Discovering a Metaphor-free Jesus

For the last few months, I have had the desire to dig down through the current level of my faith to find the bedrock of what I believe. Like the geology of the Earth, our faith has layers. Some of us have assumed our current depth of understanding is the final layer – a place of arrival. It is too easy to park at these shallow depths and assume there is nothing more.

In my journey, I have been looking for Jesus. Not the Jesus limited to my history or my current level of experience, but a fresh encounter with Jesus who sits on a throne in Heaven in a place of unimaginable splendor above all the tricks and gimmicks of manmade religion.

In the process of my digging, I have come to realize what we believe can too easily be turned into a metaphor as a replacement definition for the real thing. Our metaphors for God can become like trees that blind us to the reality of the forest that stands before us.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines a metaphor as "a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them.” The word metaphor comes from the Greek word “metapherein” which means, “to transfer”.

When we use a descriptive metaphor in place of Jesus to describe Him or transfer the meaning of who He is into the form of a metaphor, a danger exists. What we are trying to define – the person of Jesus Christ – becomes a thing or an experience instead of a person. People who listen to us talk about the Lord can begin thinking the metaphors we use to describe Him are the complete truth about Him.

In our exploration of truth it is important to realize we are exploring the depths of a person who had no start date and who has no limits to His power and authority. How could we ever come to the end of a journey of discovery when we are exploring a person who existed before the beginning of all things? Strange theologies have been created by this kind of thinking.

Here is the reality of the one we are trying to communicate - “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.” John 1: 1-3

We are searching to discover the depths of a person who was present before a place called, The Beginning, came into being. In the beginning no human metaphors existed. Standing in that metaphor-free place was the fully complete and fully defined I AM. He needed nothing more to define Him. He was and is, the forever I AM – the same yesterday, today and forever.

This I AM is the uncluttered manifestation of Jesus the world needs to meet, but first, the Church needs to rediscover this pure image of Jesus. When that revelation takes place all our definitions and metaphors about Him will pale in comparison to His raw and beautiful revelation. In that moment our mission and our worship will undergo a dramatic and radical change. That change will define a new reformation within the Church and the beginning of a reformation within culture.

Deflating the Religious Bounce House

Today, I saw the image of a large colorful bounce house. A bounce house is one of those inflatable rubber devices that are brought to life by a motorized air pump. Kids jump and bounce around in them at birthday parties.

When I first saw the image, I simply thought it was a random thought. I saw it a few more times during the day. Tonight, the image appeared once again and this time it carried a message. When the image appeared, I saw the Lord walk over and pull the plug. The structure slowly deflated and lay on the ground in an unrecognizable pile of plastic. People started crawling out from beneath the deflated bounce house with shocked looks on their faces.

I said, “Lord, talk to me.” I really wanted to understand what He was saying. Immediately, He took me back to the image and I saw the bounce house disappear. The people who had crawled out from under the deflated bounce house had been transformed. No longer was gravity inhibiting them. They began to bounce, but there was no bounce house in the scene. They looked like the astronauts jumping on the moon taking exaggerated leaps of faith flying ahead in large bouncing steps of Kingdom advancement.

The Lord said, “I am deflating religious structures that have falsely promised life to My people.” As I tried to unpack what I thought I heard the Lord say, I understood His words to mean He was coming after our methods of fellowship and even our preferred styles of worship. He will deflate what we have used to fill us at the expense of hosting His presence. God is deflating those things because they will not be able carry us into the future. They have kept us isolated in religious bounce houses not engaging culture in a significant way.

When the collapse takes place people will crawl out from underneath the weight of what no longer works to receive a fresh personal infilling and inflating of God’s Spirit.

As the word came to an end, I saw thousands upon thousand of believers bouncing to the tops of each mountain of cultural influence. When they landed at the summit they would deposit their footprints at altitudes previously thought to be unattainable.  That is why He is deflating what is no longer working.

Undercover Christianity

I remember the day when, as a 27 year-old undercover cop, I wanted to return to being a street cop with short hair, a visible uniform and a marked patrol unit. Something went down with a crooked cop that forced my hand.  My partner and I exposed a criminal enterprise and now our lives were in jeopardy. I not only wanted out of the undercover world, but I needed a change of scenery. It was then that Jan and I decided to move north from the San Francisco bay area to a new life as a cop in small town Oregon. It was in Oregon where I discovered my destiny in God’s Kingdom and that destiny has brought me to the place where I stand today.

For a couple of years before I made that decision, I had been working in the seamy world of drugs, vice and organized crime. I carried a California driver’s license issued in another name. I drove an untraceable Dodge pickup. My hair was long. The beard I wore made me look like an outlaw biker. Television dramatizes these assignments, but they expose a person to the darkest fringes of our world. I saw things I could never share publicly because of their graphic nature. Only through the work of the Spirit and the detergent of love have those images been finally washed from my memory.

Some of you reading these words are living like I did when I worked as an undercover cop. You are living under an assumed name. It is not the real you. I am not saying you are living in sin or that you are a fake. What I am saying is this – you need to rediscover your true identity. You have forgotten the real you.

You were spiritually birthed under the power of the Spirit, but something took place and somewhere along the way you started living under an assumed name. You have come to realize, like I did as an undercover cop, that it is time to reconnect with the real you.

As a spouse you may have discovered that you walked away from the real you driven by your need to be loved by another person. The person to whom you are married has never met the real you. Some of you are involved in a ministry and the ministry, not the Spirit, has reformed you into an assumed person. Others have wanted so badly to belong to a group that you took up the group identity in order to belong. You now live lost in the crowd.

2017 can become a year filled with the same failed resolutions and familiar promises or it can be a year where something truly different takes place. Real change must first start by discovering or rediscovering your true identity in Christ. Everything of value flows from that single understanding. If you are willing to make this journey of discovery you will experience what I felt the day when I returned to being a street cop. I felt washed and free. It was like I was being reborn. Your identity has that kind of resurrection power. It was given to you as a map to help you find your way back home again.

Your Place of Refuge in the Storm

Growing up our family weekends were times of exploration. We were what some would call outdoorsmen. Hunting and fishing were our primary activities sprinkled with seasons of baseball and football. On one fall weekend my father took my brother and me out into the country for some “man” time. The deeper into the country we drove the more it began to rain. The plans we had began to dissolve in the wetness.

Like he did many times during my childhood, my father said, “I have an idea!” He went on to say, “Let me show you how to build a fire on a rainy day?”

Dad pulled his truck over to the side of the road and said, “Follow me!” Up the hillside we went to finally arrive under a huge oak tree. Dad showed us how to find the leeward side of the tree opposite the wind and rain. In the windless shadow of the tree trunk was dry grass and twigs. Dad began gather the natural kindling for a fire and within minutes he had a fire going. Smiles appeared on our faces as we dined on chunks of steak skewered on sticks roasted over an open fire. It was the best lunch ever.

Fast -forward 30 years. I was a young pastor on a day off trekking high into the Rocky Mountains near Kalispell, Montana. I was wearing wool pants and jacket and Sorel boots pushing through knee-deep snow. I was hunting for a bull elk. When I had traveled about a mile from my truck I could tell I was losing some of my core temperature. I looked around to find a pine tree that during the summer months would have branches all the way down to the forest floor. It was different now. Two feet of snow covered the ground.

I began to dig through the snow and through the lowest branches on the tree and crawled into the small enclosure around the tree trunk. It was dry as a bone inside. The area was about the size of a one-man tent. Inside this sheltered place was the same kind of dry twigs and branches my father used as kindling 30 years earlier when he taught me how to build a fire on a rainy day. I quickly built a fire and ate my lunch. After an hour in the tree-tent I emerged warmed and empowered to make the long hike back to my truck.

Some of you are caught in a life-storm. You need a place of shelter and you think nothing exists. Like what took place on the rainy day in my boyhood and later in my adult life when I needed to find shelter on a snowy hunt, God has a place of refuge waiting for you to discover. To the untrained eye you would appear to have no options, but with God there is always a place of shelter.  In a time of exposure listen for the words of your Father. He will be faithful to direct you to a safe place in His presence where you can endure the storm and find rest.

“Let me dwell in your tent forever; Let me take refuge in the shelter of your wings.” Psalm 61:4

The Best Day of My Life

It was on this day, January 1, 1962, that one of the most meaningful days of my life took place. For Christmas week, our family was visiting my uncle’s ranch in McArthur, California. I loved driving to the end of Lewis Road and seeing the ranch each summer for hay season. This time we were there in the winter. Everything looked different under a blanket snow.

January 1 is my birthday. I really did not expect to get anything for a present. Being on the ranch was enough of a gift. Mid-morning, my uncle Dan said, “Let’s go for a drive.” To me this was special. We hopped into his 1949 Chevy truck, a vehicle I was already using to learn how to drive, and headed out of the ranch driveway. We drove around talking man-to-man. I loved it. The drive only lasted about 10 minutes. When we returned, I walked into a surprise birthday party. There was cake and soda and streamers hung in the ranch house. I was blown away.

My father stepped forward and handed me a gift. It was a single shot pellet rifle. Everything else in the room blurred in contrast. My focus was on the rifle. I held it in my hands in a state of wonderful shock. I looked up at my dad and said, “Thanks!” He answered my question before I could ask it, “See you later.” I grabbed a can of pellets and the rifle and headed outside toward the open fields to shoot dirt clods and tin cans.

That morning held an unknown significance for me. As I walked along Lewis Road, pellet rifle in hand, I had the strange sensation of maturing. I became pensive and reflective. Things around me became articulate. I was a young poet looking for words. A huge flock of Canadian geese out in a distant field were honking. The puddles of summer were now frosted mirrors cracking under the weight of my feet. As I walked along, I was being transitioned from boy to young man. The rest of the morning was spent shooting and dreaming under the brilliant blue sky of the first cold winter morning of my approaching manhood. 

A few years ago, Jan and I were talking about what each of us considered the best day of our lives. For the purist, my response may not align with your thinking. Yes, the day I met Jesus and the day I married Jan were wonderful days beyond measure, but they are in a different place. The best day in my life was that cold January morning in 1962. Something was put inside me that day that continues to pour out its valuable substance. It seasons the flavor of my writing and adds content to my conversations. I find that in many ways, I am still that young man who now walks across the frozen fields of winter in a 67 -year old body.

Twelve years ago, I was on a road trip alone. My travels took me near Redding, California, so I decided to see if I could remember how to find the old ranch. It had been a long time.  I finally found the ranch, not by road names or maps, but by the familiar scenery still lodged in my memory.

When I pulled off to the side of Lewis Road, I stood at the entrance to the ranch and looked out across the fields that bore my 12-year old feet many years before. Emotion rose up within me – an emotion I still feel as I write these words. I was there again. Free, pure and encapsulated in a beautiful place. As I stood alongside the road, I was the boy-man once again, standing at the gate of manhood. In my mind the fog of age cleared away and I could see a young man walking in the fields, pellet gun in hand, geese honking in the distance and frozen mud puddles under foot. I stood there for a few minutes letting the reel of my memory play out its emotional movie.

I experienced a sense of purity and clarity that day. January 1, 1962 became a template that I would use to arrange the rest of my life. The Apostle Paul described that template in his letter to the Philippians. He had just instructed the Philippians to not worry about life and to pray about everything. Then he added:

“And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” Philippians 4:8

The best day of my life had all those elements. It was a true, honorable, right, pure, lovely and admirable day. It was excellent and worthy of the praise of remembrance. Paul’s words defined all the elements I experienced while walking the fields of my uncle’s ranch. The words of Paul and my experience on the first day of my 12^th year would become the emotional and spiritual map I would use to set the course of my life. Every so often I revisit the best day of my life to make sure I am still on course.