On the way home from dropping my wife off at the airport, I stopped in at the Billy Graham Library. Having a bit of an aesthetic-tooth, I was quite impressed with quality and design of the property. Evidently Dr. Graham grew up in a family of dairy farmers, as this theme is milked for all its worth. My creative-heart drank heartily from it.
Yet, I was more struck by the pictures of various occasions throughout his life scattered about. He was a man of significant godly influence. Though he has appeared on television numerous times, giving an altar call, rarely has he ever been refered to as a “TV Evangelist.” His character of godly wisdom and holiness filled his “preacher” suits. His wife’s gravestone has carved into it the Chinese character for righteousness. She loved the Chinese people, and the world loves her husband for his character of true but humble righteousness. It is sad to see such a godly giant limping about in the twilight of his life.
It has been said that he was able to present a complex Gospel in a simple, heartfelt way to a world hurting with complex problems. While not all have responded to his pleas for accepting eternal life, all who heard him knew clearly that a holy God demands justice that we sinners can’t pay. And all who have heard him know this potentially abrasive message comes from a man of sincere love for sinners. Righteousness is atop his wife’s gravestone, and righteousness clothed in humility is atop his large heart. We trust him because we trust his character, though many may have rejected his message.
I have been spending a couple of weeks preparing teachings on Sunday mornings, dealing with the Judgment Jesus will bring in his Second and Final Advent, one of final victory. I thought it appropriate to pick up a copy of Johnathon Edwards’s sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” today, while at the BG Library. It is sure to be an interesting read.
This past week I’ve taught during a church’s revival services. Tonight, being the last night, I felt it appropriate to celebrate Communion. Taking a cue from Ray Vander Laan, I added a feature: Elijah’s Cup. The sacred rite of Holy Communion is an innovation from the Jewish celebration, Passover. There are four cups of wine consumed during Passover: The Cups of Sanctification, Deliverance, Redemption, and Restoration; all based on phrases of Exodus 6:6-7. Many add a fifth cup: The Cup of Elijah, based on Exodus 6:8. Elijah will precede Messiah, who will completely restore Israel. This cup is not touched, but is left for Elijah, himself. During the time of Jesus, this cup, signified the wrath God had stored up for the nations. Jesus goes to the Garden of Gethsemane and, beginning to take the weight of the Sin of the world on his shoulders, asks the Father to take “this cup” from him. Yet, he accepts the Father’s will for him to drink … Elijah’s cup: The Cup of God’s Wrath stored up for the nations. Before coming to the altar, each person passed by Elijah’s cup, turned it over, saying, “No Condemnation.”
Yes, I understand that anger is a necessary tool in God’s disciplining tool box, if God is truly a God of justice that hates evil. What I find a bit more difficult to grasp is believers who live in the Grace of the Jesus, who drank Elijah’s cup for them, and yet feel free to pass the cup from Jesus to other people. They attempt to take onto themselves the mantle of a typical Old Testament prophet. These fellows appear on both sides of the “aisle.”
The difference between these modern day Elijah’s and Billy seems to be found in the suit-stuffing. Billy’s preacher suit is stuffed with a character of gold and love worth its weight in platinum. Many of these reincarnation-attempts at Elijah are stuffed with an inflated ego that needs to “feel” like a preacher.
Isaiah prophesies, “Behold, the LORD will empty the earth and make it desolate, and he will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants” (Isaiah 24:1; ESV). Yet Isaiah questions, “How long, O Lord?” (ESV) His heart was consumed by his love for God. Yet, his heart bled with undying love for his people.
Holy Communion is the celebration of freedom from the wrath of God … and … the promise of transformation, as we fellowship/commune with Jesus (and one another) in his sufferings and pathos for the world. Why do so many of us demand that people clean themselves up before being enabled to flee from God’s wrath? Sinners make us uncomfortable. They are the ones that must change … without our help … because they make us uncomfortable. Yet, we are comfortable, grasping them with angry hands, and strangling the life right out of them. Never mind that prior to a bath in Jesus’s blood and the indwelling of the Spirit, sinners are unable to change.
What does change over time for these Elijah-reincarnation-attempts is they begin to hold their own brothers and sisters in the Lord in their noose-like grasp. Fear drives our little Elijahs into cultural isolation. God came in the still, small voice to the first Elijah. Our little Elijahs lurch out in the thunder, lightning, and hurricanes. Anger is merely a tool for God, meant to prevent a stubborn peole from falling off a cliff. Anger for our little Elijahs oozes from their very hearts with a horrendous stentch.
Yes, God’s wrath hangs over Sinners and his discipline trains believers for yielding peaceful fruit of the holy righteousness of God. Yes, we are called to call Sinners to repentence and slipping believers to accountability. I merely wish we would learn to conjure up as great of a passionate, brotherly love for them, as the Elijah-passion poured out on Jesus during his Passion.
