Access!

 I have a bad habit of giving away books that I love --- I just want other people to enjoy what I love, so I freely hand away books recently read, urging the recipient to "read this."  While I don't regret giving away my books, the result is often that when I want to refer to them later, I often cannot recall either the title or the author of the book I want to reference.  Fortunately, the explosion of information on the internet has allowed me to look up what I have forgotten.

One of the books I handed over several years ago is The Shack Revisited by C. Baxter Kruger, Ph.D., obviously a commentary on The Shack.  In it, Kruger describes himself as a young boy, the friend of a pastor's son.  He tells the story of going to play one day with his friend, whose father had an office/study in the home.  The two of them, playing cowboys, decided to ambush the pastor in his study.  They quietly opened the door, snuck in supposedly without his father's awareness, and held up the older man at 'gunpoint."  The father turned around and ambushed the two of them by gathering them up into his huge desk chair and hugging both of them, all three of them laughing.  

Looking back on that incident as a grown man, Kruger reflects that without his friend, he would have had no access to that home, but even once inside, he would never have dared to enter the sacred study area where the pastor was working.  With his friend providing free access to the father, however, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to not only enter the study, but to ambush the father.  

I was thinking about that story this morning as I read the 14th chapter of John, where Jesus tells the apostles that he is going to "prepare a place" for them, and that he will come back and "take you to be with me."  But he does not stop there.  He goes on to tell them, "You know the way to the place where I am going."  In response to Thomas' inquiry, "How can we know the way?" Jesus answers, "I am the Way...no one comes to the Father but by me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well."  And here is the kicker:  From now on, you do know him and have seen him.

What?  We know that "no one has ever seen God" from the first chapter of John, not to mention the entire Old Testament and the testimony of all the world religions and semi-religions from the beginning.  In the Book of Exodus, Moses, leading the people through the desert, asks Yahweh, "teach me your ways so that I may know you and continue to find favor with you" (chapter 33).  The Lord's answer to him is, "My Presence will go with you and I will give you rest."  Moses replies, "If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?"

When Yahweh answers that He will do the very thing requested, Moses is emboldened to ask, "Now show me your glory." The Hebrew word here for "glory" can also be translated as "presence, weight, substance."  And the Lord said, "I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, Yahweh, in your presence....But you cannot see my face, for no one can see me and live."

Then the Lord said, "There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock.  When my glory/presence passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen."

How then can Jesus say, "from now on, you do know Him and have seen Him?  There is so much here that I almost despair of trying to unpack it all.  

First of all, when Jesus says, "I go to prepare a place for you, that you may be where I am," he is referencing numbers 10:33:  So they set out from the mountain of the Lord and traveled for three days. The ark of the covenant of the Lord went before them during those three days to find them a place to rest. The cloud of the Lord was over them by day when they set out from the camp. (By night, the cloud above the tabernacle looked like fire.)

The Presence of the Lord that Yahweh promised Moses would accompany them on the journey was evidenced in the cloud by day and fire by night.  When the Day of Pentecost arrived in the Book of Acts, God sent fire to accompany the apostles on their journey -- fire and wind as testimony that He was with them.  Christ had told Peter that he was the "rock" on which the church would stand, as all the goodness of the Lord passes by and the Lord proclaims his Name, Yahweh, in your presence.

Just before going to his death, Jesus tells his apostles, Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent....I have revealed You to those whom you gave me out of the world...Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name---the name you gave me--so that they may be one as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them by that name you gave me...I have given them your name, and will continue to make you known that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.

In the desert, Moses is told, "My Presence will go with you and I will give you rest."  God tells Moses that He will do this "because I am pleased with you and I know you by name....and I will proclaim My Name, Yahweh, in your presence."  When I know "your name," in Hebrew mentality, I know your "substance," who you are, your "weight," your "glory."  God knows who Moses is; Moses knows who God is by revelation of God's Presence, His weight, His glory.  This is what Jesus reveals to us on earth:  If you do not believe because of the words I say, believe because of the works I do.  If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.

In the Book of Numbers, the ark of the covenant goes before them to find a place of rest for them as they travel. Jesus tells the apostles that he goes before them to prepare a place for them (to enter "God's rest," we find out in Hebrews).  In John 10, Jesus tells us that He is the "gate," the door, the access to the Father:  I am the gate; whoever enters by me will be kept safe.  He will come in and go out and find pasture (a place of rest and safety/ salvation).

Like C. Baxter Kruger, we too have access to the Father through Jesus, who graciously opens to us the door to his father's house and allows us to enter the place where his father lives.  Indeed, we are invited to make ourselves at home and to take up whatever is in the father's house -- here is the kitchen, the fridge, the freezer -- here is the library; here is a place of rest.  Can you think of anything else you might need / want?  Everything the Father has is mine, and everything I have is yours.  From now on, you do know him and have seen him!