Chapel – Dr. John Moon
George Sweetman
Welcome to our community Chapel today. Welcome to those of you who are tuning in online, either right now or later on. I've been doing a lot of thinking of Lent. As many of you will know, we're in the season of Lent right now, and oftentimes in our congregations and even in contemporary culture, we are led to think of the season of Lent as a dour and dark time. For some congregations, it's not marked at all because it's all doom and gloom. And in some the resistance is simply because, well, that's something that only the mainline churches do. So what happens in culture and in many of our churches, it only becomes something that we give up. For some of us, it's chocolate. For some of us, it's screen time, wine, coffee, any number of things, but it's this kind of releasing or letting go, which is significant, but it's so much more than that. About two weeks ago, the world marked Ash Wednesday, and that noted the beginning of this season of Lent, and that day's reminder, "We are dust and to dust we return", is haunting, perhaps necessarily so in our lives of wealth and comfort. But Lent isn't only about the darkened hour. It's not only about the ashen crosses on foreheads in the days of fasting. It serves us as a reminder that we, as Jesus' apprentices are traveling a pathway that have been that we've been summoned to by Jesus Himself: "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow Me." This cross bearing shouldn't be understood as some sort of symbolic burden that we must endure or limitation that we've imposed on ourselves. It's not about a strained relationship, it's not about a thankless job or a boring course. It's not about some pitiful matter in our life where we declare without care, "Oh, it's the cross that I have to bear". That's not what Jesus meant. When He told His followers to pick up their cross, it wasn't just that simple. In Jesus' time, it could only mean one thing, death, and a torturous one at that. Jesus was inviting His followers to die to self, to dreams, to their lives, to their idols. It meant that they and we are called to surrender to Jesus, to be abandoned to Him, His way, His truth, His life. Here's the thing, though, for in this death, we are alive, because remember, Jesus also said, "Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me, will find it." The cost is sacrificial, but the reward unimaginably beautiful, something so wonderful that it's hard to fathom. This morning, Dr. John Moon, husband, father of two, lover of sports in the great outdoors, and lecturer of New Testament here at Tyndale Seminary, will be sharing a message entitled, "Seeking the Good Life: a Journey of Finding our True Life by Bearing the Cross with Christ". And so we return to Lent, yes, it's a reminder that as disciples of Jesus, we are called to die to ourselves, but it's actually more about life in the wonder of the Triune God of grace; a multi layered life that blankets us with the gift of hope filled existence. It's about shalom, not just about dark and dower and doom and gloom. Let's pray together. God, your complexity overflows: the stars and planets that swirl and delight, light years away and yet visible in the night ceiling; the abundance of fauna and flora that is almost too much to name; organisms in the water, the land, the sky that overwhelms us in their numbers and give us pause in our superiority; the wonder of friendship; the wonder, the other offering lightness of laughter; and strong souls of burden sharing. We marvel at a place like Tyndale, where minds are enlivened due to new ideas or concepts or even revelations that we had never thought existed. The richness of this intricately woven mosaic of life abounds but You, God, You call us to a simple act of obedience, "Follow You". Under this season's days of reflection and weight, not intolerable nor unbearable, may we, as Jesus apprentices, renew our cross shouldering, not for our sake, not because we're strong, not because we're better, but because we love You and we know that Your Spirit walks beside us and invites us to Your Son's yoke. O God, this morning may we be reminded that this is where the good life lies. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. Come, let us worship together.
Dr. John Moon
Good morning. Thank you so much. Worship team has vanished. Thank you so much to the worship team for leading us this morning. And as George mentioned earlier, my name is John Moon, lecturer in New Testament in the seminary, and it is very good to be with you this morning. When I was about 13, I worked at my mom's coffee shop just a few mornings a week, and I made wait for it, $20 an hour. No, no. $20 a week, which worked out to a whopping $1.67 an hour, the family discount. Maybe because on top of helping my mom, I also ate all of her ice cream, so I had to pay it off. But anyways, as a kid, going from $0 per year to $20 a week was huge. And with this money, oh, absolutely I had plans, you see at Shoppers Drug Mart, there was this face cream that promised to make me beautiful. And if I was beautiful, then my grade eight crush would fall in love with me. And so you see, already, at the age of 13, I knew that if I just had a little bit more, I could have that life that I wanted. Many years later, I get a job at Tim Hortons, and yes, I'm eating their food too. And this time, I'm not working for face cream, but I'm a graduate student trying to support my family in studies. And one day, a customer basically said to my co worker and I basically, "Neither of you have very good jobs, and it must mean that neither of you are doing very well in life", which, of course, is just a very rude thing to say, because hard, honest work is always worthy of respect. But in the moment, my coworker and I, my coworker, being a pastor's wife, we responded in the only way that holy people could. We started praying the imprecatory Psalms against this customer. "Oh Lord, may my enemy's foot slip!". Of course, we didn't say that, we only thought it in our minds. But anyways, the point is that there's an assumption in the air, right, about where we ought to be in life. And if I can just fast forward one more time, I'm in the last stage of my studies, I am eager to finish, find a job, and support my family. But along the way, funding falls short; that pandemic hit, and now half the day, I'm helping my five year old with online school because he has no idea how to use a computer. And then, sadly, my father becomes ill, which leads me to pause my studies, be there for my dad, and also help my mom run the family business; which is an old hotel with lots of issues, and which, yes over time, it strains my relationship with my Mom.
Dr. John Moon
Now, I wonder if you can see what is going on in these stories? Right, at every stage I am striving for the good life: beauty, education, and security. And hovering over this pursuit are actually unspoken rules that speak to all of us. One of these rules is a law of nature that if you want to live, you must work. and nothing wrong with this one. As Paul says in 2 Thessalonians 3, "The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat", simple. But at the same time, this rule comes to us clothed in a cultural script. And so it's not just that, if you want to live, you have to work, but especially since the Enlightenment, if there is no God and humans are their own masters, then the rule is, the rule becomes, "Your salvation is all up to you". And more recently, a South Korean philosopher named Byung-Chul Han has argued that in the mid 20th century, western society has shifted from a so-called disciplinary society to an achievement society. In the 19th century, the disciplinary society was a world of factories, mass migration to the city, and the need for great order. And so society's rules were all about what you should not do, right? "Don't be late, don't get out of line", and so on. But the achievement society, Han says, it's a world of fitness studios, office towers, airports and endless opportunities. Anything is possible. You can go to the moon. And so society's rule, it has shifted. Namely, since you can achieve, you should achieve. And if you're not quite achieving, even though you can well, what does this mean about you? So there are natural and cultural rules that are telling us to seek that good life. But the problem, of course, is that we often fall short. We feel like we're not where we should be, or things get in the way, like pandemic illness or a family crisis. Sometimes there are greater powers that determine our lives, like economic forces making life unaffordable, or world leaders who limit your freedom or enforce their way. Sometimes just seems the world makes no sense; the righteous suffer while the wicked and powerful prosper. The theme of this year's chapel series is "Hope in Chaotic Times". And so when the world is so chaotic, the question today is, "How do we seek that good life?" This good life is something that Jesus talked about, and so I wonder if He may have some wisdom for us today.
Dr. John Moon
There we go. Our passage is from Mark 8:27, 38 and it reads as follows, "Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea, Philippi. On the way, he asked them, "Who do people say I am?" They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others one of the prophets." "But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?" Peter answered, "You are the Messiah." And Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him. He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. "Get behind Me, Satan!" he said, "You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns." Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples, and said: "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life, will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels." This is God's Word. Now, what I would like to do today is talk about this passage under three headings: the good life, the dumb life, and if you, in case, you think that is a terrible thing to say, just wait, and then finally, the good life reimagined. So first the good life. The first thing to know about our passage is that it is pivotal for the whole gospel, because from Mark 1-8, Jesus has been doing ministry in Galilee, and the culminating question He asks in 8:27 is," Who do people say I am?" The reason Jesus asks this question is because in Mark 1-8, He has been painting a picture of the good life. And if you look carefully, His picture of the good life is very similar to ours. He cleanses lepers and heals fevers; and so that good life, it is about good health. He feeds the crowds with bread and fish; it is about provision. And He also drives out demons and calms the waves; and so the good life is about safety, both internally and externally. And elsewhere, in Matthew 25 Jesus says that, "God has given you talents and expects you to work to produce a yield". And so not only does Jesus share our understanding of the good life, peace and prosperity here on earth, but He also agrees with the law of nature that we need to work for it. But then this just brings us back to where we started, doesn't it? We fall short, that good life is so elusive. And so what wisdom does Jesus have after all? The answer would be not much, except that His understanding of the good life is just a little different. You see another feature of Mark 1-8 is that whenever someone gets this good luck, He wants you to stay quiet about it. 1:44 He says, after healing a leper, "See that you don't tell this to anyone." 5:43, "After healing Jairus' daughter, He gave strict orders not to tell anyone". Or 7:36, "After healing a mute, Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone, but the more Jesus commanded, the more they told everyone anyways". So you see, the difference between Jesus and the world is that, whereas the world wants to foreground the good life, Jesus, He puts it in the background. So when His disciples ask in or when He asks His disciples in 8:27, "Who do people say, I am?", Peter responds in 8:29,"You are the Messiah. You are the king". God promised to make life right, but because Jesus doesn't want people to misunderstand what it means to make life right, in 8:30, Jesus warned His disciples not to tell everyone. So then, if our pursuit of peace and prosperity doesn't deserve the foreground, then what does? Jesus, He affirms the good life in the background, but second, He foregrounds what many might call the dumb life. In verse 31, Jesus began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things be killed, and after three days, rise again. And then, in verses 34 to 35, He spells out how to follow the Messiah into true life, "Then Jesus called the crowd to him along with his disciples, and said: whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up the cross and follow me. Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it." And of course, on first reading this makes no sense, right? Because everyone wants to save their life, right? That's what Mark 1-8 was all about. How do you gain life by losing it? When I pause my studies to run that hotel and argue with my mom, was I somehow winning in life? And how are you supposed to find life in something as inglorious as a Roman cross? Because they are the wicked oppressors who are taxing us and making life impossible. This is so silly, and yet maybe not entirely. Because you see, the problem with that enlightenment rule, that salvation is all up to you, is that we are finite, and so we have this wonderful thing called self interest, right? We scratch and claw to make a living. We go around asking others, "What good are you to me?" , because, if nothing, then, frankly, I've got to move on. I don't have time for everything. And so the people in your life, they become nothing but a means to an end. But if that is how we think about others, and eventually we look in the mirror and start asking ourselves, "What good am I to others? Am I resourceful? Does anyone want me? Do I have any worth?" We often wonder. And the problem with the achievement society is that if you can do everything, then society expects you to do everything. "Why don't you have a better job? Why aren't you more fit? The gym is right there. And you've got to travel if you really want to live because look how happy all your Facebook friends are. It seems to me you haven't quite made it." And so, the irony of having the freedom to do anything is that we often become enslaved to do everything. And so, no wonder why the title of Byung-Chul Han's book is, "The Burnout Society". Because he says, in trying to do everything, we become exhausted, we fall short and we get depressed. And so just as Jesus says, "Whoever wants to save their life will lose it. So then what does He mean when He says, "Whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel, will save it"? And so let's think finally, about the good life re-imagined. You see, after Peter's confession of Jesus as Messiah, Jesus heads to Jerusalem and the rest of the gospel. All those miracles, they slow down. Jesus, He predicts His death three times, and the disciples don't understand three times. And three times, Jesus has to explain Himself, finally, saying, in 10:45, "the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. And it's not until the end of the gospel that we get the climactic and true confession of Jesus as the Messiah. He has just died on the cross, and in 15:39 a Roman centurion says, "Truly, this man was the Son of God", a man with some special relation to God. How does the Roman centurion know this when he has never even met Jesus? Mark says, he saw how Jesus died. Okay, so maybe it was how darkness covered the land. Or maybe it was His dignified death before the mockers. But whatever it was he saw in Jesus, a truly good man who, even in death, just seemed to rise above the world. That's what the centurion saw, but of course, Mark wants us to see even more. Mark wants us to see that it's in Jesus' death that He is truly the Jewish Messiah, reflecting God and thus reflecting the source of life. The heart of reality is that, "the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and give His life as a ransom for many". And this Jesus says, is where you find true life. So how does Jesus lead us to a truly good life? He not only establishes it, but He exemplifies it. He establishes the good life by paying the ransom, the price for our salvation. And so you see, salvation is not all up to us, so that we have to treat people as means to an end, only to get what we need. But because Jesus paid the price, our need is met, which gives us the freedom to treat people as ends, loving others as Jesus did, and thereby feeling that good pleasure of participating in the life of God Himself. And because Jesus paid the full price for me, I don't need to achieve everything. I'm getting a call from my dealer. Because Jesus paid the price for me, I don't need to achieve everything to prove that I've made it or that I'm a somebody. Because in God's in the eyes of God, I am so priceless that the Son of God died for me and in that, yes, I can find some rest. So Jesus establishes the good life, but He also exemplifies it. He says, take up your cross and follow Me, not only to enjoy life in the future, but for a good life even now. You know, when I worked with my mom at that hotel, crisis upon crisis, it nearly broke us. My heart, yeah, it grew bitter and cold. But there was a memory that kept me at the hotel there with my mom; how she loved me and cared for me and worked countless hours at a coffee shop to support me. Because she loved me sacrificially, I can love sacrificially a little bit too. And so when I paused my studies to work at the hotel, was I winning in life? Absolutely, because my mom and I were overcoming the forces of chaos together. So take up your cross and follow Jesus, and even now you can have a truly good life. So if Jesus both establishes and exemplifies the good life, where do we go from here? This is not a message that gets you off the hook. All right, a busy time of semester, I know, but you must absolutely work hard for peace and prosperity here on earth, because it is a law of nature. However, my friends, change the cultural script; material blessing in the background and not in the foreground. It is not all up to you, and you don't need to achieve everything, because Jesus has already paid the price in full. And so when you teach or sing at church, do not do it to perform for others, to receive love or approval, but do it as a priestly service to the One who has given us everything. And because He's given us everything, that is because of grace, oh yeah, work harder than the rest. But how do we pursue the good life in a chaotic world where the wicked and powerful often get their way? We cannot pursue it alone, but love is a bond that can carry a community, say a mother and son, through hard times. If you are in positions of power, wield it not as the Romans did with coercion, but as Jesus did to serve others and to see others flourish, because even the Roman Centurion knew that there is a power higher than Rome. And last but not least, have hope, my friends. Because remember that after Jesus died and was buried, He did not remain in the ground. Sometimes the wicked and powerful, they do see their day in this lifetime, but the Cross and Resurrection are a reminder that in the end, God will not ignore sin, and He will vindicate the oppressed. And so just as Jesus says, "Whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it", let's pray. Wonderful, almighty God, the Psalmist asks, "Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? ... for You have installed Your King on Zion." Salvation is from You, and in this may we find our rest. Lord, would You renew our strength and make us fly like eagles? We honor You, O God, and thank You, God, for honoring us in turn, as You call us Your children and lead us into the truly good life. In Your Son's name, we pray, Amen.
Dr. John Moon
Let me just share a short benediction before we leave. May God's grace in Christ ground you and empower you in your work, in your love and in all that you do, that you may have life to the full. Have a wonderful week, and God be with you all.
