People argue that there is no reason for faith, and thus it is unreasonable. And yet, there are all sorts of things for which we can find no reason, especially not with the scientific method. They’re all around us. Here are a few:<ol style="counter-reset: list 0;"><li style="line-height: 1.4375em; margin-top: 0px; list-style: none; position: relative;">1. Love… At least not real love or the logic of love: self-sacrifice.</li><li style="line-height: 1.4375em; margin-top: 0px; list-style: none; position: relative;">2. Beauty, what the Bible calls “the Good” or the “Glorious.” You can’t reason your way to Beauty.</li><li style="line-height: 1.4375em; margin-top: 0px; list-style: none; position: relative;">3. Light. For light, there can be no temporal reason, but perhaps it is the reason for temporality.</li><li style="line-height: 1.4375em; margin-top: 0px; list-style: none; position: relative;">4. Life. Darwin did not explain life, but death. Life is a communion of self-sacrifice.</li><li style="line-height: 1.4375em; margin-top: 0px; list-style: none; position: relative;">5. Persons, Consciousness, Spirit. Even physicists will tell you that matter doesn’t matter, but you, the observer, do. That’s the “I” that observes “me.”</li><li style="line-height: 1.4375em; margin-top: 0px; list-style: none; position: relative;">6. Existence. Not things in existence, but existence. Philosophers refer to God as the Uncaused Cause or Necessary Beingness (“ousias” in Greek). Yahweh’s name is “I Am that I Am.”</li><li style="line-height: 1.4375em; margin-top: 0px; list-style: none; position: relative;">7. Reason. There is no reason for Reason. How could there be?</li></ol><div>You can’t reason your way to reason; you can only arrive by faith — Faith in reason.</div>

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All creation is the manifestation of a Love (God) Song, the Logos (logic) of God. Music is not illogical but more “logic” than we can comprehend. And so, to appreciate Music, the Music, the Logos, must comprehend us.&nbsp;Physicists argue that all elementary particles are different ‘notes’ on a fundamental string, such that “The universe… is akin to a cosmic symphony,” (Brian Green). Aslan sings Narnia into existence. In Tolkien’s The Silmarillion, God through angels sings creation into existence, and when a fallen angel sings discordant notes, God Himself sings those discordant notes into a deeper harmony. The dissonance creates a longing for consonance and ecstatic delight in a deeper resonance. In the Revelation, a slaughtered lamb stands on the throne (the top of the ark) and sings meaning into the Seven Sealed Scroll as all creation worships. Reality is a dance, and if you’re not dancing to the Logos of Love, perhaps you don’t actually exist.&nbsp;When you nail the Logos to a tree, what do you get? Sheet music, dance steps, science, and technology — it has its place, but it’s not the same as feeling happy or dancing in the moonlight.“The Logos became flesh and we have seen his glory—grace.”&nbsp;Jesus lived gracefully; He lived His life like a dance. The dance fulfilled the law, although it was not at all what we expected. We had the sheet music; we had the knowledge of good and evil; we had the law in a coffin in a stone temple. We had the dance steps, but we were all surprised by the Dancer and His Dance.

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“Sin” in the New Testament is usually the Greek word “hamartia,” which is normally defined as “missing the mark,” as in “not hitting the bull’s-eye” in a target.&nbsp;During the offertory this past weekend, we offered our sins. To facilitate that, I asked each worshipper to fill out a “My Life Scorecard.” In the left-hand column, we listed our goals. In the middle column, we judged ourselves and gave ourselves a grade. In the right-hand column, we plotted our success on a target that was printed on each card, revealing the size of our sin.&nbsp;As we filled out the scorecard, the worship team played that old song “The Lord of the Dance.” We realized that it’s hard to dance while filling out the “My Life Scorecard,” and of course it’s hard to fill out the card while dancing. With our goals, we become a “law unto ourselves.” The Law is like dance steps, and as long as you’re practicing dance steps, you’re not dancing.

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Jesus says to His followers, “As the Father sent me, so send I you.” And so, how did He conquer? Read John 1:35-51. 1)He went for a walk; maybe you could go for a walk in your neighbor’s world. 2) He asked questions; maybe you could ask your neighbor, “What is it that you want?” 3) He invited folks to “come and see.” 4) He valued incompetence. 5) He made people competent. 6) He wasn’t easily offended. 7) He celebrated honesty. 8) He recognized the Kingdom at hand: God’s dream planted in His neighbor’s heart. 9) He is the Kingdom at hand: God’s dream planted in the heart of Adam.He said to Nathaniel, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see the heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending (NOT on a piece of real estate) on the Son of Man.”&nbsp;I think He’s saying, “I am Israel, and I am the firstborn from whom you stole the birthright. I am the presence of the Father from whom you stole the blessing. I am your birthright and blessing. I am the edge of the Promised Land: Eden. I am taking you home to the Tree of Life in the middle of the Garden. I am the Son of God, and the Son of Man. God is my Father. Man is my mother. You, Adam, will give birth to me and all things with me. I am the decision to humble oneself and join the dance.”There is an old Jerusalem built with stones, and it’s been condemned. And there is a New Jerusalem descending from God even now. It is your birthright, and it’s filled with the blessing which includes every Jew and every Arab; it includes Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, Cain and Abel. “For whatever you do to the least of these my brothers,” says the firstborn, “you do to me.”10) He invited folks to come and see His heart. And sometimes a body has to be broken for a heart to be revealed.

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Perhaps one could get drunk on something so Good that it would never be bad. Maybe you could lose yourself and find yourself in Love.&nbsp;You can’t say “no” to addiction until you say “yes” to connection; you can’t say “no” to sin until you say “yes” to love. God is Love and God is a Party (3 Persons, 1 Substance).&nbsp;Jesus didn’t just turn ordinary water into wine; He turned water from six stone jars used for the Jewish rites of purification into wine. Anyone interested in justifying themself according to “the Law” could sit by the jars and judge their neighbor and feel self-righteous, even as they trapped themselves alone in outer darkness. Nothing wrecks a party quite like those intent on exalting themselves, those addicted to the last idol: their own ego.&nbsp;Kisses are dangerous, but they have the power to melt your ego and set you free… Jesus is the Kiss of the Father that conquers the world. His blood is wine. And we are commanded to place it on our lips and ingest it like a seed.

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The Gospel is not the message that we win because others lose. The Gospel is that all win because one lost that all might live — and it’s the greatest honor to live now as the very body of that One —the Body of Christ. How do two become one body, Bride of Christ? We call this incident in John Chapter 2, “the cleansing of the temple.” John doesn’t call it that. He knows that Jesus doesn’t cleanse His temple with a whip; He cleanses it with wine, blood that’s wine. Everything exists and is maintained so that you and I would witness the sacrifice of the Lamb and freely choose to sacrifice like the Lamb, that we would become who we truly are: The Body and Bride of Christ, that we would learn to love LOVE, who is our bridegroom.

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John 3:16-17, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son (Didn’t Jesus just tell us that we must be begotten and become sons? And yet Jesus is the “only begotten son”?) that whoever believes [literally “that all the believing,” which can mean “whoever believes” or “everyone, believing” or both] may not be lost, but have the life of the age to come. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world (not some of the world) might be saved through him.”&nbsp;God knows that “the adam (humanity)” does not have faith. It is why each of us is “not good” and “alone.” God in Christ Jesus did not die on the tree in the garden to see whether or not you have faith; God in Christ Jesus gave His life on the tree in the garden so that you would have faith.<div> </div>

Peter Hiett