Tyndale Chapel Podcast

Well, good morning, Tyndale family. It is great to be with all of you this morning. And it's been a pleasure to get to know the Tyndale family.

I went to Regent College, and so after people graduate from Regent, they travel everywhere, all over the world. And I've always been jealous of my Tyndale graduate friends, who graduated from this area, and they said, Oh, I'm hanging out my buddies that I knew all throughout seminary, and I said, I don't have buddies that are from seminary, they're all over the place. But I met a new buddy today, I found out George is also from Regent College, Regent College as well. And I deeply appreciated all the formation that happened. From when I began my time at Regent, and it ended. I entered, actually, in a space where I was moving from the US to Canada, and I lost my identity, I lost my nation, I lost everything about me. And I noticed that a lot of people just were leveled, when they entered theoligical education, and they're looking for a way to ground themselves, they no longer had titles. And they kind of looked for a way to ground themselves either with popularity with students, the approval of a professor, their performance, and we're all looking for some kind of grounding. And in that space of theological education, I met people, I met, I was a part of a community that made me who I am today. I remember Don Lewis, my professor at Regent College, he was a dean of faculty. And he would always pray for me. And I remember him giving me this huge bear hug, the late Don Lewis, passed away this year, and telling me how much he loved me. Not only telling me how much he loved me as a father, but saying to me, Paul, you are a great pastor. And I'd always say, What do you mean, you've never seen me Pastor? How do you know this? But you have people in this community that will actually participate in your formation, from beginning to the end. And you will look back fondly on the years that you participated in this family. And so I just thank you, let me just pray for our time, that God would speak to us.

Jesus, I thank you for this time that we have with you. A time we have to hear you speak to us. And Lord, we long for a word from you. We long for prophetic word, a timely word from you, that only you can speak to our hearts, Lord. And I know that you'll speak a very different message to everyone here. Because you are able to speak in a way that no one else can, authoritatively gently, firmly, kindly, as a father, as a mother to us. So do a work of formation this time. We pray this in Christ's name, Amen.

It's been a privilege to work with the Tyndale community on different events. And in the future, we look forward at the CBOQ to continue working in close collaboration with Tyndale. And we're just so thankful the openness here.

Now I'm just thinking about, entitled my talk, a post Christian lament. Think about that from a post Christian event. And a lot of us have been going through COVID. And that already is a space, lament and struggle. And many of us have said goodbye to loved ones. We've seen people get sick, and many of my friends and people that I know have have long COVID as well. And they're continuing to experience this grieving and coming out of it, we experienced a lot of isolation, and some good things happened as well. But it's not been an easy time. And also we see the church is going through many difficulties as well. We have a lot of churches have decreased attendance. And that's all been kind of an idol for churches, church growth, but we've lost family members, our churches, people that we've known and loved. They're no longer a part of our communities. We don't get to see them anymore. What happened to people that we know and love, that we used to share life with? We also see churches that are closing and that we see is a grieving that all these small towns in the CBOQ and other churches across Ontario, Quebec, are losing this community. This church community, this Christ community of followers in those small communities. We also see denominations are wrestling with systemic racism and the LGBTQ conversation. How do we navigate that going forward? There are no easy answers. And we see seminaries that right now are basically decreased in attendance, physical attendance, going virtually online, and seminaries that have closed down. Gordon Conwell closed down their main site in Boston. Fuller campus is closed down. There's changes to students and faculty. There are so much to lament right now. Now all this lament is going, all this inside of us, we still have to move on, is that correct? So if you're faculty, you still have to teach classes. If you're a student, you still have to study and learn. If you're a pastor, you need to still pray your sermons, and teach, and shepherd God's people, while dealing with all that's inside of you. It is not an easy thing to do.

Now I'd like to reference a text from Mark chapter six. And if you can have your Bibles out, Mark chapter six, and we're looking at Mark chapter six, verse six. Now, first of all, he says, "Then Jesus went around teaching from village to village." Now, I love this, because basically, Jesus goes around from village to village. And in this particular synoptic gospel comparison, we'll see that He saw they're harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd, and that broke His heart. And so one thing Jesus can do is continue to do that ministry. Instead, as a good discipler, as a good rabbi, He calls 12 to him. He calls the 12 To him, and He, instead of going out himself to do that work, He empowers other people. And he sends them out in community, two by two, to do the work that He did, and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits. Now, this authority that it gives, is His very presence going with them, they're not going alone. And it's an empowerment, it's a trust. So Jesus never keeps what he does to himself. He gives all the work that he is doing to His disciples, and He says, You can do it. I fully believe in you. I fully give you my authority, my power, everything my father has given to me, I'm giving to you.

This is great discipleship. It's not just reserved, for some clergy or church leader. He's saying I'm giving the power that I have. This is great Christian leadership. Now we see this, and we see verse 12, they went out preached, the people should repent, they drove out many demons, anointed many sick people with oil and healed them. Now, I don't know about you, but that is, think about that. That's this great to feel and use, see God serve. See God use you to see your calling, to pour out yourself on behalf of others. But actually, this work is exhausting at times. Right? Doing this kind of work is spiritually exhausting. I know, when I pray for people, and I go home, I'm exhausted. And it's not just the hours that I work. It's the spiritual taxing that I experience. And Jesus himself, when he was tempted, right, the angels attended Him to give him strength. So we see this and, what's actually going on. I love this word. I don't know if you've watched cartoons growing up. But the word meanwhile, have you heard that mean, word meanwhile, so you kind of like, well, this is happening. Meanwhile, this is happening. And so as the disciples were being sent out on mission, another parallel story going on here, is actually verse 14 it's basically, it's a story of John the Baptist, and his being imprisoned by King Herod, and then being actually beheaded. He's imprisoned because he's getting in trouble. John, the Baptist is always saying he's challenging power. He's challenging the abuse of power. He's challenging people in power. He's challenging their way of life. And he's saying what you're doing is wrong. And because of that, when you say things and you challenge power, you poke the bear, you get in trouble. Have you experienced that before? Maybe, maybe not. I have, so, but just when he does that, he gets in trouble. He's imprisoned. And he upsets the wrong person, which is basically Herod's mistress. And she has an eye on him, and she wants to get her revenge on him. And so basically, she gets an opportunity, John is beheaded. Now I want you to think for a moment, John's relationship with Jesus. Right? They're cousins, right? They're related. And so Jesus actually is baptized by John, they've known each other their whole lives, they're close friends. And actually, Jesus has his ministry because of John. So John actually says, "Hey, my disciples here, I want you to follow this guy. I want you to give yourself, used to be, I used. I used to be your rabbi, Jesus now is your rabbi. How many people give away their ministries like this, but John did that. And so many of the disciples were discipled, by John himself, and they experienced that growth from him. And they saw him do great things, baptize the nation of Israel. So basically, now they're on mission, but they don't know because they don't have Instagram. They don't have Twitter. And for old people like me, they don't have Facebook. So they don't have any of the news outlets, and none of those things and so they don't know what's happened. So what does Jesus do at this time? They're going to come back from mission, and they're going to hear the news, right? So what does Jesus do? And the first thing that he could do right, is he could dismiss this and say, it's basically "Don't worry about it. John's going to be richly rewarded in heaven". Or he could basically kind of go on business as usual and say "You know what, just focus on the crowds. Don't pay attention to what you're feeling. Pay attention to the mission. The mission is all that matters". But Jesus doesn't do that. First of all, we'll see what he does actually, when they come back after mission. The thing think he does, basically in verse 30, the apostles gathered around Jesus, and report, and all they had done and taught. So first of all, the first thing Jesus does, and He listens to them, He processes what they experienced on mission. And he celebrates with them, there's a deep celebration that's going on. Now, also, Jesus also at the same time, if you look in different synoptic comparisons, he's also withdraws. He also goes in his own form of solitude, because he has to process his own grief as a human person over the loss of his cousin. And so we see next, actually, not only does he do that, the next thing that Jesus does is, then because so many people are coming and going, they didn't even have a chance to eat. So first of all, think about people who love you, in your life. Maybe it's an uncle, or an aunt, or your parents, or your grandparents, you come to their house. And they said, have you eaten yet? Have you had people in your life that have done that to you? Jesus is doing this for his disciples. And he said, noticing and paying attention to their physical well being, "How are you?" Jesus notices these things, as a father, as a mother to his disciples. He cared about their well, not just about the mission. And when the next thing we notice, actually, that Jesus does, is that basically he said to them, "Come with me, by yourselves to a quiet place, and get some rest". He gives them an invitation, come with me.

You've gone on mission. I know you're tired. I know you're exhausted after a long season of COVID, after social isolation, after a busy season of studying and teaching on this campus, of building relationships, come with me, withdraw. Now, then it says, right, they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place. So first of all, there's a space and solitude, separation. And Henri Nouwen said "without solitude, it is impossible to live a spiritual life". Solitude is a space of withdrawing. And the desert, one of our desert fathers said, I was asked of Arsenious, of Arsenious, how do I get eternal life. And Arsenious replied, flee from men, and you will be saved. We are so immersed in the narratives of people around us, so that we don't know who we are anymore. And we need to find ourselves before God, sometimes alone, we need to withdraw from campus, campus life. We need to be by ourselves with God. The voices get louder and louder in your life. But the voice of Jesus sometimes doesn't get heard, because we need to make space for Jesus. So I'm noticing, actually, this spirit, experience right now that we're going through on an individual level, but also corporate and cultural level, is that we're feeling a deep sense of just lament, and sadness, and grief. And there's a tendency to take control of all that's going on in our world. There's a temptation. And Jesus is saying, instead of trying to go back out there and change the world, I want you to come away with me and get some rest. I want you to enter a place of withdrawal in silence. I like to just invite you where you are, just to enter a space of quietness. If you can just close your eyes with me. And if your posture is straight, that'd be great. And just your hands are out where you are. And I want you, as you're doing that, I want you to take a deep breath. And I want you to breathe in the Ruach, the breath of God, the Spirit of Christ, Christ living in you. Just take a deep breath where you are, and Jesus knows all that's going on your life right now. All the struggles. All lament, and the hurt, and the sadness and grief, and loss that you feel. He sees it and He's inviting you. All of you, every one of you. Come away. Come away with me, and be with me, and I will be with you. I will not use you for the mission, but I love you for who you are. Feel his embrace to you.