January 25th 2009

A Video Recording of this Letter

Here Am I
Daniel Yordy

"____, where are you?" God - the first words spoken to a wayward Adam.

"Here am I, I and the children whom You have given Me." Jesus, during the last three hours on the cross, as expressed in the first part of Hebrews.

Probably the most important story of the Old Testament for us is Genesis 3, and for what God is teaching us at this moment, the most important phrase in Genesis 3 is "Where are you?"

God did not ask Adam "What did you do?" That was not nearly as important as "Where are you?" Adam, of course, continuing in his plummet to the cliff bottom gave the worst possible answer. He found fault with himself and blamed Eve and God for his misery.

The cross of Jesus is that which is always true in God, revealed within the confines of space and time. Jesus did not "become" my sin in a moment of time. In His eternal nature, He bears within Himself all of my sin. When Jesus became my sin upon the cross and said, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me," God asked the same question of Him that He had asked of Adam, "Where are You?"

Jesus' answer reverberates to the very center of our human weakness and frightening vulnerability: "Here I am, I and the children whom You have given Me."

Here is Jesus, bearing within Himself all the sin of humanity, and all of my sin and fleshiness. But when God asks Him, "Where are you?" He is immediate and direct with His answer, though He feels, in Himself, the awfulness of all that God hates, all rebellion and murder and lechery, all cruelty and perversity, yet He will not stand anywhere but in the Father. Jesus takes Himself, as He is in that awful condition, and places Himself fully in the light and center of Almighty God.

But Jesus is not alone. "I and the children whom You have given Me." Adam blamed the woman whom "God" had given him, seeing his own self as separated from God, alone in the darkness. Jesus included you and me and placed Himself fully inside the light of God.

I was feeling very vulnerable for a short time the other day, alone and frightened. That sense that if this thing were up to me and my ability to be a good Christian, then how could I be saved? In my fear and vulnerability, I saw myself utterly inside of Jesus. I am in Jesus. I, in all of my weak humanity, with all of my sin, I am utterly in Jesus. And Jesus is utterly in the Father.

In that moment of vulnerability, I knew that I was utterly in Jesus. He carries me inside of Himself. I knew there was no possibility that any part of myself could ever be found outside of Him. Then, I could see, just as certainly, that I have always been inside of Him, all of me, my entire life, from conception until now. All of me has always been inside of Jesus. There is no other possibility.

This gospel that Paul preached automatically raises the question, "Well, then, if I sin, does that make Christ the author of sin?" Notice that the gospel that Jesus is my Savior, having done something for me, completely separate from me, does not raise this question. Only the gospel Paul preached raises that question. The answer, of course, is very simple. "Certainly not!" If I, seeking to be found in Christ, sin, than I make myself a transgressor. The terrible thing is that I have heard ministries make that point and then stop there as if that is a momentous thing. But even that sin which I birth myself, He has already taken into Himself and become. I, who walk at all times seeing myself utterly in Him, I place even that sin upon Him and His blood cleanses me from all unrighteousness.

Jesus, even when He became all sin, walked in the light. "Here I am, I and the children whom You have given Me."

Never does God ask "What did you do?" Always, the question is, "Where are you?"

Jesus said to us in John 14, "that where I am, there you may be also." Sadly, many Christians take their pagan definition of heaven and force it upon these words of Jesus. The disciples are deeply puzzled by this statement of Jesus, but Jesus gives the answer a few minutes later.

"In that day you shall know that I am in the Father, and you in Me, and I in you."

Notice the order.

First, Jesus places Himself utterly in the Father. No part of Jesus is or has ever been outside of the Father. In His humanity, when He became our sin, when He was cursed of God, hanging upon the cross, when He felt a chasm between Himself and God, Jesus still was utterly in the Father.

Understanding that Christ is in us, that Jesus lives His life in our lives, comes third, it comes out of seeing ourselves, in all of our humanity, as being utterly in Jesus. When I am at my worst, still, He carries me inside of Himself and He has never offered to place me back upon me.

". . . beholding as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord, we are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory."

When we spiritualize this word "mirror," or try to see it as a metaphor of something, then this "place" where we are to see Christ in a seeing that transforms us, always remains at arm's length. What if? What if this is not a metaphor, but literally, the mirror into which you gaze upon your own face in the morning, or in the middle of the night, or whenever you look your worst?

We have always heard it this way, "Stop looking at yourself, look at Jesus." That sounds very good, but it is humanism to the core. The very fact that "YOU" are deliberately turning away from "Yourself" to look at another establishes the existence of yourself as separate from Jesus, and in truth, this is how most Christians see themselves, and how I saw myself for most of my Christian life.

It doesn't work. Self never dies. You will never die to self. Dying to self is a continual affirmation of self separate from Christ.

At the very center of who and what we are as existent beings is how we see. And at the center of what and how we see is belief. The idea that "seeing is believing," that we believe what first we see is pure baloney. Whatever I first believe about God, about myself, and about this world in which I live, that is what governs how I "see" everything that happens. For all men, believing comes first, seeing comes out of believing.

There are actually those Christians who believe with all their hearts that America is good. Therefore, when America commits acts of great evil, they cannot see any evil at all. America is good, therefore what it does is good. They see only what they believe.

When I look at that face in the morning, that fat, fleshy face, with the bald top and hair plastered in every direction, with sleep in the eyes and weakness and tiredness written all over it, with awfulness and yuckiness and shoddiness looking back at me, what do I see? If I have to look away from that face to see Jesus, then I do not believe the gospel that Paul preached.

When I look at that mirror, do I see Jesus, in all of His glory - in all of my weakness?

I cannot begin to convey to you the importance of this truth for you right now.

"Here am I, I and the children whom you have given me."

"We have this treasure in an earthen vessel."

I pray that God will make these words so vitally real to you in all of their meaning.