No Substitute for God

Loss after all is said and done

I.

One of the hardest things we have to deal with is the loss of a loved one.

For some, the memory is old. Perhaps the loss was in childhood. For others, it is quite recent, perhaps even since I last spoke to you.

I am speaking here of loss due to death, but there are other losses as well. I think for it to truly count as a loss, it has to be permanent, with no chance of recovery.

But the Christian faith promises recovery.

In the Acts of the Apostles, we read that Jesus ascends into heaven where He must remain until, “until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets.”¹

That is a tantalizing thought, the restoration of all things.

I wonder what it could mean for those of us who have lived through loss.

II.

Today’s Gospel reading from John is about an impending loss. Jesus is with His disciples for the last time before His death on the cross.

What we are reading here is one of the most remarkable texts in the whole world. We have a record of a conversation, of God speaking to God, the Son speaking to the Father.

It’s in the form of a prayer. Specifically, Jesus is praying out loud for His disciples, in their presence. They can hear what He is asking the Father on their behalf. Like every other word spoken by Jesus, it is instructive.

At first Jesus is speaking in the third person. He says:

“Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.”

One of the points I’ve been driving home this Easter season (here and here) is that God is the author of all of our circumstances, though we rebel against this Divine Providence and try to arrange things to our own liking.

When Jesus says, “Father, the hour has come” He is acknowledging the Father’s authorship of all created life. Not one thing moves upon the face of the earth that God has not created. Not one thing comes to life before its appointed time or dies out of season.

This is a hard fact because we tend to view loss as an accident. We say people are “victims of circumstance.” Even if the loss is expected and comes after the fulness of many years, when the hour has come it is full of grief and mourning.

But when His hour comes, Jesus says, “Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.”

Even in our unheroic age, we are not entirely unfamiliar with the idea of a glorious death. “To go out in a blaze of glory,” we say, but such things are rare.

Jesus is facing the cross and no one — not even Jesus — thought that was a good and glorious way to go. After all, Moses wrote in the law that “anyone who is hung on a pole is under God’s curse.”²

III.

There are two mysteries in this story.

The first is the mystery of God talking to God. I keep reading that the leading computer scientists aren’t sure how the algorithms that run AI actually work — they don’t understand what’s going on — and that’s the scientists speaking of something of their own making. How much less can we explain this mystery of God talking to God while the disciples were both able to listen in and understand?

But the understanding that we come away with is still difficult, and so the second mystery in this story is that Jesus asks God to glorify Him by cursing Him. He says:

“Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.”

No one disputes that John’s Gospel is an authentic text from the first century, so it’s hard to say when you read this that Jesus was just a man, and that it wasn’t until centuries later that the Church decided to make Him into a god.

The Bible says what it says, even though it took time for the Church to begin to understand the Scriptures, yet can never get so deep into their meaning that we can say we’ve mastered God’s Word.

IV.

To glorify something is to give it high praise, to describe it fully in glowing terms. Jesus’ death glorifies — that is, it describes — who God is in two ways.

First, it shows us that He is a just God. Second, that He is a merciful one.

By contrast Satan is neither just nor merciful. Satan requires endless tribute, endless apologies for even the smallest slight. The Father, however, is satisfied by His own Son, a once-and-for-all tribute for the sins of the whole world.

That is what Jesus means when He says:

“I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do.”

When Jesus says on the cross, “It is finished,” it truly is finished.

V.

I would like to apply briefly the implications of what Christ’s finished work means for us who choose to follow Him and then come back and say a few words about how we experience loss after all is said and done.

As I said, we can never plumb the depths of Scripture, especially a passage that records a conversation in which God speaks to God, but here are five things to take away from this extraordinary conversation.

First, Jesus calls His Father “the only true God.” This means there can be no mixing and matching of religions, no picking and choosing. Before you get upset with me remember, these are Jesus’ words, not mine. Remember as well that the entire Old Testament is the story of how God’s chosen people lost their identity by mixing the worship of the only true God with the gods of their neighbors.

Jesus came to restore their identity — our identity — as God’s people and we must be vigilant to guard what He restored in us. God is a jealous God, and we are expected to show some jealousy and loyalty to Him.

Second, Jesus says, “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” The first part of this statement is explicit: to know God and Jesus Christ is to be alive. The second part is implicit: not to know God and Jesus Christ is to be dead. Yes, you may have a pulse, but Jesus says that unless you know Him, you are dead.

Third, Jesus says, “I have finished the work.” I’ve touched on this already but what this means is that both the guilt and the power of sin are cancelled. There is a lot of talk today about acknowledging the guilt of our ancestors. You see this in things like land acknowledgements or paying reparations for slavery.

I will be very direct here and tell you that when you see these things you are seeing a resurgence of paganism, of a cult that demands endless sacrifices and is never satisfied. I have already told you who stands behind this work and it is not God. God’s work of reparation and atonement is finished in Christ Jesus.

Fourth, speaking of His disciples Jesus says to His Father, “they have kept your word.” It goes without saying that they did not fully understand God’s word. The same is true for us. The bar of faith is not set so high that only the most well-read and intelligent people can have it. Look at the disciples themselves.

Faith is more about what God sees in us than how much we can see of God with our feeble senses.

Finally, Jesus says, “I pray for them: I pray not for the world.” Again, these are Jesus’ words and not mine. They are meant to dispel any complacency into which you may have settled. Here, Jesus is, in fact, playing favorites. He prays for those who are with Him. He does not pray for those who are opposed or indifferent to Him.

There is real benefit to believing in Jesus.

That benefit is that you are now included in His prayers, included in this conversation He is having with His Father.

Now, let me conclude with a few words about loss in the face of the finished work of Christ and in the promised restoration of all things.

One reason that it is important to die well is that it gives hope to those who are left behind. I am thinking now of two men, one who dies with the name of Jesus on his lips, the ministers of the church having prayed for him and blessed him before he departs, and one who dies suddenly, unprepared, and alone, perhaps having taken his own life.

Peter says, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” The man who dies with the name of Jesus on his lips gives all those who love him reason for hope — hope that he is now hearing for himself that conversation between the Father and the Son in eternity.

This sort of loss — and it is a loss — gives glory to God and edifies the Church, that is, those who believe.

But it is the second man’s death, the man who dies with his sins unconfessed and no name but “Regret” on his lips, that I am more interested in at the moment. In the restoration of all things, what becomes of this second man?

It is tempting to say that he will be restored as well, because, after all, all things means all things. Dare we hold a hope like that, and, if so, on what grounds? Well, we do have this promise from Jesus Himself:

“You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.”³

But remember to whom Jesus is speaking. He is speaking to His own. He is praying for His own. His concern is for His own.

If we ask Jesus, in His own name, to restore the lost, would He do it, for His own sake?

Now, we have arrived at the deepest part of the mystery and perhaps we will not be able to see much further. I am treading lightly now, but here is what I think it means to face such permanent loss in the hope of Christ.

We are not responsible for how others choose to live and die. We are responsible only for our own choices in life and death.

When you suffer loss, you have this hope: “that Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.”⁴ Christ is our substitute in death, but He is also our substitute in the restoration of all things.

Therefore, the man who dies in his sins remains truly lost, but the hope of those who grieve for him is in Jesus. Jesus will take the lost father’s, the lost mother’s, the lost husband’s, the lost wife’s, and the lost child’s place in your heart.

This is what Paul means when he writes:

“…then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.”

And maybe this is what Jesus is getting at when He prays:

“All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I have been glorified in them.”

There is no substitute for God, but God in Christ⁵ is the substitute for everything. We have lost nothing if we have God, and if we love His Son, we love all. Amen.

Preached on May 21, 2023 at St. Peter’s Lithgow, Millbrook, New York.

Easter 7, Year A

Acts 1:6-14; 1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11; John 17:1-11

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Questions for reflection and discussion:

1.       When the time comes, God promises to ____________ everything.

2.       In today’s reading from John, Jesus is speaking to his disciples before His ____________.

3.       Explain why this is one of the most extraordinary conversations ever recorded.

4.       The conversation is in the form of a ____________.

5.       Explain what Jesus means when He says, “Father, the hour has come.”

6.       Moses wrote in the law that “anyone who is hung on a pole is under God’s ____________.”

7.       Jesus asks His Father to ____________ Him.

8.       The Gospel of John is a first century text that emphasizes the relationship of the Father and the Son before the world ____________.

9.       To glorify God is to ____________ .

10.    Jesus glorified His Father by ____________ the work the Father gave Jesus to do.

11.    Who is the only true God?

12.    The benefit of believing in Jesus is that you are included in His ____________.

Parents and Grandparents, you are responsible to apply God’s Word to your children’s lives. Here is some help. Young Children – draw a picture about something you hear during the sermon. Explain your picture(s) to your parents or the minister after church. Older Children – Do one or more of the following: 1) Count how many times “glory/glorify/glorified” is mentioned. 2) Discuss with your parents how the love of God can substitute for the loss of love.

(1) restore; (2) death; (3) It is a record of God speaking to God; (4) prayer; (5) God is the author of life and appoints the time of death for every creature; (6) curse; (7) glorify; (8) began; (9) describe God and His works in exalted terms; (10) finishing; (11) The Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; (12) prayer to/conversation with the Father

1. Acts 3:21.

2. Deut. 21:23.

3. John 14:14.

4. 1 Pet. 3:18.

5. See: 2 Cor. 5:19.