,
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  SPEAKER_01: which this could very well have been one of those things that happened.
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  SPEAKER_01: So the disciples are there.
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  SPEAKER_01: They're having a hard time getting to shore.
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  SPEAKER_01: Jesus goes.
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  SPEAKER_01: He sees they're in trouble.
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  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: He sees they're in trouble.
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  SPEAKER_01: He goes to them, but he's about to pass by.
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  SPEAKER_01: Why in the world would he do that?
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  SPEAKER_01: So John, would you please do us a favor and let's go to the book of Exodus.
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  SPEAKER_01: Now, as John is finding Exodus, we've got the first book of the Bible is Genesis.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: The second book of the Bible is Exodus.
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  SPEAKER_01: And Exodus is the story of the people of Israel in slavery to Egypt.
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  SPEAKER_01: And God raises up Moses,
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  SPEAKER_01: and God,
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  SPEAKER_01: through some really miraculous works,
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  SPEAKER_01: It has the Egyptians,
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  SPEAKER_01: by their own free will,
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  SPEAKER_01: release the Israelites from slavery because otherwise God's going to finally do them
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  SPEAKER_01: in.
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  SPEAKER_01: They leave.
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  SPEAKER_01: They get trapped between the Egyptian army and the Red Sea.
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  SPEAKER_01: Moses raises his arms.
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  SPEAKER_01: The Red Sea parts, as played by Charlton Heston.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: I actually rode through the Red Sea at Hollywood Studios.
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  SPEAKER_01: And then they walk through on dry land,
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  SPEAKER_01: and then when the Egyptians come,
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  SPEAKER_01: it covers them up, and a lot of the Egyptian army is lost.
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  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: So Moses is now charged with leading these millions of people in a wilderness
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  SPEAKER_01: where there's no food, there's no water, and it's a ruly crowd.
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  SPEAKER_01: They start saying, oh man, we used to have it so well back in Egypt.
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  SPEAKER_01: Of course, they forgot they were slaves, right?
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so Moses finally reaches a point where he and God are having some discussions
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  SPEAKER_01: and Moses said, I'd like to see your glory.
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  SPEAKER_01: I want to see your power.
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  SPEAKER_01: And so that brings us to what John's going to read from Exodus chapter 33.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we're going to start in verse 18.
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  SPEAKER_00: Moses said, Please show me your glory.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: And he said,
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you the name,
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: the Lord.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: But he said, Can not see my face for no one shall see me and live.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: And the Lord continued.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: See, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: And while my glory passes by,
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: I will put you in a cleft of the rock and I will cover you with my hand
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: until I have passed by.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: Did you notice a phrase come up a few times there?
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: Came up three times.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm lost in the cleft on the rock.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to figure that out.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: So it was passed by.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: My glory will
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: pass by.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: My glory will pass before you.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to put my hand over your eyes.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: We learn later, he's only going to see God's back and his glory passes by.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the context for the story.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: Cleft of the rock, it means there's a little like a divot or a little
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: So that he's kind of back from the cliff, right?
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: And he's got to walk around him.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: And we've talked about this, I think, on the podcast.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: What's happening here is Moses is saying, I want to see you.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: I want to see your glory.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: And God is saying that's a bad idea because there is so much...
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: What is it, Tim?
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: Righteousness?
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just me, and you're you, and you really can't withstand the sight of me.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm going to take care of you.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to push you into this small divot in the rock.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to cover your face,
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: and then I will take away my hand, and you can see the back of me as I pass by.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: There you go.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: Now, so let's read what happens.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: Exodus chapter 34.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name the Lord.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord passed before him and proclaimed,
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord,
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: the Lord,
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: a God merciful and gracious,
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation,
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yet by no means clearing the guilty,
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: but visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children and
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: the children's children to the third and fourth generation.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: So there's some there's some tough stuff in that passage, right?
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: But there's also some really good stuff.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: And we're not going to get stuck on the passage itself.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: What I want to focus on here is God God's glory passed by Moses.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: And God, as He did so, God said God's name.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: I am the Lord, which is what we have in our English translations.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's actually the name Yahweh, which is I am who I am.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so let's remember that.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: I am who I am.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's the divine name, I am.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: So, the Hebrew Scriptures,
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: Which is the only Bible Jesus had,
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: were translated into Greek because Jesus was living in a Greek speaking world,
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: even though he probably spoke Hebrew, some say Aramaic.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: But the Greek scriptures,
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: the phrase for God's glory passing by Moses is the exact same phrase
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: for Jesus passing by the disciples in the boat.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: All right?
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: So God's glory is passing by Moses.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus is passing by the disciples.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then Jesus says, don't be afraid, it is I, or I am here.
• 22:41
  It is I.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: What is the writer saying in this moment?
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: Is he saying that Jesus was just going to walk by them?
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: Nope.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: He's saying the glory of God had come to meet them in the storm.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: That Jesus is the glory of God.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus is the I am.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: And that's who was coming to them in the storm.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: There's another verse, again, when it's translated into Greek.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's a little different, but I'm going to read it for you.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's from Job.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: And Job is in the Old Testament.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: Job is the guy who suffered a lot.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: And he's speaking about God.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, God is wise and hard and mighty in strength, who has resisted him and succeeded.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: He who removes mountains and they do not know it,
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: when he overturns them in his anger,
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: who shakes the earth out of its place and its pillars tremble.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: Who commands the sun and it does not rise,
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: who seals up the stars,
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: who alone stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the sea.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: Now, in the Greek translation of that,
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: it's not,
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: and trampled the waves of the sea, which is probably the better translation.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: Remember, this was translated 2000 years ago.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: The Greek phrase is, he walks on the waters.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: So you have a story of God, Jesus,
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: walking on the waters to pass by to show the glory of God and says to them, I am.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so again, did Jesus walk on water?
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: But that's not the point.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: The point is that the Glory of God came to meet those disciples in their darkness.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: The great I Am, Jesus,
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: who is the I Am,
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: who is God come in the flesh,
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: walks to them on the water in the chaos,
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: God hovering over the chaos in the beginning,
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: Genesis story,
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: and meets them in the darkness to take away their fear and meets them there with
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: the full glory of God.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: And Tim,
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: if we were sitting around the campfire 2000 years ago,
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: would we not just be astounded at the parallels between what is being told here and
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: the story of Moses wanting to see the glory of God,
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: the cleft of the rock, God protecting his eyes.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then here he intended to pass them by, but then does respond.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: Something like God actually responds by covering his eyes, putting them in the rock.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: Taking care of him, Jesus is doing that as well here, right?
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: In a different way.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: Again, I think the first thing that Mark is trying to do here is to say this is who Jesus is.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: He is the glory of God.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: And we can look at the glory of God now fully in the person of Jesus,
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: and it won't kill us, so to speak.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: We can see the glory of God.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: We can enter, as Hebrews says, we can now enter into the throne room of grace with confidence.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: Where before, you know, the glory was too much.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't that it was, you know, an angry God.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: It was just that kind of power.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we sort of see that in the Avenger movies, right?
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: When that power is so great and it just blows up, people can't stand before it.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, imagine this God who is loving and compassionate and caring and the glory is too much.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: But now that glory comes to us in the person of Jesus, full force.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: And announces who he is and says, you don't need to be afraid anymore because I am here.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: And gets into the boat with them,
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: which is pretty amazing that God himself is now in a form in which he can get into
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: the boat.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so when it says he was about to pass them by,
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: it's not saying that Jesus was literally going to walk by them.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's a way of saying the glory of God has shown up in the person of Jesus.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus is the glory of God come in the flesh.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: He is the great I am who has come walking on the waters of the storms to get into
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: the boat with us to say, don't be afraid, I'm with you.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: That's what this story is about.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's about who Jesus is.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: Not so much what he did walking on the water, though that's pretty cool.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: But it's about who Jesus is and what he does when we're in the midst of the storms of life.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: The great I am, the glory of God climbs into the boat with us.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: The creator of the universe who hovered over the chaos of the world and spoke life
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: into being is the one who gets into the boat with us when we're going through
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: the dark times of life.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's what this story is about.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to that.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to, I want to let it like soak in a little bit.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: And if Terry were here, she'd have a better question, but this is my question.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: He got into the boat with them,
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: the wind ceased and they were utterly astounded for they did not understand about
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: the loaves.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: But my, and I,
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think what the writer is saying is like, is this incredible miracle just happened.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: That also points to the person of Jesus, but they weren't quite there.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: But in my mind,
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like we should give them a little bit of a break because even
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: if you were starting to understand,
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: still seeing somebody walk across the waves during a storm,
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think that would leave me a little astounded.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: Marginally astounded.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: There's a couple of things to say about this.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: So first of all, let's remember these are Jewish men.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: Could have been some women in the boat, too,
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: for that matter,
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: because he did have female followers, but they were Jewish people in the boat.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: And the glory of God in human form enters into a boat when they were told not
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: to have any graven images and all that.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: And this would have blown their minds.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: Secondly, Mark is doing something here.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: Again, remember, these are not newspaper accounts.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: These are meaning stories.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: So Mark is saying things through the story.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the things that he's doing is he uses the disciples to be us.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: And to say, yeah, the disciples saw it face to face and they wrestled with this stuff.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: So if you've got doubts, if you've got questions, it's absolutely okay.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: This is normal.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: And the disciples never got it.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: The people around them always got it, right?
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: The wrong kinds of people always understood.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: The disciples didn't.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so in some ways they're the foils for us to just sort of, oh yeah, I can relate to Peter.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: sometimes it's hard to relate to the people who just said,
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: okay, Jesus, yes, I believe you can do this.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: Because some of us are like that, some of us aren't.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: So there's always somebody in the Bible we can relate to,
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: the person of strong faith or the disciples who just never got it until the end.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, so again, there's a lot going on to these stories.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: And for purposes of our series,
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: as we wrap up, the darkness, the chaos, the storms, those are a normal part of life.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: If you read Genesis as it's meant to be taken poetically,
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: it's out of chaos,
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: it's out of darkness that God creates life,
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: that God brings joy, that God brings hope, that God brings comfort.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: And it's into the storms of life that the great I Am in the person of Jesus passes
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: by,
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: comes to us with all the glory and resources of heaven to sit in that boat with us
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: And somehow in some way get us to the other side.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: May not happen instantly.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: It may take a while.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: But if you know that the great I am is driving the boat,
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: then maybe you don't need to be as afraid.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's okay to be afraid.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's all right to have some fear and anxiety,
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: but you don't maybe need to be as afraid because you're not in
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: that boat alone anymore.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: God comes to us in the darkness in the person of Jesus.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: Let's leave that there.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: So next week,
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: we're going to come back with a really interesting topic as soon
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: as we figure out what it is.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: You're going to love it.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: We think we have an idea, but we'll see.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: All right, John.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 31:51
  [music]
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: Please tell your friends.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: Please invite your friends and send us your comments and we'll read them.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, everybody.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, John.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_01: The Deep Grace Diving Podcast.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to say that again.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: The Deep Grace Diving Podcast with Tim Wright,
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: John Burgess, and someday, once again, Gary Summers.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, everyone.