Eucatastrophe

Transcript

Good morning, family. As Josh mentioned in the pastoral prayer this morning, we have the privilege of having one of our members, Paul Hoffman, open God’s Word to us. Paul and his family have been at Trinity for about a year now. And over the course of that year, Paul and I have spent a lot of time together. One of the things that has become very clear to me in our time together is that Paul has a deep heart for Portland, for people, for pastors, and for preaching. A lot of Ps there. And God in his providence has taken Paul’s love. This is a whole lot of Ps, actually. I didn’t notice that when I was preparing. Lord has taken all of those things that Paul loves and he has providentially put him in a place where he gets to serve the church in a very unique and meaningful way.

Paul currently serves as the director of church development at Church Venture Northwest, which if you’re unfamiliar with that, it is an affiliation of like-minded churches. Where he works to support congregations in seasons of need. So specifically, he helps churches walk through crises. He assists with pastoral assessment and placement for churches that are looking for pastors. And then he just comes alongside churches that simply need help or wise counsel. And so we are very grateful for Paul and for his family. We’re particularly grateful and thankful for his love for the local churches in the Pacific Northwest, for his love for God’s word, and for his willingness to serve our body with his unique gifts. And so, Paul, would you come up and let me pray for us and for our time together as you open up God’s word? Family, let’s pray. Our Father and our God, we do thank you that you have not left Portland without help.

That you have given us pastors, church plants, healthy churches, and church affiliations. But Father, we do thank you specifically for Paul, for his ministry in the Pacific Northwest. So we pray now, oh God, that you would help Paul as he seeks to open up your truth to the people that he is committed to, this local body. We pray, oh God, that you would give us the help of the Holy Spirit to empower Paul, but also to open up our eyes to the truth of your word. Open up our ears so that we might hear what you have to say for us. Say to us, and as a result, we might be changed and conformed into the image of Jesus. So we pray, oh God, that you would meet us here this morning in a profound way. We are needy people, and so we welcome your help this morning.

Balcony Dweller’s Perspective

We pray these things in Christ’s name, amen. Thank you, brother. Good morning, church family. It’s good to be with y’all. I love our church family. The work I get to do across the Northwest is a regular reminder of how much I appreciate our church. What I get to observe, I’m a balcony dweller. I love it. It’s a good space up there. There’s many of us. Come say hi once in a while. But it is a sweet gift I’ve shared with Thomas a couple times. One of the things I love about sitting up there is just getting to see how our body engages with the Lord in a multitude of ways. You see it in the great joy that people bring on Sunday, the sorrow, the pain, the delight. And having pastored in some form or fashion over the last 20 years, it’s a gift. It’s a gift when you serve in ministry and you get to see people engage with the Lord.

And so I’m thankful for our church body. I’m thankful for who we are. One of the things that brought me to Portland 10 and a half years ago was to plant a church here in Northeast Portland. My family and I live and have lived our entire time in the city in the Roseway neighborhood in Northeast Portland. Planting a church is a funny business. Serious. I don’t mean funny haha. I mean just peculiar. In our case we moved from Tennessee to come here and you drop into a place and for me at least you plant the church you want to be a member of. It was a small faithful work that we did over seven years that the Lord decided it was time for that to shut and you kind of wonder after you plant a church will I find a place that feels like home and Trinity is that place for us, for my family.

It is in a great many ways what I had hoped the church we planted would become. So thanks for being family. Even if I haven’t met you yet, hi I’m Paul, I’m a brother, I love you dearly and let’s jump in. One of a great influence in my life since college has been J.R.R. Tolkien. Another reason why this is just such a great family. I love Tolkien for a great many reasons. He has influenced me in ways that I am constantly being revealed to me as I read his work, as I read Lord of the Rings and watch Lord of the Rings. I do it regularly. It’s a rhythm in my family. Tolkien is an interesting character because he’s not one who is unfamiliar with tragedy. Growing up he was sent away early as a boy. He ultimately serves in World War I, the British Army and one of the most tragic battles

of that war. A couple of times he had to go and go to the medical unit for trench foot. He knew tragedy well. He understood it. And yet he had this uncanny vision of the world that was enchanted. He loved the Lord in a deep and profound way that really quite frankly if you look at his counterpart C.S. Lewis, Lewis’ perspective having also served in the war made a whole lot more sense for his generation. And yet Tolkien as he sits in the midst of war still looks for enchantment and beauty. He comes out changed no doubt but in a greater understanding of who God is and the story that was unfolding before his very eyes. In 1947 Tolkien writes an essay titled On Fairy Stories delivered as a lecture to the University of St. Andrews for the Andrew Lang lectures. On Fairy Stories is regarded as one of Tolkien’s most influential scholarly works.

We would all know him from Lord of the Rings but he wrote a great many things on helping people understand fairy tales as we would call them. On Fairy Stories attempts to clarify why he viewed fairy stories or as we would call them fairy tales as a legitimate literary work. One that communicated deep and profound truths about the world, right? These aren’t just like stories of elves and dwarves that we would be accustomed to. They are stories that communicate deep truths about the world and how it is oriented, how it unfolds, and how it should be reconciled. In the essay Tolkien introduces a term, eucatastrophe, quite literally good catastrophe. He defines it as the sudden joyous turn in a story. It is a sudden miraculous grace as he describes. And he would argue that every fairy story has this. If you read much on Tolkien you’ll find that when he read the Gospels he saw it as the

The Good Catastrophe

perfect fairy story. Not something that’s untrue but something that is deeply true and profound. Where we find ourselves in the text this morning sets up a sort of eucatastrophe. Jesus ends his farewell discourse as Thomas preached last week with, in the world you will have trouble but take heart I have overcome the world. It’s this turn in the story. For a moment place yourself where the disciples are. We have the benefit of the scriptures that tell us the end of the story but the disciples are experiencing this in real time. They’ve heard Jesus teach all of these wild and incredible truths. They have heard him say, hey I’m going to die. The man they’ve spent the last three years following and hanging out with keeps reminding them I won’t be here forever. They have a picture of who he is in their mind and yet he keeps telling them, yeah I’m

going away. As Jesus moves closer to the cross, what the disciples will experience is tragedy. What we would read in any other story, if we haven’t read the end yet, would believe to be tragedy is actually victory. Our passage this morning points us backward to incarnation and forward to death and resurrection. The glory of Jesus being revealed so that all who believe might have eternal life. Would you stand with me if you’re able as we read the scriptures? In John’s account of the life of Jesus he writes, when Jesus spoke these words he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, father the hour has come. Glorify your son that the son may glorify you since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom

you have sent. I glorified you on earth having accomplished the work that you gave me to do and now father glorify me in your presence with the glory that I had before the world existed. Family, this is the word of the Lord. You guys can have a seat. As we look at the text this morning I’d like us to consider kind of four thoughts. First the glory of the son is the glory of the father. Second the authority of the son is the authority of the father. Third the work of the son establishes the work of the church. And fourth the transcendent reign of the son with the father. You know from the time Jesus enters Jerusalem to this moment he is preparing the disciples for what comes next. He walks into the city a triumphant king, right, but a king of peace as we have read.

He comes in on a donkey not a war horse, right. And over the course of the week Jesus is giving his kind of final teachings in word and deed, right. He doesn’t just fill their minds with good truth. He also acts out exactly what he is expecting them to do as he goes to be with the father. He gives us a sense in word and deed of what it means to be a member of his kingdom in all of its beauty, a kingdom of self-sacrificing love, a kingdom where we would serve one another as faithful witness, a kingdom where we look to our neighbor and see value and dignity in them. John transitions the moment to Jesus’ prayer where he will reiterate many of the lessons that we’ve read over the last several weeks. He will kind of summarize this farewell discourse over the course of this prayer.

Glory and Authority

And the prayer becomes a signpost for how we relate to God and how we enter the work Jesus invites us into. And so the glory of the son is the glory of the father. John opens the prayer up with, when Jesus had spoken these words he lifted his eyes to heaven, father the hour has come, glorify your son that he may glorify you. See John first points us to the fact that Jesus is moving his attention from teaching the disciples to communion with the father, right? He lifts his eyes. It’s a complete attention moving toward who God is and the work that’s about to happen. It’s a posture, right? He’s making known there’s this clear transition as the disciples are experiencing life with Jesus they know, oh, this is different. This is different. And while the disciples no doubt benefit from being with Jesus as he prays, it is a moment

between the father and the son, right? Have you had those moments like you’re with somebody and they’re praying and you’re like, yes, I want to be in this moment. This person is closer to God than I am, right? I have as few people like that in my life where when they pray, I’m like, oh, I’m getting a glimpse of something profound, something that’s for me, but not for me, right? That’s what this moment kind of is for the disciples. They’re peering in on it. They’re seeing Jesus with the father and it is a moment of which they benefit, although it is not directly for them. And in looking to the heavens, Jesus is directing this prayer to the home of the father, right? Or some commentators wrote to the abode of the father. It becomes this bridge between two spaces, a thin place between heaven and earth, Jesus

and the father. He sums up his teachings in these moments, undoubtedly an awareness that the disciples are present and yet also, Lord, all these things I’ve said, let them be true. Do the work that you have sent me to do. Over the course of Jesus’s ministry, he reveals glimpses of his glory, right? Jesus says here, father, the hour has come, glorify your son that the son may glorify you. And we’ve seen glimpses of this glory throughout the life of Christ, particularly as we have gone through the book of John. The Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible defines glory as the singular splendor of God and its consequences for humanity, right? We see it in Jesus’s miraculous works, taking ordinary things like water and doing extraordinary things like making it the best wine. Not just the two-buck Chuck stuff, right? It’s the stuff that you’re like, I want to go to that party because it has the better

wine. Jesus takes ordinary things and does extraordinary acts. We see it in how he heals the sick, right? He comes up to the man at the pool of Siloam and he says, do you want to be healed? And he does it. Where the man was putting his trust in all of the myths and all of the things of his day, Jesus walks up and says, you’re healed. Go and live that way. Live as a whole person. We see it in the way that he bridged cultural divides, right? We see this very clearly with the woman at the well. The manner in which he engages with her. She views herself as someone altogether different than the Jewish people. And yet Jesus says, no, there will come a day when everyone will worship me in the same manner and in the same posture. These are mind-blowing glimpses of glory.

And the most profound of all on the Mount of Transfiguration, when Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up to the mountain and they get this picture of the fullness of who he is. Magnificent. These glimpses of glory. And Jesus prays, as the hour has come, glorify your son completely. There will be no doubt of who he is. As Jesus prays this, it speaks to the moment when he first enters the city in chapter 12, verses 27 through 32. John writes, now my soul is troubled. What shall I say? Father, save me from this hour. But for this purpose I’ve come to this hour. Father, glorify your name. Then a voice came from heaven. I have glorified it and I will glorify it again. The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said an angel has spoken with him. Jesus answered, the voice has come for your sake, not mine.

Now is the judgment of this world. Now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw people to myself. The glory of the Father and Son, the glory that the Father and the Son share will be fully realized in Jesus’ defeat of the power of sin and death. When he’s lifted up on the cross, we see the profoundness of this glory that is not a tragedy but a victory, a good catastrophe. See as Jesus is lifted up on the cross and later as he’s put in the tomb and is resurrected, we see the glory of God in full technicolor. That glory which was present in creation and incarnation and in the many miracles performed is put on full display. The text moves on in verses 2 and 3 and talks about this authority that Jesus has.

Now there’s a parallel work happening in the incarnation of the Son. When he comes, that we might know God and that knowledge would draw us into a beautiful union with the Father, right? This knowledge of God is this kind of full embodied knowledge. It’s not just kind of knowing facts like we learn in school about, you know, one plus one equals two, but it’s a full embodied knowledge that fills your mind, it fills your heart, and it moves to your hands and feet as you act on these things. And it’s this magnificent union with God, right? One that we can’t have outside of Jesus. The power and authority that the Son works from is the very power and authority that establishes the whole of creation. We can know God because Jesus makes the way, and he makes the way through the authority that the Father has given him.

The authority of the Son is the authority of the Father, verses 2 and 3, since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. Jesus is the true King of all creation. There’s no place in all of the created order, there’s no human being that exists or that will exist or who has existed that is not under the authority of Christ. He is the supreme King. There is no greater authority in all of the world. And this is the profoundness of the cross, that he would defeat the enemy as we read in John 12. The one person who thought they might have something on Jesus had nothing on him. He has all authority. Anything he does from this point forward in the Gospel of John that we read is because

he allows it to happen. Being taken captive at the end of this prayer, being put on trial, being hung on the cross, being put in the grave, all comes under his authority. Not in opposition to his authority. Authority that is given to him by the Father. Jesus is the supremely sent one. He comes with all authority and power to live the best human life. Being the only one who can bridge the divide between God and humanity permanently. It is only through Jesus that we can have communion with the Father. Listen, church, he, Jesus, is the best model for the way to be human. When we think about what it is to be human, and particularly in our day and age when we have a whole lot of answers that point us to identities and it points us to the right political view and it points us to dreams of what you might accomplish, no, the best

way to be human, the best model for humanity is the incarnate God, Jesus. Living the life that humanity was intended to live from the very beginning in complete union with God the Father. So when we wonder how should we orient our life, how we live in community with each other, and how we live in union with God, we look to Jesus. We look to Jesus, who came in full authority over all flesh to offer this life that he has talked about throughout the Gospels. In our cultural moment, we’re tempted to believe that people can encounter God and experience eternity with him through many avenues, right? We’ve probably heard the phrase many times, like, all roads lead to God. That is completely and utterly false. There is one way that leads to God, and it is only through Jesus, right? Jesus makes this abundantly clear in 14, 6 through 10.

Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him. And Philip said, Lord, show us the Father, and that’s enough for us. And Jesus said to him, have I been with you so long that you still do not know me? Philip, whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, show us the Father? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you, I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does this work.

— John 14

(ESV)

Jesus makes it abundantly clear that the only way to know God, the only way to have

full communion with God is through belief in who he is, in submission to his authority as the supreme king of the whole universe. It is only through the redemptive rule and reign of Jesus that we can know the Father and experience eternal life with him. It is by no design of our own. This is not a choose-your-own-adventure. We enter relationship with God on his terms and by his means, and that’s through knowing Jesus as the true king of the universe and delighting in the singular splendor of God. The eucatastrophe of the human story is the pursuit and rescue of God. We aren’t left to destruction. As we open the book and we see, as we open the scriptures and we see from the beginning that when we’re left to our own devices, when we’re left to our own wisdom, catastrophe happens. God enters the story in human flesh and provides a way out.

The Church’s Sacred Work

A miraculous turn in the story. The story of humanity is one where we believe we know better than the creator. We’re tempted to believe that the deception constantly of the evil one, that God’s withholding something from us. But Jesus comes full of grace and truth with all authority as the standard bearer for the best way to be human. And so when we wonder, how do we navigate this life, we look to Jesus as the one with full authority through whom is the way that we come to the father. Through Jesus’ authority, we are welcomed into communion with God and into the work God making known his redemptive rule and reign now and in the age to come. Listen, church, we can’t worship what we don’t know. We will come week in and week out and we’ll read the scriptures and we’ll teach the scriptures to the glory of God.

We’ll sing magnificent truth filled songs to the glory of God. We’ll fellowship and we’ll see glimpses of God. But we can’t worship what we don’t know. If you are here this morning and observing all of these things and you have not met the risen Lord, let me tell you, he is magnificent and he has provided a way for you to experience all of the goodness that we have sung about, that we read about, that we will see displayed in the table. He is the good God who forgives all sin when we come to him with a posture of submissiveness. The work the son establishes is the work of the church. Jesus made the glory of God known through the work that he did. There are parallel works happening in the life of Christ. When we see the lines like this in the scripture, right? When we read these words in verse four, I have glorified you on earth, having accomplished

the work that you gave me to do, it is both what Jesus has done, what we have already read and what Jesus will do, what we will read over the coming weeks, right? It’s the things that Jesus has given the church to do when he sends out the 72, when he talks about love for one another as the evidence of faithful witness to the world, as he instructs us in his name to heal the sick, to give sight to the blind, to feed the hungry, but also in what we will read in the great commission before he ascends to the right hand of the father, go and be my witness into all the world. What we’ll read in John’s account of the great commission being as the father has sent me, so I am sending you. What we read in Matthew, that all authority on heaven and earth has been given to him,

so therefore this kind of sharing of authority with his church, go into the world and make all disciples baptizing them in the name of the father, son, and spirit, and I will be with you to the end of the age. You see, the work that the son establishes, that he was sent to do by the father, is the work the church does now through the power of the Holy Spirit. We participate in the sacred work and mission of God. Jesus teaches us in his word indeed what the work of the kingdom looks like, and he empowers us to do the same work that he did by being faithful witness to the glory of God. The starting point for this work is the love Jesus models that we see in 13, 34, and 35, and then again in 15, 12 through 17. John writes, when he had gone out, Jesus said, now is the son of man glorified, and God is

glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and glorify him at once. Little children, yet a little while I am with you, you will seek me just as I said to the Jews, so now I have also said to you, where I am going you cannot come, but a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another just as I have loved you, so you are to love one another. People will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. And then again in 15, 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 are my friends. If you do what I commanded you, you are no longer servants, for the servant does not

know what the master is doing, but I have called you friends. For all that have heard from my father I have made known to you, and did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask in the father’s name, he may give it to you. These things I command to you, so that you will love one another. Because of Jesus’ work of redemption and restoration, we can do the work that he has given us to do in the world. He makes a way for us to do it, right? He doesn’t just leave us holding the bag with all of these rules and commandments, he actually empowers us because of what he modeled for us, and then sending the helper, the Holy Spirit, to fill us with everything we need for life and godliness.

Because of Jesus’ work of redemption and restoration, we can do his work in the world, making the father known to all humanity, to all of creation, as Mark says. We do the work God gave us through the power and authority Christ shares with us that was given by the father when he sent him to dwell among us. Now it’s important to know, because in our day we have the common phrase, right, like just bootstrap yourself up, right, pull yourself from your own bootstraps. We’re tended to think that this work is done by our own ability, by our gifts. And look, sometimes we even baptize this work by saying like, well God has gifted me, and yet we still work on our own power. We still work on our own authority, believing that it has to happen this way, or that way, or it’s not God’s way.

And church, I would just challenge you that we are given a work to do in the world that is Jesus’ way, and we need to be very sensitive to what Jesus’ way is. We need to be, we need to consume the word of God to understand that way so that we might not confuse our way and his way. We need to love the scriptures and bathe ourselves in it, washing ourselves with the word that we can discern rightly where we’re acting on our own and where God is working in us because of the authority that he shares with us. We do none of this on our own ability. Peter writes to the church and he says, his divine power has granted us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence by which he has granted us his precious and very great promises.

So that through them, you may become partakers of the divine nature having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of our sinful desires. Trinity, this is good news. We have everything we need for life and godliness. There is not one thing we lack. Jesus doesn’t leave the disciples and he doesn’t leave us holding the bag. He has given us all that we need for life and godliness. In fact, we are shares of this glory when he says that we are partakers of the divine nature. For those who have come to faith in Jesus, who believe that he is the true king of the universe, we’re partakers of the divine nature. We have all that we need to accomplish the work that has been set before us to proclaim the gospel to the whole world. That the fullness of those might believe and come to faith in Christ.

This is good news. The power of God that rose Christ from the dead is the power in us through the spirit. We can do all the things that Jesus taught us because he’s given us everything we need to do so. We don’t lack anything. We don’t lack anything. And listen, don’t mistake this for like an individual call that you have to do it by yourself. This is why God gives us the church, a family. We do this together. It’s our work together as a church in this city to proclaim the goodness of God. To declare his redemptive rule and reign over every man, woman, and child who calls this city home and everywhere else that we will go in the world. Winfield Bevins writes this, as the father sent Jesus, he also sends us into our time and culture. Thus, mission is not about creating something from nothing or simply starting something

Transcendent Reign

new. Rather, it is about joining a mission that has existed from the beginning of time. Sacred mission is joining Jesus in his mission in the world today. You’re invited to join this. Lastly, the transcendent reign of the son with the father. John’s gospel opens this way, right? He says,

in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God and all things were made through him and without him not anything was made that was made. In him was life and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

— John 1

(ESV)

At least in this part of his prayer, Jesus speaks where the story begins with him returning to the father in his physical state to share the glory that he was there at the very beginning

of creating all that we enjoy and know in this world. Jesus’ reign with the father is a distinct one, right? He comes back to the father but his reign with the father is still distinct, right? He remains the son, the incarnate son. And they share this glory and it becomes this beautiful picture of the Godhead in the scriptures. Gerald Borchardt writes, the Godhead in John is very personable and identifiable both before the incarnation, in the incarnation, and thereafter in the post-resurrection return of Jesus. We would know God personally. This is what John talks about in the beginning of the prayer, knowing God. This is what he is now reaffirming in returning to the father, that we would know who the father is because of who Jesus is. That Jesus would return to the father in glory as to prepare a place for us that we join

him in at the culmination of the ages when he returns again. It points us to resurrection and second coming. Jesus’ redemptive rule and reign declare that there is no greater power and authority in all the cosmos than what the triune God has. Tolkien concludes on fairy stories speaking of the gospel and he says, . But this story has entered history and the primary world. The desire and aspiration of sub-creation has been raised to the fulfillment of creation. The birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of man’s history. The resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the incarnation. The story begins and ends in joy. It is preeminently the inner consistency of reality. There is no tale ever told that men would rather find true and none which so many skeptical men have accepted as true on its own merits. For the art of it has the supremely convincing tone of primary act that is of creation.

To reject it leads to either sadness or to wrath. To look forward to the great eucatastrophe, the Christian joy, the gloria is of the same kind but it is preeminently high and joyous because the story is supreme and it is true. The Lord has been verified. God is the Lord of angels and of men. Church, I love Tolkien because he re-enchants my imagination that when I look at the scriptures, it’s just not historical facts but a beautiful story that is true and stands true on its own merits. We have plenty of things that verify the validity of the scriptures and yet we need none of them because they come from the very words of God. It is true in itself and it is beautiful and it is a story that people want to find true. They’re looking for transcendence. They’re looking for the best way to be human and Jesus has offered us all of that in the

scriptures and in the life that he modeled for us. Jesus came and lived among us, modeled for us the best way to be human and the way in which we have eternal life, eternal communion with God the Father and he has given us the honor of joining in the sacred mission to speak the gospel and word and deed to every place and to every person so that the fullest number of people might come to the Lord. This is our charge, church. The rest of this prayer will go through and I believe highlight the beauty of the mission to come. The way in which Jesus is praying for his immediate disciples and for the future disciples and the way in which we would join him in the work that he has come to do in the world and model the best way to be human. To put his authority and his glory on display that every man, woman, and child would confess

that Jesus is Lord of all. Would you pray with me? Father, thank you for the great gift of your word. Thank you that you don’t leave us holding the bag. God, you could have prayed and disappeared and yet you empower us to continue the work that you have established. God, might we go from this place and be empowered. God, may we be nourished through the taking in of the word, through prayer, through the singing of songs. Lord, as we come to the table, would you nourish us? Lord, help us to experience extraordinary grace in the times that we’re in. Would you bless us and keep us? Would you make your face shine upon us and be gracious to us? Would you lift up your countenance to us and in these wild days, Lord, give us peace, that we might reflect you brilliantly to a world that is dying to know you.

It’s in Jesus’ name we pray, amen, amen.