The Pilgrim's Journey (2024)

me:Who likes Venn Diagrams?

large blog fan base that only exists in my imagination: Me! Me too! All of us!

You probably know what a Venn Diagram is, even if you aren't familiar with the name. Essentially, it's a visual way of mapping out the similarities and differences between different things.

For instance, you might not think that the male torso and horses have a lot in common, but...

When you put these two seemingly different things into a Venn Diagram, you see that a large part of the male torso "realm" has absolutely nothing to do with the realm of horse legs, but in the overlap, there's a funny connection.

Here's another one...

Now, to be fair, my grandpa Ron (A.K.A. "Bonka") always smells freshly showered, and he prefers the golfer cap over the fedora, but wasn't the "Hipster" overlap kind've great? I thought so.

One more...

Maybe you're of that rare group of people who hasn't used Facebook to see if your high school girlfriend has gained 10 lbs., or binge-pinned the entirety of your ideal-yet-impossible wedding on Pinterest, or Instagrammed the unrecognizable remains of the amazing burrito that you just devoured.

But so you can at least understand the rest of us, please read on.

This Venn Diagram makes a great point in a funny way. All of these social media outlets can be fun, and they can keep us up-to-date with the goings-on of other people we know... but they run the risk of making life all about me.

There's a story in Scripture that speaks to this. In Exodus 24:12, God says to Moses, "Come up to me on the mountain and stay here..."

Two things about this story that have a really important message for people who live in the Digital Age: the wordsstayand me.

Stay.

If you've been on a hike anytime in the recent past, you know that you'll do all of this climbing and sweating to get to an amazing view. But then, pretty quickly, you start back down the hill because there's things around the house that need fixing, there's e-mails that need to be sent, kids that need to driven to soccer tournaments, and burritos that need to be Instagrammed.

QUESTION:When was the last time you went somewhere, and just stayed there for a good long while, and you didn't move on too quickly to the next thing?

The original Hebrew language of this story takes us even further...

What God literally says is, "Come up to me and behere... existhere."

Being our Creator, God knows us pretty well; he knows that we have this capacity to be somewhere physically, but in our head and our heart, we're somewhere else.

Because we can be somewhere without actually being there, can't we?

Has anyone ever caught you spacing out when you were supposed to be on a romantic date, or reading a book to your child, or enjoying a meal with a good friend? At some point, was their objection or facial expression asking: "Where are you right now?"

Because when you're not here; you're somewhere else.

This is an age-old problem... it existed long before Wi-Fi was invented.

God says to Moses, "Come up to me and be here; here and nowhere else."

Now, if you know anything about Moses, you know that he's a busy guy with a lot on his plate.

God had recently worked through his life to release about a million people from slavery (no small feat!) And now, all of these people are living day-to-day, hand-to-mouth, in the harsh Arabian desert as they journey to a land that was promised to them.

In the desert, there are snakes and scorpions, people get thirsty, there are kids and older people who can't walk as fast. And did I mention that there's about a million of them?

I think it's fair to say that Moses has a lot on his mind.

And yet God says, "Come up to me."

Me.

God wants these recently freed slaves to be truly free, and so he says to their anxious leader, "Come up to me, to a place where you'll be out of range for the Wi-Fi signal in the Hebrew camp." (I added that last part.)

QUESTION:Is it good for Moses, good for us, and good for the people that we are looking after, when we have time and space where we are unreachableand unavailable?

God tells Moses, "Come up to me, and focus on me, and that will be very good for you."

That's the opposite message that we're receiving from our culture. All of the most popular apps are centered on us.

All of the social media outlets can be fun, and they can keep us current with what's going on in the lives of the people we know and love... but they run the risk of making life all about me.

But life isn't all about me.

Have you ever been around a person who was the center of their own universe? And I don't mean a 2 year old, I'm talking about a person who never grew out of that key developmental stage, and life is still all about them.

Isn't it exhausting to be around them? Afterwards, do you find yourself drained and anxious?

Moses has a massive responsibility on his shoulders, and yet, God says, "You might suppose that the solution is to multi-task, to do more with less time. But I'm telling you, it will be very good for you - and all of those people you are caring for - to do one thing. That one thing isto come away to be with me, to focus on me."

QUESTION:Is multi-tasking actually all that it's cracked up to be? Do we actually get more done? Even if you got more done (quantity), did you fully experience it and do it well (quality)?

So I think we can all agree that as great as social media and smart phones can be, if their influence on our lives goes unchecked, we become distracted and self-centered people.

Another risk of social media is that it becomes a means of comparing our lives to the lives of other people, which plants seeds of dissatisfaction with our own lives.

What poisons the journey for a man is comparison. To all my brothers-from-other-mothers, this is for you.

There's a funny biblical story about comparison in John 20...

A few things you need to know about this story:

• The events take place after Jesus' death and resurrection.
• It won't be long until Jesus returns to Heaven.
• After that, his disciples will carry out their mission to make other disciples of Jesus in every nation.
• This story involves two disciples: Peter and John.
• Peter and John had a very competitive relationship.

Mary Magdalene discovers the empty tomb, and she panics. She runs to Peter and "the other disciple, the one Jesus loved," and says, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him!"

We definitely need to talk about the "one Jesus loved" part, but first let's hear the rest of the story...

Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in.

Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus' head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen.

Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) Then the disciples went back to where they were staying.

So, I put a few details in this story in bold type. Does any of it clue you in to the competition that was going on between Peter and John? What fueled this competition?

Both Peter and John had crucial leadership roles in Jesus' ministry.

You've probably heard pastors make jokes about Peter's propensity to put his foot in his mouth on a fairly regular basis.

Pastor:There he goes again, fumbling and stumbling all over the place! But doesn't it give you hope that if God can work through the life of a knucklehead like Peter, he can work through us too?

Congregation: (laughs and nods their heads.)Oh Peter! When will you ever learn?

But have you ever wondered why Peter is always the first to speak and the first to respond, even if he gets it wrong most of the time? Is he just a rash and impulsive guy?

That might be part of it, but you might also find it interesting to know that in the rabbi-disciple relationship, the rabbi had a prime disciple, a primo ballerino of sorts. (My wife Sarah, who loves to dance, would like to point out that primo ballerino isn't a real thing, just like a male barista isn't called a baristo. But I digress.) For any key teaching moments when the rabbi wanted to impart something to the whole group of disciples, there was one disciple who was the lab rat, the test drive dummy, the one who took the brunt of a new discipleship lesson. They're like CHAPPiE, they take a beating on our behalf.

It's like when I took a karate class in college. Anytime our sensei wanted to teach us a new move, he'd ask for a volunteer. And I was that volunteer. For the sake of the entire class, I'd endure the humiliation of being folded into a human pretzel, but then all of us knew what the proper technique should look like.

Peter was that human pretzel, the prime disciple, who would speak and act on behalf of the entire group. What he learned the hard way, he learned for the sake of all the other disciples, who were probably thinking, I'm really glad that it's Peter, and not me, who is being contorted into that painful shape.

It might hurt, but who truly learned from the rabbi, the volunteer, or the audience? This is a crucial leadership role, and Peter went on to be a key pillar in the early Christian movement.

But John had an important role to play as well. He was "the disciple that Jesus loved." Again, you'll hear preachers make all kinds of jokes about how the other disciples must have felt to keep company with a guy who referred to himself this way. It's probably how the members of U2 felt when David Evans wanted to be known as "The Edge," or how The Police felt when Gordon Sumner wanted to be called "Sting."

How did that conversation go down? How much backlash did they get from other members of the band before it became a thing? And what did the other disciples think when John wrote himself into his own Gospel as "the disciple that Jesus loved"?

Does John believe that Jesus played favorites, or is there something else going on when John calls himself by this title?

In the ancient world, if a great teacher knew that at some point, their life was drawing to a close, they would designate one of their followers to be their designated interpreter. This was the one who knew your heart well enough to carry your message into new contexts, long after you were gone. Socrates had Aristotle, Aristotle had Plato, Jesus had John.

To be "the disciple that Jesus loved" is not something to be taken lightly. Whereas the other Gospel writers (Matthew, Mark and Luke) would put together their accounts of Jesus' life that looked very similar to each other, John's Gospel is really different. And I mean really different. This is because John had a mission to take the message of Jesus beyond the realm of the Jews, to the surrounding nations. And if you're going to take the message of Jesus from one culture to another, you're going to have to translate, you're going to have to interpret. You had better know what you're doing.

The opening of John's Gospel tells us that Jesus came from the heart (Greek: kolpos) of the Father. (John 1:18) And then at the end of Jesus' life, when he is sharing some of his most intimate and important teachings with his disciples, John tells us that he was resting on Jesus' heart (kolpos). (John 13:23)

John is saying, Jesus came from the heart of God, and I rested on that heart!

To people like you and me who are outsiders to the Jewish world and way of thinking, there's a lot of things that aren't going to make sense to us. But John is the one who has been authorized by Jesus to change the language so that it makes sense to people like us. John is the Beloved Disciple, he is the one who knows Jesus' heart, and so he can translate the message that came from that heart so that we too can have the life of God.

Peter is the Prime Disciple, and John is the Authorized Interpreter. Can you see the potential for some serious competition between these guys?

And so, in John 20, we hear that the tomb is empty, Jesus is resurrected, human history will forever be altered on the basis of this day, the New Creation is breaking through in the shell of the first, broken creation and LOOK HOW FAST I CAN RUN!

I think this is pretty comical, don't you?

People talk about the inerrancy of Scripture, how it's perfect just as it is. Is it perfect, or is it realistic? Do we have an unflawed account of Jesus' life, or do we have the best news that the world has ever needed to hear, with a dash of teenage adrenaline thrown in just for fun?

This story is so divine, and so human.

And so, the last story of John's Gospel also involves Peter and John, and they're still trying to outdo each other.

In John 21, Jesus has resurrected, and he's already appeared to his disciples a few times already.

Jesus and Peter take a walk together down the beach, away from the other disciples, because Jesus has some things to say that are for Peter's ears only. Keep in mind, that this is right after the famous scene where Jesus has asked Peter 3 times, "Do you love me?"

Those three questions, asked by a campfire, connected to three denials, spoken by another campfire. Jesus is healing Peter from the wounds of shame.

So as you can imagine, fresh on the heels of that conversation, Peter is feeling a bit fragile and defensive.

As they walk along the beach, Jesus tells Peter about what his pilgrim journey has in store. One day, Peter is going to be imprisoned, and crucified for his faith in Jesus.

And what's Peter's response? Does he say, I'm in Lord! I know that I betrayed you once, but it won't happen again! I'm with you to the very end!

Actually, Peter turns around and sees that the Beloved Disciple is following them!

This is pretty great. What's John thinking? Hey guys, what are you talking about? Can I come? (Apparently, FOMO was a real problem back then too.)

And Peter asked, Lord, what about him?

What about him?

I don't like the script that you've written for me. But maybe, if I know what's going to happen to John, and it's relatively equal, then my path will be a bit easier to accept. I've been on John's Instagram feed, and it looks pretty sweet so far. I know he has a really cool relationship with you, and I do too... but sometimes, I wonder if I'm getting a raw deal. What about him?

And Jesus' answer is so sharp, but it's for Peter's own good...

What is that to you? You must follow me.

What's it to you, Peter? Eyes on me!

Jesus knows something that we can easily forget, and it's this...

Comparing ourselves to other disciples of Jesus is a discipleship KILLER.If we're concerned about how someone else is following Jesus, then we aren't paying attention to how Jesus has called us to follow him.

Do I fall into the comparison trap? All the time.

I'm a pastor, and so I look at the journey of other pastors that I respect and admire. Guys who have started amazing churches, written best-selling books, preached compelling sermons. From where I stand, itseems like they're on an amazing journey.

And I think, Lord, what about him?

What I'm really asking is, Lord, what about me?

When's it going to be my time? When is my life going to look like his? Why hasn't that happened for me yet? Am I behind schedule for the good life to arrive? Did I miss something?

Lord, what about me?

Earlier, we looked at a key moment in Moses' life. God says, come up here and stay here with me. And then God gives Moses the famous 10 Commandments.

The very last commandment says this: You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

Living in the Digital Age, we have even more opportunity to look in on the different aspects of someone else's life, and compare, and become discontented with what God has given to us.

But here's how the last commandment is different from the ones before it.

If you murder someone... you can be found out.

If you lie... someone can catch you in the lie.

But coveting... you can do it and no one will ever know. You could be coveting right now, and I would have no idea.

The only ones who know when you are coveting are you, and God.

The Jewish sages said that the last commandment is a blessing. "You shall not covet" is a blessing. How is it a blessing?

Because if God can do such a work in my heart that I don't want anyone else's life except the life that God has given to me... that is a truly blessed life.

I am set free to be grateful, content, generous, and full of joy.

QUESTION: What kind of person would you be if you didn't want anyone else's life? What would you conversations be like? What would your demeanor be like? What would people experience by simply being in your presence?

Not wanting anyone else's life but the one that God gave to you... that's the kind of life that God created us for.

So in a world of screens and pinning and posting and liking and friending and trending, Jesus speaks into our propensity for comparison and says, What is that to you? You must follow me... and I'm not talking about Twitter.

Did I kill the ending with that cheesy joke? Probably.

Oh well.