This sermon was inspired by three consecutive daily entries in my other blog, Serendipitous Intersections--October 3rd, 4th and 5th (Year Two). The headings for those days' entries are:
3 Fixed and Moving: our position is determined by our direction, our insistent metamorphosis defined by our unfolding stasis
4 The merciless spark: we stand without excuse before glimmers and hints, whispers and hues of the Kingdom--how much more, then, before the Eternal Expression in Jesus Christ?
5 Disobedient prayer is spirit's self-exile and no prayer at all; rebellious faith is disbelief; but surrender to deliverance is Glory's concrete entry and Forgiveness enfleshed
Concepts of movement, responsibility and reconciliation converged to evoke the following sermon from me, which I presented in chapel at our Bible college a few days after my return from an extended stay in America.
A linguistic note: because I was preaching to a Russian-speaking audience, I needed to explain the two nuances of English "move", since the Russian verb "move" is not used to express emotional response ("I was deeply moved by your words") as the English verb is. Interestingly, both Russian and English use the verb "touch" in this emotional sense.
The concept I want us to contemplate today can be summed up by these two words: "fixed" and "moving". It may seem to us, sitting here in this auditorium, that we are more or less fixed in our places, sitting quietly in our chairs, if you don't count a little bit of shuffling around in our seats. Here we are in a fixed, still room, in a building firmly rooted to its spot, in this city, in this country, on this continent, on this planet--but oops, wait: the planet is spinning!
And not only is the planet spinning, it is circling the sun in our solar system, and the solar system is riding a spiral tail of our galaxy, and our whole galaxy is floating through the universe!
So all of us, right here and now, are moving in all those ways, even as we sit very still and quiet in this room.
Moreover, it is because we are moving in all those ways that we are fixed in a precise location. If we weren't riding the tail of a floating galaxy on a planet circling the sun and spinning around, we would not be here right now. The one is dependent on the other.
The same can be said of our spiritual life: we are fixed and moving at the same time, and the one is dependent on the other...because where we're moving to determines where we are located right now, constantly and continually.
Let's read John 3:19: "Now this is the basis for judging: that the light has come into the world and people loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil." (The NET Bible)
This is the basis for judgment, because this has happened, the fact is accomplished, it is a fixed reality that leaves all people without excuse: LIGHT HAS COME INTO THE WORLD; THE WORD BECAME FLESH AND HAS DWELT AMONG US.
Actually, I believe that man is and has always been without excuse before God, not only because of the Incarnation of Christ but because we inescapably sense the whispers of Truth, we feel the deep rumblings of righteousness like distant thunder, we catch the fleeting glimpses of the eternal Kingdom and we are, consequently, responsible for our choice, whether to listen (or at least try) or to tell ourselves, "No, there was nothing there--I didn't hear anything, I didn't see anything."
And if that's so, then how much more is Man without excuse before God when the Word has become flesh and dwelt among us? This is no hint or whisper merely from God; this is an explosion of heaven's light into the world in the face of God's Only-Begotten Son; this is the the Light of the World, this is a fixed, inescapable fact of human history. The God Who once said, "Let there be light" has become one of us, full of redeeming grace.
This fact is fixed and it must move us.
In English, our verb "move" has a nuance that it doesn't have in Russian. In Russian we say that a story was very "touching", meaning that we were emotionally affected by it. In English we say that same thing! "That was such a touching story." But in English we can also say, literally, that that was a very moving story--the story moved me, and here the verb "move" has the same meaning as "touch". It's as if I felt my heart shift inside me, as if I was drawn, pulled, by the story; this is why we say "I was moved" to mean that I was "touched" or deeply affected emotionally.
Now, the Greek philosophers, trying to figure out Creation and cosmology, came up with a concept of God as the Fixed, or Unmoved, Mover; they pictured the Creator as one who is still and unmoving and causes everything else to move, because movement is a necessary quality of all created things, but not of the Creator. To move is to change, and the Creator neither moves nor changes.
But when we English-speakers hear that phrase "Unmoved Mover" we quite possibly misunderstand the sense of the word "move". We take it in its usual sense, that is, to push things around this way and that. So we imagine this Greek Unmoved Mover shuffling the pieces of creation around on his playing board. But the philosophers had, arguably, the other sense of the word "move" in mind--the sense that is very close to the notion of being "touched" emotionally, that is, to be drawn, pulled, deeply affected. Picture this Unmoved Mover "moving" the whole universe precisely because the whole universe is deeply moved, by love, to come closer and closer to the Creator. This Fixed Mover doesn't shuffle pieces around on any playing board; rather, he "moves" the whole creation simply by being there and attracting it.
Remember, I am talking here about pagan philosophy, about the concepts Man has conceived by the lesser lights of the visible creation and his God-given intuition--but doesn't the apostle Paul tell us in the first chapter of Romans that even such "Natural Revelation" possesses a compelling degree of validity and, crucially, leaves Man without excuse?
Far from neutralizing and obliterating the valid aspects of the Natural Revelation and Greek notions of an Unmoved Mover, the Christian Revelation transcends and subsumes them. If an Unmoved Mover is conceptualized as "moving" us towards itself, by something like love, then how much more are we to be moved by this:
"THE LIGHT HAS COME INTO THE WORLD"
Are we moved? Are we touched? Are we pulled and drawn?
Every person is moving somewhere, both physically and spiritually, whether they are conscious of it or not. All people are moving, either towards the Light of the World or away from it. And it is their direction that determines their position before God. We are, all of us, always FIXED and MOVING, and the one depends on the other.
Christ says, "And this is the judgment." It is a fixed, certain, unwavering judgment: the light has come into the world. It is the axis of history, of time and eternity. Let's read on, John 3:20-21: "For everyone who does evil deeds hates the light and does not come to the light, so that their deeds will not be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God." (NET Bible)
The Lord unveils the true spiritual dynamic behind all human action. No matter what the historian tells you, or the psychologists, or the sociologists, or the politicians, in actuality the one motive force behind all human action is this: we are either coming to the Light of the World, or we are retreating from it, hiding from it, rejecting it.
In fact, this was the condition--the fluid, tentative, precarious condition--of the human spirit even before the Incarnation of Christ. If we understand that, then we can appreciate even more what incomprehensible grace is ultimately unfolded in this EVENT:"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life."
For all who want to come to the Light, for all who are willing to hear those whispers of righteousness, for all who choose not to recoil from those fleeting glimpses of the eternal kingdom, for them and their hearts there is a home, there is a "Son Given", there is a destination, a place to be and a place to move to in love.
Unlike the Unmoved Mover of Greek philosophy, the true God moves and He is moved, in the English sense of the word. God so loved the world; the Son of Man came to seek that which was lost; Jesus wept over Jerusalem and before his friend's grave; we do not have a high priest who cannot be touched by the feelings of our infirmities.... Contrary to Greek philosophy, Heaven's true revelation discloses a God Who is continually moving towards His children in self-giving love, so that our hearts can find their true, fixed home forever.
Where am I right now? That depends entirely on where I'm going right now.
I want to leave you with one small phrase employed by the apostle Paul, for you to consider it in the light of the other things we've thought about so far. In his second epistle to the Corinthians, Paul writes: "God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation." (2 Corinthians 5:19, NIV Bible)
Notice that Paul doesn't say "the ministry of forgiveness"--because forgiveness belongs to God; it is God's business, and God has accomplished it in absolute perfection.
Notice that Paul doesn't say "the ministry of repentance"--because repentance is the responsibility of each sinner himself.
Paul says "the ministry of reconciliation" because his task and ours is to persuade, even beg people to move, to turn, to come into the true place and the true direction eternally appointed for their God-created hearts.
God has done everything necessary, and that's a fixed fact, and when we evangelize we must never doubt that. The Light of the world, revealed in the face of Jesus Christ, is the human heart's true home, and when we evangelize we must never doubt that.
Our confidence in God's answer to the human crisis must be fixed and unmoving, so that we might be moved, touched, compelled by God's love to hold out that answer to human souls hurtling towards eternity.
We can say to them, "Come with us, and dwell in the Father's kingdom, where there will always be somewhere farther to go in His constant, unwavering love."
And if that's so, then how much more is Man without excuse before God when the Word has become flesh and dwelt among us? This is no hint or whisper merely from God; this is an explosion of heaven's light into the world in the face of God's Only-Begotten Son; this is the the Light of the World, this is a fixed, inescapable fact of human history. The God Who once said, "Let there be light" has become one of us, full of redeeming grace.
This fact is fixed and it must move us.
In English, our verb "move" has a nuance that it doesn't have in Russian. In Russian we say that a story was very "touching", meaning that we were emotionally affected by it. In English we say that same thing! "That was such a touching story." But in English we can also say, literally, that that was a very moving story--the story moved me, and here the verb "move" has the same meaning as "touch". It's as if I felt my heart shift inside me, as if I was drawn, pulled, by the story; this is why we say "I was moved" to mean that I was "touched" or deeply affected emotionally.
Now, the Greek philosophers, trying to figure out Creation and cosmology, came up with a concept of God as the Fixed, or Unmoved, Mover; they pictured the Creator as one who is still and unmoving and causes everything else to move, because movement is a necessary quality of all created things, but not of the Creator. To move is to change, and the Creator neither moves nor changes.
But when we English-speakers hear that phrase "Unmoved Mover" we quite possibly misunderstand the sense of the word "move". We take it in its usual sense, that is, to push things around this way and that. So we imagine this Greek Unmoved Mover shuffling the pieces of creation around on his playing board. But the philosophers had, arguably, the other sense of the word "move" in mind--the sense that is very close to the notion of being "touched" emotionally, that is, to be drawn, pulled, deeply affected. Picture this Unmoved Mover "moving" the whole universe precisely because the whole universe is deeply moved, by love, to come closer and closer to the Creator. This Fixed Mover doesn't shuffle pieces around on any playing board; rather, he "moves" the whole creation simply by being there and attracting it.
Remember, I am talking here about pagan philosophy, about the concepts Man has conceived by the lesser lights of the visible creation and his God-given intuition--but doesn't the apostle Paul tell us in the first chapter of Romans that even such "Natural Revelation" possesses a compelling degree of validity and, crucially, leaves Man without excuse?
Far from neutralizing and obliterating the valid aspects of the Natural Revelation and Greek notions of an Unmoved Mover, the Christian Revelation transcends and subsumes them. If an Unmoved Mover is conceptualized as "moving" us towards itself, by something like love, then how much more are we to be moved by this:
"THE LIGHT HAS COME INTO THE WORLD"
Are we moved? Are we touched? Are we pulled and drawn?
Every person is moving somewhere, both physically and spiritually, whether they are conscious of it or not. All people are moving, either towards the Light of the World or away from it. And it is their direction that determines their position before God. We are, all of us, always FIXED and MOVING, and the one depends on the other.
Christ says, "And this is the judgment." It is a fixed, certain, unwavering judgment: the light has come into the world. It is the axis of history, of time and eternity. Let's read on, John 3:20-21: "For everyone who does evil deeds hates the light and does not come to the light, so that their deeds will not be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God." (NET Bible)
The Lord unveils the true spiritual dynamic behind all human action. No matter what the historian tells you, or the psychologists, or the sociologists, or the politicians, in actuality the one motive force behind all human action is this: we are either coming to the Light of the World, or we are retreating from it, hiding from it, rejecting it.
In fact, this was the condition--the fluid, tentative, precarious condition--of the human spirit even before the Incarnation of Christ. If we understand that, then we can appreciate even more what incomprehensible grace is ultimately unfolded in this EVENT:"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life."
For all who want to come to the Light, for all who are willing to hear those whispers of righteousness, for all who choose not to recoil from those fleeting glimpses of the eternal kingdom, for them and their hearts there is a home, there is a "Son Given", there is a destination, a place to be and a place to move to in love.
Unlike the Unmoved Mover of Greek philosophy, the true God moves and He is moved, in the English sense of the word. God so loved the world; the Son of Man came to seek that which was lost; Jesus wept over Jerusalem and before his friend's grave; we do not have a high priest who cannot be touched by the feelings of our infirmities.... Contrary to Greek philosophy, Heaven's true revelation discloses a God Who is continually moving towards His children in self-giving love, so that our hearts can find their true, fixed home forever.
Where am I right now? That depends entirely on where I'm going right now.
I want to leave you with one small phrase employed by the apostle Paul, for you to consider it in the light of the other things we've thought about so far. In his second epistle to the Corinthians, Paul writes: "God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation." (2 Corinthians 5:19, NIV Bible)
Notice that Paul doesn't say "the ministry of forgiveness"--because forgiveness belongs to God; it is God's business, and God has accomplished it in absolute perfection.
Notice that Paul doesn't say "the ministry of repentance"--because repentance is the responsibility of each sinner himself.
Paul says "the ministry of reconciliation" because his task and ours is to persuade, even beg people to move, to turn, to come into the true place and the true direction eternally appointed for their God-created hearts.
God has done everything necessary, and that's a fixed fact, and when we evangelize we must never doubt that. The Light of the world, revealed in the face of Jesus Christ, is the human heart's true home, and when we evangelize we must never doubt that.
Our confidence in God's answer to the human crisis must be fixed and unmoving, so that we might be moved, touched, compelled by God's love to hold out that answer to human souls hurtling towards eternity.
We can say to them, "Come with us, and dwell in the Father's kingdom, where there will always be somewhere farther to go in His constant, unwavering love."
