For decades the Israelites bounced around in exile. They were defeated and destroyed by the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians. This dark period caused terrible strain on the traditions and customs of the old order. The same is true for us when we’re thrown into exilic periods of faith. Seeing this disorder as a growth opportunity, though, can change everything for us, just like it did Israel.

As time and community developed, the Israelites wanted more structure. They established a judicial system and it imploded disastrously. The entire book of Judges is an arch that tells the sad story of what happens when we are left to our own devices as humans: We hurt and hate. The book of Judges is the transitioning from Order to Disorder.

Moses does the hard work of leading God’s people away from captivity. He settles them into a new land traversing through all kinds of wilderness. He even establishes a law for them to follow. The Exodus story and the emergence of the 10 Commandments show us that we are meant to establish an ordered way to live in a community (too bad we struggle with this so much).

God orders the world in seven days and sets a universal pattern for us image-bearers: Work six days and rest one. Work is essential to life. We work alongside God and fulfill our duties as the image-bearers of God, and then we rest. The relationship between work and the sabbath is paramount to understanding the natural order and rhythms of life.

"Everything is moving towards eternity. All of our actions and hopes and theology and practices and all of our faith is moving us towards the ultimate end that we know as eternal life. And one of the things that 1 John reminds us is that when we engage with this God in the created order by following Jesus . . . we are given eternal life."

The beginning and end of everything is love. Another way to say this is, “Everything begins and ends out of love.” Love is at the beginning of everything . . . and love is what’s left after everything is gone. Love is before it all and through it all and after it all. Love is eternal.

"God is love. Those who abide in love (who remain in love, and invest in love, and inject love into their being) abide in God. And God abides in them. We could say, “Every time we love or feel love or share love or engage in loving acts, we become that which comes from God. And since God is love, we are love."

The God of the Universe, in all God’s great mystery and unknowing, that God receives us out of (and comes to us in) love.

People don’t really believe they’re made from God’s light. When it comes to their own private relationship with God . . . they carry this myth that they’re made from the darkness. That they’re evil. But that’s a lie. You are a reflection of God’s light . . . it’s inside of us . . . and Jesus died on the cross so we could see it and feel it and claim it and shine it!

"It’s time we take a chapter from the 1 John's playbook and start thinking deeply about how we understand God. God is the source of all light, and that light exposes our sins in which we need to seek forgiveness. So what’s hiding in your darkness? What is that you need to repent? In what ways can you do a better job of reflecting more light?"

The Lord needs us to tend the gardens. That’s ultimately our calling in this life. We’re bringing more and more people through their graves and into the gardens of the Lord. We ourselves are more and more moving through our graves and into the gardens of the Lord.

We all have graves we’ve dug with our own hands. Sins we’ve carried. Scars we’ve buried. And that’s why we've spent six weeks on shame. We prepared the ground of our soul during Lent to see the graves we’ve dug in the shadows of our shame. And we did this because, at Easter, the light of Christ puts a spotlight on our graves and says . . . “I can heal this.”

John 12:28 is a passage we don’t often quote but we should: “Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came for heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” Here is the voice of God speaking to Jesus saying that a way has been made for us all to move our shame to glory. But the way is going to include death.

In his shame, Nicodemus shows up to Jesus in the middle of the night wanting answers to questions he does not know how to ask. He is ashamed of the current trajectory of the Pharisees, but he can’t name it in the light. He’s burdened by shame. Jesus offers life-altering answers to his questions but the story does not say if Nicodemus heeds Jesus’ advice. The story just ends making me wonder, “Can we really let go of shame?”

Jesus overthrows the tables in Jerusalem’s Temple. He makes a whip of cords and drives the people and animals out too. There are a lot of things we keep stocked in our Temple, our body, soul, and mind that need to be cleared out. Jesus demonstrates in life what needs to also happen inside of each of us.