Bruce Johnson's Message for Exeter Presbyterian Church

The Exorbitant, Eccentric Love of God

This sermon had its origin in my being diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia on November 29, 2011. I was taken from Dover, NH, by ambulance and admitted to Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston (part of same complex as Dana-Farber Cancer Institute) that afternoon. I received chemotherapy off and on through early January 2012 before being sent home for a period of rest. 2 more rounds of chemo; another rest; more chemo and then a stem cell transplant in early April, 2012.

What was going on during those weeks of confinement and chemo? You’ve heard of the challenges of chemo. I’ll tell of only two – loss of appetite when needing to keep up strength. The only food I wanted -- applesauce which Betsy prepared and brought from home – was banned because of the oncology teams [exaggerated?] fear of microbes. I had hand and foot syndrome; almost unable to close hands and fingers enough to hold fork or toothbrush even assuming that I wanted to eat.

Also going on: Daily reading Tabletalk and Grace Gems (online resource of Puritan devotionals). Daily prayer – especially morning and evening. Delightful, unhurried times of prayer. Careful, reflective reading of Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts for 2^nd or 3^rd time.

And walking the halls. Endlessly walking halls, tethered to “tree of life.”

I instinctively knew that some form of exercise would aid recovery. While walking, I sang songs in my head. Whistled. Prayed some more. I never really asked the “Why me?” question but one day I did ask – and, as far as I knew then and can recall now, the inquiry was similar in tone and purpose to a request at the dinner table that Betsy pass the salt and pepper: I wanted information (not urgently – even trivial information) and I asked the only Person who could provide it – “Why have you given me leukemia?”

I have never heard the audible voice of God. In my late 20’s while driving home from a governance meeting of the church in which I had grown up, I had felt profoundly sad and asked God why I felt that way. The distinct response the Spirit impressed on my soul was “Because I am asking you to leave the church of your youth.” I had come to realize it was an apostate church, and God moved Betsy and me into the pews of a church where the scriptures were faithfully preached every Lord’s Day.

So while walking my mile one day (24 laps around the central core of the hospital building), the Spirit for the second time in my life distinctly impressed specific words on my heart and mind. The question – remember – had been “Why have you given me leukemia?” The answer? “Because I love you.”

Leave story for a minute or two. How are we to think about that dialogue?

Epistemology – How do we know? What counts as knowledge? Culture says it doesn’t count as knowledge if it can’t be quantified. Simple example: A person is 65% oxygen, 18% carbon, 10% hydrogen, etc. Bible describes another way of knowing. From that perspective, personhood could be described this way: “God created man male and female, after His own image, in knowledge, righteousness and holiness, with dominion over the creatures.”¹

Culture’s way is materialistic reductionism. Fancy phrase for breaking everything down into atoms and thereby depriving everything of relationship and of meaning. By the grace of God, we “know” in a different way – principally because our “knowing” is grounded in the knowledge of God. That’s how we were created.

Paul writes of this kind of knowing – spiritual knowing – in 1 Cor. 2.6: ⁶ Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. ⁷ But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. ⁸ None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. ⁹ But, as it is written,

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,

nor the heart of man imagined,

what God has prepared for those who love him”—

¹⁰ these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. ¹¹ For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. ¹² Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. ¹³ And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.

¹⁴ The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. ¹⁵ The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. ¹⁶  “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

The Spirit searches the mind of God for our sake – not for His own sake; He’s god, after all – He searches the mind of God for us so that the gospel will be intelligible to us. (I first wrote “make sense to us” but gospel doesn’t “make sense” in the ordinary way.) May I say it again? The Holy Spirit searches the mind of God for our sake so that the gospel will be intelligible to us.

Back to the story, and I want you to be with me here: Picture me wearing a big, bulky sweatshirt with right sleeve cut off so nurse can get at PICC line; sweat pants; sneakers; one hand pushing pole; red stocking cap because hairless in winter.

Replay: “Why have you given me leukemia?” “Because I love you.” The answer was stunning. The moment is forever impressed on my memory. I had just rounded the first corner of the central corridor and was looking down the long straightaway of the next leg. “Because I love you.” This answer was fully intelligible to me.

The answer was also fully and immediately convincing. I didn’t even stop walking. God met and answered me along the very path in life He had prescribed for me, and I just kept walking that path. It was the natural thing to do.

My inner response was, “Of course!” – not “Huh?” or “What?” or “Excuse me?” Neither God nor I had misunderstood the other. (He couldn’t have misunderstood me, of course; I often have misunderstood Him.) And remember that my question was “Why have you given me leukemia?” What I had received had come from God as a gift.

As often as I have mentally replayed the tape of that day in my mind, I have never doubted what took place.

I have, however, been reluctant to share this story in public, mostly because, until recent weeks, it has been “free floating,” unattached to a specific passage from scripture. Telling the story felt too much like “Look what God did for me!” Only when asked to speak to you did I realize that this experience was a demonstration of “God is love” and only then did I feel free to present it to you.

In Romans 8:16-17, Paul confirms that Christ-followers are children of God and explains how that fact is “proven” to us spiritually. This passage tells me that a personal testimony is really reliable only when it confirms or illustrates a specific scripture. ¹⁶ The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, ¹⁷ and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

HOW IT WORKS (building on the passage from 1 Corinthians 2): God the Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirits that we belong to Him as His children. So there is an internal testimony within the hearts of believers that assures us of God’s fatherhood and preservation of us as His sons and daughters – beloved sons and daughters.

But the Spirit does not give testimony apart from His Word. Before our spirits can “speak,” as it were, Paul must first tell us that we are children of God. In just this way, the Lord has always given an objective Word to His people through the prophets. The Spirit takes this external Word and confirms it internally. He provides subjective assurance that God’s objective Word applies to us when we believe. In short, experience can illuminate – but not determine – theology. [The author is indebted to the editors of Tabletalk magazine for the ideas in this paragraph.]

So now we have a context. My story is God’s story – writ large by and through Christ – in the pages of scripture, which we now proceed to consider a bit more closely – more as a meditation or devotional reflection rather than an exegesis.

My goal is not to send you away with a tidy, three-point outline of the passage (though I enthusiastically subscribe to the usefulness of that approach) but to deepen your soul’s thirst for God, for the living God, ^{Ps. 42.2} who is love, and to insinuate that you love me and I love you to the same extent that God loves each of His children – which is to say, to the fullest extent we are able, the Holy Spirit being our Helper.

I used the word “insinuate” rather than “demonstrate” because the latter is far too clinical and fails to convey the wisdom God displayed in creating us to be lovers like He is.

Latin insinuare “to wind one’s way into,” from in- “in” + sinuare  “to wind, bend, curve.” Chemotherapy requires a port, which staff insinuate into the patient’s chest.

Here’s the point of this meditation: The exorbitant, explosive, expensive, extemporaneous, extravagant – yes, even exhibitionistic [think Northern Lights] love of God is our love for one another. [v. 17: as he is so also are we in this world.]

First reality: Love is from God.^{v. 7} Love is from God.

Imagine holding that love out in front of you – perhaps as if on a pedestal and on display in a museum. We’re trying to step back a bit and examine it as objectively as we can. Don’t want to confuse it with the love – or lack of it – from an earthly parent or romantic love we may have enjoyed in this life or even with a fraternal love.

What can we say of “love from God”?

“It must be ‘special’” doesn’t say much.

“Wow!” is really just . . . a sound. We’re trying to find some words here to describe love from God. The probably should be large words.

How about “exorbitant”? Legal term from 600 years ago – means “deviating from rule or principle.” Comes from Latin exorbitare – deviate or go out of the track. Ex orbita OFF THE RAILS.

Second reality: Whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Whatever else it is, this love is not “isolated.” The lover described here has been born of God . . . but the “action” doesn’t end there. This lover also knows God. I don’t want to minimize being born of God, but emphasis is on knowing Him. Intimate knowing is not possible without conversation.

That word entered our language 600+ years ago – “living together, having dealings with others;” from Latin conversationem “act of living with.” A noun of action from conversari “to live with, keep company with.” It’s more than the mere exchange of words.

Do you want to know God? Conversation is required.

Third reality: He has sent His only Son into the world so that we might live through Him (v. 9) and has given us of His Spirit (v. 13b). How do we respond to a gift? With thanks – even for the humblest gift one mortal might offer another. “In everything give thanks . . .”

Fourth (vv. 15 & 16) – confession (“Whoever confesses . . .”) leads to communion (“God abides in him and he in God”) leads to conviction (“. . . we have come to know. . .”) leads to confidence (“. . . and to believe the love that God has for us”) in the powerful, perpetual, purposeful presence of God (“. . . whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” – vv. 15, 16). Maybe the “P” words aren’t all there in the text, but my use of them is certainly justified by the rest of scripture.

There’s much to be made from the word “abide” in these verses. 3 uses here; 6 altogether in the whole text. It’s a word which, in its origin, strongly implies a covenant relationship.

Illustration from experience: I confessed Christ in 1970. Won’t track all fits and starts of Christian walk (short in the telling, long and painful in the living). Came to point of conviction of and confidence in God’s love maybe 15-20 years ago.

Head knowledge only. What does that mean? Not animating. Might has well have been a rock. Real but lifeless. I had semi-consciously excluded myself from the number of those whom God really loves.

The discovery that God loved me enough to give me leukemia (Is. 45:7) was like an explosion – a really good explosion. It exploded that mythical rock that barred me from God’s heart.

It exploded idols I had erected to “help” me through each hour of each day of my then-69 years. It blew the cobwebs of complacency and disbelief out of my mind. The love of God exploded into my life.

(Have I rebuilt idols or neglected newly formed cobwebs? Of course. Our humanity is not changed by experiences of delight or despair; our voice is.)

The explosion was extemporaneous – that is, it was outside of time (ex tempore) – more appropriately here: It was off schedule. I did not specifically prepare for it. It just “dropped” on me at God’s appointed time. Like redeemed sinners in general, I did not seek God’s love; that love “found” me.

It’s hard to come up with a formula from all of this. I would love to be able to tell Al and Lorraine Bailey, Bill and Beth Spead, Steve Coutts – and you – to read certain verses and certain books or to pray in a certain way when you are in a crisis of whatever sort and you, too, would be embraced in God’s love.

But maybe there’s at least a behavioral guideline in Westminster Shorter Catechism 88: Q: What are the outward means whereby Christ communicates to us the benefits of redemption?

A: The outward and ordinary means whereby Christ communicates to us the benefits of redemption are, his ordinances, especially the word, sacraments, and prayer; all of which are made effectual to the elect for salvation.

Conversation is called for here.

* * * * *

I heard a report recently about an ATV accident involving a woman who had won Olympic gold medals in swimming. She severed her spine and faces the possibility of never walking again. She’s 41. Her family reported that she was “thinking positively” after the surgery.

What I am talking about this morning is not a subjective reality, not just “positive thinking” – trying from a human standpoint to find something good in a difficult situation – but a recognition of the eccentric nature of God’s love. [“Eccentric” is a term from Ptolemaic astronomy, which located the earth at the center of the universe. An eccentric was a circle or orbit not having the Earth precisely at its center. The word comes through Middle French and directly from Medieval Latin eccentricus, from Greek ekkentros “out of the center.”] God’s love is eccentric in that it takes us out of ourselves – our “natural” center. That “natural center” leads us to ask “What in this difficult situation – this potentially permanent paralysis – looks good to me?”

Well, I am eccentric with respect to the way God has created His universe. I am not at the center, and my perspective on what’s “positive” is perverted.

In place of positive thinking, consider, instead, Paul’s admonition to the Philippians (4:8):

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

Paul is telling us to fill our minds with realities which will inspire worship of God – realities which are constant in the face of peace and conflict, prosperity and poverty, sickness and health, happiness and heartache. Each of us is bound to experience both sides of those pairs, and each side can be seen as a gift because of the God who sends both.

And here is a reality which meets all of Paul’s criteria – true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, praiseworthy: God’s love. Thinking about God’s love connects us with objective reality. As I continued down the hospital corridor after “hearing” that I had leukemia because God loves me, I worshipped Him because of the objective reality of that love.

No – this is not an appeal to think positively in the midst of trial. It is an appeal to you to invite God to surprise you with His love . . . to “pick it up,” as it were, and look at it from many different angles . . . to be willing to be stunned when you find Him in unexpected ways and places.

To the unsaved: The gospel is that, at the same time, you are more wicked and flawed than you ever dared believe, and that you are more loved and accepted than you ever dared to hope. Such love is stunning.

As I’ve said, I’m trying to influence your perspective – particularly if, for you as it had been for me, God’s love is somehow inanimate or maybe just sickly sweet in a “hearts and flowers” kind of way.

“Mother Bickerdyke” was a Civl War nurse who is memoralized on the Knox County courthouse law in Galesburg, Illinois, just off the campus of Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, to which Betsy and I matriculated in 1960. Her dormitory was Whiting Hall; mine was on the opposite side of campus. When I was newly in love with Betsy and leaving Whiting Hall after saying good-night to her, I would pass Mother Bickerdyke – giddy; “the pavement always stayed beneath my feet before.” I’m sure she smiled at me.

Why would you not be giddy today in the face of God’s extravagant love? Extravagant – from Latin word meaning “wander outside the boundaries”

The late Dallas Willard wrote: “Until our thoughts of God have found every visible thing and event glorious with his presence, the word of Jesus has not fully seized us.” If it hasn’t – if you’re not giddy – maybe there’s no real conversation taking place.

Final “ex-” word: Expensive. “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” [vv. 9 & 10]

Our salvation – and God’s love – are expensive. If we had time, I would show you how the picture of Christ hanging on the cross is at the very heart of the word “expensive.” (Think “pendant.”)

Word of caution: Avoid thinking along the lines of “God loves me and so He will [FILL IN THE BLANK WITH YOUR DESIRED OUTCOME.]” If you belong to Him, “God loves me” is a first principle. Nothing is required to complete the thought/sentence. However, His nature as love exists right alongside His attributes of wisdom, holiness, mercy, omnipotence and so forth. Since we know that this divine love is executed by a wise, merciful, altogether good and omnipotent Father, we do not need to make our receipt and enjoyment of that love dependent on His “arranging” any particular outcome we desire.

Are you willing to be loved by the God revealed in creation and in His Word – by a God who would send cancer, I might say, as evidence of His love? Sounds “screwy,” but if your name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life – if God has already claimed you as His own and you simply haven’t acknowledged that fact – you will understand. If you don’t, seek out an elder for real conversation.

Now into the home stretch: “As he is so also are we in this world. . . .We love because he first loved us.” ^v.19 As a result of being redeemed, we are now present . . . wherever we are . . . in love – first and foremost for God, but “so also” for our brothers and sisters and for the unsaved. It is God’s love which gives us confidence both to love and to face the day of judgment.

I don’t know what “troubles” lie ahead for you or for me before that day. I know that my instinct is to shrink from the dire diagnosis, from family friction, from financial failure – yes, especially from death.

I WANT TO SAY THAT THE LOVE OF GOD AND THE LOVE OF MY CHRISTIAN FAMILY ENCOURAGES ME TO EMBRACE THESE REALITIES RATHERTHAN SHRINK FROM THEM.

I can say that from up here behind the pulpit. There’s space between us – both physical and “psychic.” But what about afterward over coffee and snacks? Sometimes I feel like I am one of the exiles in Ezekiel 33, treating prophetic words I hear from this pulpit as mere entertainment. Is it really so hard to talk with one another about eternal matters – as compared, say, to the latest shenanigans in Washington or the latest sports results? It can be – for me anyway.

One last personal experience – which can also serve to illustrate the exhibitionistic nature of God’s love: Years ago I saw a crushingly beautiful harvest moon on corn stalks. It was just overwhelmingly beautiful. This was around 1973. It was 25 years before I knew that anyone else in all of human history had ever been crushed by beauty.

In 1998, I read aloud to Betsy a memoir entitled A Severe Mercy, by Sheldon Vanauken. It’s the story of his meeting, courting and marrying his wife, “Davey,” who contracted an incurable disease not long after they were married. Vanauken nursed Davey through her final months, during which he corresponded extensively with C. S. Lewis about the experience. Lewis’ wife died shortly after Davey died.

Vanauken had also been crushed by beauty. In writing about why it is so difficult for him (and me) to talk about such experiences, he observed, “It is, I think, that we are all so alone in what lies deepest in our souls, so unable to find the words, and perhaps the courage to speak with unlocked hearts, that we don't know at all that it is the same with others.”

I thought I had been alone – just as Vanauken wrote. It did not occur to me that anyone else could be crushed by beauty. I thought of my experience as not merely unique but aberrational.

My experience with cancer is similar. How in the world can I explain to anyone that the best thing God has ever done for me (apart from saving me in Christ) was to give me leukemia? That makes no sense. Neither did it make sense for Sheldon Vanauken to describe Davey’s death as God’s severe mercy toward him. But he wrote, “That death, so full of suffering for us both, suffering that still overwhelmed my life, was yet a severe mercy. A mercy as severe as death, a severity as merciful as love.”

God is love. This love was made manifest in His sending His son so that we might live through Him. All Christ-followers know that these statements are true. Now let your imagination soar through all of those realms in which that exorbitant, eccentric love might possibly be displayed; live with unlocked hearts . . . and be amazed.

1 Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q/A 9