The World is a Spiritual No-Fly Zone

[HKHaugan]

The World is a Spiritual No-Fly Zone

As we said previously the Lord Jesus brought us a relationship not a religion. The obvious reason is we are created to be relational by the fact of our being an image of God. God is relational; Father, Son and Holy Spirit relational; mind, heart and spirit relational; belief, trust and faith relational. Jesus came to restore our relational existence, our relational need, our relational experience. We have a relational church which is the Body of Christ, a relational mission, a relational ministry, a relational worship, a relational discipleship. Holy Scripture is our relational authority.

The emphasis on relationship here is the result of the primary evidence of our human situation, aloneness, having been born separated from our Creator and from one another. Aloneness is the primary proof of sin. Aloneness is the stone rolled across the sepulcher of the closed mind, the sensitive heart and the cautious spirit. Every human being is born with a no-entry sign, a no-trespassing warning, a no-fly zone, obviously presented by a reserved glance, an escapist joke, a designer handshake, cold politeness and other subtle self-protective devices.

The great inner conflict is the desire for a trusting relational experience and the fear laced roadblocks that prevent it from happening. Sin is the spiritual veil that holds humanity in that morning misty minefield of tests the heart uses to sort out who is able to maneuver the safe path to the heart of another. No one is free from this atmosphere of distrust and suspicion. Is there any wonder there is a need for a personal sentinel, a personal servant, a personal companion loyal enough to walk ahead of us through the explosive nature of physical attack, exploitative manipulation, emotional strategists and self-appointed authorities? The world is that minefield and we are alone in it from birth. We need that servant, that companion, that trusted sentinel to come into our aloneness and guide us through it. Aloneness is the desert, the wilderness, the minefield that is filled with fear, uncertainty and speculative anxiety.

As you read this you probably will say that I am being excessive and somewhat paranoid. Really? I believe the world is a dark predatory environment of competitive sinners employing self-centering strategies to survive and that the means of their survival gives them meaning and purpose. The 'I-did-my-way” epithet greases their legacy. It was into this spiritual chaos that Jesus came to be the sentinel, the servant, the loyal companion to each heart that would let Him touch them in the struggle. When I say struggle I mean the real struggle that is within. Everyone has this struggle, the need for relational trust and security. Jesus came to be the sentinel warning the heart when temptation to fear rises, the servant showing the heart the way through the mist and the companion sharing the every next moment burden of the journey.

If you think about the world I have described as a bit too drastic an appraisal, consider where art, drama, literature, movies, music all attempt to cross and deal with the aloneness barrier that besets every human interchange. Philosophy, religion, social systems, economic structures and entertainment enterprises all offer intellectual and emotional escapes to avoid that inner individual precipice. One of our most acclaimed American authors has done as good a job as anyone to face the issue. Ben, the older brother of Eugene, the main character in the play adaptation of Thomas Wolfe’s “Look Homeward, Angel,” tells his searching younger brother, “Eugene, the world is not outside, the world is you.” In the same book Eugene ponders what he must have experienced as an infant,”…and left alone to sleep in a shuttered room…unfathomable loneliness crept though him…caged in that little round of skull, imprisoned in that beating and most secret heart, his life must always walk down lonely passages. Lost. He understood that men were forever strangers to one another, that no one really comes to know anyone…and caught in that insoluble prison of being, we escape it never , no matter what arms may clasp us, what mouth may kiss us, what heart may warm us. Never, never, never, never, never.” Wolfe’s book pleads for an answer to human individual aloneness as does all of secular literature like it. There is hardly a song composed, a play written, a movie produced, that the key theme doesn't deal with individuals pondering their aloneness. If aloneness is one proof of sin and its separation from God then the final proof is death. Every one is born alone and every one dies alone.

Into this morass of heavy laden human travail comes the personal grace, truth and love of Jesus to counter the entire mass of human tragedy. How does He present Himself? He is born into a lonely body but is never alone. He centers on His Father, His Father's will and lives for His Father's Word and thrives on the Holy Spirit. He lives by faith in His Father and His Father's oneness with Him through the Spirit who drives Him. He has a passion for bringing others to His Father. What human beings have tried to do without God Jesus accomplished by depending on Him. Even though His belief and trust caused His death He lived to show that He was never alone and rose from death to show He was the God everyone forgot and lost contact with.

Look at how Paul, in Philippians 2:5-11 captures this primary cry of every human soul and says that Jesus, God the Son, “…being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And, being in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death---even death on a cross!” In other words He took the experience of our frustrating aloneness, lived in it, introduced a whole new spiritual way of seeing self, others and God, accepted death in order to reach our hearts and give us not only hope but a whole different way of looking at and living life. We are no longer at the mercy of aloneness because when He rose from the dead He proved that no one is ever alone or that they ever have to feel alone again. He is always there with us. The phone commercial that says ‘Reach out and touch someone’ is really a call to overcome aloneness. That is what God did. He sent His Son to reach and touch us. For those of us who let Him touch us we know we are no longer alone.

Given a struggling economy, growing world unrest, the tenuous job market and creeping fear within, aloneness is screaming from within for an answer. Broken relationships divorce, increasing physical problems and the horizon of uncertainty are tastes of death facing us every sunrise. Aloneness is real. Death is real. Why are there so many songs about being alone, so called self-help books written, clubs formed, TV dating services emerging? People are not able to deal with the one thing that threatens the interior of all human beings, aloneness. So in John 14 when Jesus answers Thomas’ question about where Jesus is headed He replies, “I am the way, the truth and the life.”

Here Jesus gives us the orientation for patterning our daily life, for reasoning and decision-making and for spiritual grounding----an ongoing personal relationship with Him. Eternity is all about relational living. The power of aloneness and death died when Jesus rose. Every day of His life as recorded in Scripture was a witness to what every human being was intended by God to be like. Every day He faced conflict and the needs of those He met and their needs were always considered regardless of the rejection He faced. On the Cross His concern was for others and even His enemies as He pleaded for their forgiveness and salvation. His dying words centered on His Father and the souls of others. Who in history compares with Him? What religion or system has someone like this who can touch us with the perfection that meets our imperfections and loves us at the same time?

So if someone asks the question 'Why Jesus?', perhaps you might just say, “Why not Jesus?”