Course: Spiritual Life of the Leader

Lecture 16: Crisis is an Opportunity for Spiritual Growth (Part 2)

To feed the 5,000, the disciples had to rely on Jesus because they didn’t have the resources. Jesus walked out on the water to comfort the disciples with his presence. The disciples thought they were going to die a terrible death. If you choose to think your situation, the church and others are hopeless, it results in ego desperation, or hopelessness. You see what’s wrong, you think you have exhausted your resources and you see no way that it’s going to get fixed. If you allow the crisis to take you into the life of Christ and dependence on him, it will not destroy you.

I. Epiphany

I hope you have considered how the Lord uses this detachment crisis in our lives. This word ‘epiphany’ in the New Testament in Luke 1:79 is to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. This verb ‘to give light’ is epiphaino or to shine upon, become visible or become known. This is where we get the word epiphany; it reveals the light of Christ. It shines forth the light of Christ. It is to shine on those living in darkness and in the fear of death. That is what Christ came for; to guide us into the path of peace, eirene. With this business of crucifying epiphany; what does it look like? Sometimes you need to see living illustrations of what it is. You see this in Psalm 16, David’s messianic psalm.

II. Mark 6

A. Feeding the 5,000

Let’s look in the Gospel of Mark in Mark 6:30-44 where we see a major miracle unfolding for the apostles. They were part of the miracle of feeding the five thousand. Jesus, of course, is the miracle worker. He was the one who multiplied the loaves and the bread. They were in a deserted place and the disciples were being pressed. The hour is late and they encouraged Jesus to send them away. In verse 37: Jesus tells them to give them food. They think that have no resources in a totally impossible situation. They think that there is nothing they can do about it and so the best solution was to send them away. It was then that Jesus gave them this impossible command, ‘you give them something to eat.’ Then they ask another rhetorical question regarding buying food for them. The miracle revolves around whose resources are they calling on here. Afterwards, Jesus sends the disciples out in the boat to go to the other side of the shore to Bethsaida. Jesus goes upon the mountain to pray. Mount Herman is a little over forty miles north of them. The mountain is very massive with a series of peaks, just under ten thousand feet. This mountain area creates its own weather. I had Israeli gunboat captains tell me that the weather can turn quickly and become so bad that you think that you are going to die. There can be twenty foot swells that come up on the lake water.

B. Disciples in the Boat

So these disciples are out in a shadow draft boat about fifteen feet long. The boat was out on the sea and Jesus was on the shore. He saw that they were straining at the oars against an adverse wind. This shouldn’t have been a problem for them as they were professional fishermen but the wind had become so strong that it was truly a dangerous situation. I can imagine those in the boat were bailing the water out as quickly as they could. When he saw them out in the boat, he came toward them early in the morning walking on the sea. So, it is a storm and a bad situation but we need to understand that the footsteps of love are firm. It says that he intended to pass by them. This was just saying that he was with them in this storm. One of the most embarrassing words in the New Testament; in seeing him walk on the sea, they thought he was a ghost. In that day and time, there were legends of sea spirits; in other words, demonic forces that would come out in the midst of these terrible storms coming off Mount Herman up north. These disciples had grown up hearing stories about these sea spirits of destruction that would come up from the deep during storms. Their early childhood memories and fears are coming back into play. Their deepest fear here in that they are going to die a terrible death.

C. Example of a Pressure Cooker

My grandmother cooked with a pressure cooker; it was a big pot that you would fill with water and put whatever you wanted to cook in it. You literally screw the lid down with a pressure value on top. In using it, it creates a lot of noise and steam. This helps a person to cook things very quickly. So ministry is largely a pressure cooker, especially if you are a young person. For most people, you grow and learn by making mistakes in any situation. Most people are given a setting where they can make mistakes and mature in a normal way. But in today’s sociological understanding, adulthood doesn’t really come about until a person is in the mid 30’s. This is in North America. The point here, maturity, both physically and mentally; our discerning maturity and decision making ability takes time to come about. Hopefully you are in a setting where people are gracious and allow those kinds of mistakes. Ministry is a little different from that; it is an area where you need to grow up quick and mistakes are costly. In one congregation I served, I prided myself on learning everybody’s names. One of the members had a visitor with her and so I thought that it was her mother, but instead it was her sister. So in ministry, screws are tightened around you; it forces you to mature faster and in some ways, I think it is a hard road to go down. So please don’t romanticize Christian ministry for it can be difficult to go through the crisis of critique.

D. Jesus shows up, says, ‘it is I,’ and tells them to not to be Afraid

They all saw him and were terrified. Here, Jesus has compassion on them and immediately spoke to them saying ‘take heart, it is I.’ God’s name, ‘I am that I am.’ He commanded them not to be afraid. He gets into the boat with them and the wind died down.

E. Significance of the Loaves and Fish

They were astounded for they didn’t understand about the loaves, for their hearts were heartened. They had lapsed into vainglory. They thought the thing with the loaves would elevate them, making them mighty people in the eyes of those they were called to serve. They didn’t understand the nature of miracles; it wasn’t to promote them nor is it to promote us. The nature of miracles is to show the character of God. This is a God who provides even when it seems impossible. Jesus continues to disciple us by way of these times of crisis when we are screaming out as if we are going to die; the Lord Jesus comes and says, ‘I am that I am.’ I am with you, do not be afraid. This is words of strong language in that day and time. It is a word eliciting response; do not be afraid. Are we flying apart here; some things may be in the process of being crucified. It is only through a collapse or meltdown that we can get to a point of letting go of the fear we have. We hold onto things that we shouldn’t be holding onto. God wants to display his glory to us. He wants to show us his nature and he never wastes a good crisis, but we must allow him to speak into our lives. In the midst of a crisis, what is it that we are called to do? We move from whatever has fallen upon us and through whatever crucifying epiphany it is meant to be.

F. 2 Corinthians 3

If you really want to understand this from-to movement, go with me to 2 Corinthians 3:16 where it says ‘but when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the spirit, and where the spirit of the Lord is present, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled faces reflecting the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image form one degree of glory to another.’ See the presence; this is the weight of God. It is God’s nature being revealed to us. It is the glory of the Lord as if reflected in a mirror. All of us are being transformed into the same image. Know that I am not being transformed into my definition of the good life. If you follow Pauline thought out, the image of Christ, his character and nature and love. My character, my nature and my love is a shear gift; this sanctification is a gift from God. You don’t process your way into this for it is given to you. We are all being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. We are moving and being moved from one degree of glory to another.

IV. At the Crucifying Epiphany, we Experience Fear

A. Unresolved Issues that Surface

When it appears that life is going to tear me apart, there are all sorts of dynamics causing fear. Remember that fear is always tied into a very specific thinking; this storm is going to sink the boat of my life. Or it will bring up all sorts of anxiety making me question whether life is good or God is good; I don’t know whether I can trust life, others or whether life is going to be meaningful. All of these things are coming to the surface, both fear and anxiety. What is called for at this point? God doesn’t do everything for us; there are a lot of faith decisions along the way. Am I going to trust or am I not going to trust? When I make the decision that God doesn’t have my best interest in mind and people basically think that the church is corrupt. How can anything good come out of any of this? There is no righteousness in the land and nobody cares. What happens when I decide this? It will begin to devolve into ego desperation. I should actually use a more biblical language rather than ego which isn’t a biblical term. Instead, let’s use hopelessness. It is hopeless and devoid of goodness. This is the decision I am making. This is a very self-centered move. Why? You are looking all around and all you see is what is wrong and you think you have exhausted all of your own resources. There is no way that this situation can be fixed and I don’t have any more resources. So this is a profoundly self-curvature in the worst sense that is spinning down with self-deception. It is the spoiled child in me saying that life stinks and I am sick of it. This situation stinks and I just don’t want anything else to do with it. So, ego-desperation starts coming and then there is hopelessness, anger sets in and for some it is a very quick step then to end your own life. Why not? It is all meaningless anyway; there is nothing left to move forward with. This can come across as something hard and cruel. In your own ministry, when someone is dealing with this, you need to take both the firmness of the Lord and the compassion of the Lord. In this session, I am only dealing with people who are in ministry now. This is the way that the devil wants to take us so that we can be destroyed, becoming totally ineffective. It is being taken off the playing field of the kingdom.

B. We Are Not Hard-wired for Hopelessness

Let me also suggest that we are not hard-wired for hopelessness. We are not hard-wired to take this kind of move. So, what are we hard-wired for? What is it that he wants us to do? The crucifying epiphany actually calls all of us to a leap of faith. This isn’t a leap into nothingness; it isn’t a leap that doesn’t have an object pole. What is the action required here, that is being called for here. What is the word here? It is called formative abandonment.

C. Formative Abandonment to the Mystery of God

I am using mystery here in a Pauline sense. Yes, this is a word that Paul uses. It means that which was hidden is now revealed to us in Christ. Formative abandonment to the mystery of God; John Wesley had to do this. He goes to America to be a missionary. He basically writes that he goes to save the heathen and who is going to save me? He ended up leaving American under negative circumstances having to sneak out of the country to return to England. He finds himself in a very difficult day and time in his own life. Then God gets a hold on him, using Moravians to be an instrument to speak into his life where he could abandon his life. Think about all the figures in church history that have gone through major crucifying epiphanies. They heed the call that they are going to surrender and lay my life down moving forward in a way that I don’t understand. I want to move forward trusting God that something someway and somehow is going to do something. There are things that will happen when I take this. I believe from an anthological viewpoint, when the Lord created us he didn’t create us to take a dive down into deep dark depression in excessive agony. I believe he created us to trust him; even though the leap happens when I can’t really see; in fact it all seems impossible. But in that leap, I am saying there are resources that I can’t see that I don’t even understand. I trust that there is something greater than myself at work in this situation.

D. Personal Example

Sometimes illustrations help; it is as if you have to experience something like this. Thirty-eight years ago on this day, my wife and I had a child. So, we are celebrating with that child this day. Earlier, we had one child in 1977 and really felt like the Lord wanted us to have more children. Yet, it seemed to be increasingly difficult to have another child and there was some heart ache in all of this. As was my custom in that day, I got away from the local church and drove to a wilderness area in the southwestern part of the state. There were no cell-phones in that day and time. I was way back in a wilderness area. I woke up one night and I knew that I had to return home. I didn’t know why. I was with my wife’s uncle and a couple of friends. I left by myself early that next morning and drove a long way to find a phone. I used the phone to call home and talked to my mother-in-law. My wife was in the hospital having been through a fairly serious surgery. He had gone in to see her regular physician with great pain in stomach and was sent home. But later that Saturday night she is in emergency surgery as a result of bleeding out. She had been pregnant and as the baby grew the tube ruptured. I returned home that day. Of course afterwards, we were heart-broken as she could no longer have children after that surgery. One of our dear friends simply said that she thought that God didn’t want us to have any more children. Not a very nice thing to say to us at that particular time. Six weeks later, my wife returns to the doctor and I hear someone yelling for the nurse to bring him the chart. Well, there was a baby where it shouldn’t be. The doctor had done a DNC which would have taken out any other baby that was there. Well, my wife had been pregnant with twins. Well, thirty-eight years ago that little girl baby came and she has blessed us today. We have two grand-children now. I think back to the disciples sitting there in the boat on the sea and then God has acted. When I step away and allow him to do whatever he is going to do without trying to control. What does the abandonment do? It says first, I let go and let God do what I can’t control. I can’t work this out on my own.

E. We Need to Trust God

So I let go and I then trust God. It becomes a literal act of trust. Repentance isn’t always going to be involved in this, but if it is, that is going to come as well. I repent for any legitimate way that I have sinfully contributed toward this. Keep in mind, there is truly innocent suffering. A number of times in pastoral ministry, people just love to spread shame around. That is one of the devil’s tools. So, I don’t repent where I haven’t committed sin. I don’t have to be caught up in that. I am literally willing to actively wait. I do not believe in passivism in a spiritual sense where I sit back and do nothing. I am actively looking for how Jesus will unfold this, even if I can’t see it or don’t see it. I am embracing my need for the body of Christ. This drives me toward Christians, toward those I need and who I need in Christ. This is the way of allowing myself to be loved by Christ with real people. I am literally here and not only embracing the trinity but I am allowing the trinity to embrace me.

F. Sometimes Repentance if Necessary

When there involves repentance, does it mean cutting out things of inordinate attachments? Those things I have been holding on too tightly. If I need to let go and then allow to be crucified; I will let go of sinful activity on my part. I do this for his glory because he is calling me to a higher place. These are ways of actively moving forward into this in order to then be open to receive whatever it is that the Lord has for me on the other side of this crisis.

G. Active Waiting

This active waiting also involves a certain sense of patience which is based on confidence. Going back to Psalm 16, we see how that Psalm progresses and what it has to say for us today. After crying out to the Lord and after affirming that the saints in the land are noble. In verse 4, it reads that after also affirming that those who choose another god, simply multiple their sorrows. Then it says that the Lord is my chosen portion and my cup. You hold my lot. It is saying that Lord, you provide everything that I need. I choose to accept what you give; how you providentially care for my life. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places. I grew up in a land of barbed wire fences to hold cattle in and I spent many days riding along those fences in a four wheeled drive or riding on a horse. This is an old man looking back on that fence and sees that everywhere the Lord has led, it is good. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places. You have got everything needful for me; you hold my lot. All than I am and all that I have and will ever be; those things are all in your hands. The psalm continues by saying, ‘I bless the Lord;’ the idea of worship. ‘Who gives me council in the night and also my heart instructs me. ‘I keep the Lord always before me.’ You see the wandering eye in Psalm 36:1. There is no fear of God in his eyes. It is the evil eye that is always out scanning the horizon, trying to find something that will bring meaning into life. It is that divided heart; it is always trying to grab something to fill the void. No, I keep the Lord always before me. His reference is set. ‘Because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad and my soul rejoices and my body also rests secure. For you do not give me up to Sheol, the land of death. What happened with Christ after 3 o’clock on Friday afternoon, on the day he died? What did Peter say that happened? Where did his spirit go? We are talking about classic understanding of Christian theology. He goes and preaches in the land of the dead. He goes to Satan’s dominion and at that point when Satan thought that he had him, it became the greatest upset in world history. Death did not have him. The dead start arising and appeared to the apostles in Jerusalem. He broke the chains of death. This psalm is perfect for the crucifying epiphanies. Death was not the final word. What is more impossible than a dead person? This is why we are Easter people and he rose bodily from the dead. So how does it end?

H. Letting Go of Inordinate Desires

You show me the path, not of death and not of destruction. You show me the path of life because it was one for us in the life suffering death burial and resurrection and ascension of Christ. You show me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy. In your right hand are pleasures forever more. This is where this leads us. May my heart be firm in confidence that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ grants to all of his children. This crisis will not destroy you; it will take you into the psalms and life of Christ.