Broken Receivers
“Why do you look for the living among the dead?”[1]
This seemingly abrupt statement was made by angels to the women at the empty tomb of Jesus. A bit rude, and a bit obvious for women who were genuinely grieving, right? Well, not really. What these celestial beings said next tells us why. “Remember how He told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’”[2] Angels are quoting Jesus because the women had forgotten what He said. “Then they remembered His words.”[3]
I’ve earned a master’s in leadership and a Ph.D. in intercultural studies. I’ve taught culture and communication at universities, colleges, seminaries, and consulted in the marketplace. Verbal and non-verbal communication fascinates me. What is communication? How does it work? How does it fail? You can boil down 5000 years of human history and four things always rise to the top like the crème de la crème of all communication studies in all cultures at any time in recorded history: (1) the right message (2) to the right people (3) in the right way (4) at the right time.
Get any of these variables wrong and communication goes sideways.
The problem in linguistics is not just one of language but also of generations. Words stay the same, but their meaning changes fast. For example, I have a publication in my library called Fagots on the Fire.[4] The word “gay” is use throughout, but it meant a disposition of happiness not an orientation. When the Thomas Oliphant wrote the Christmas song Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly[5] the third line reads, “Don we now our gay apparel”. Oliphant did not mean we do Christmas in drag, rather, wear colorful clothing. Hence, the problem of communication is not only one of language but generations.
When I look back at the student reviews at St. Edwards University where I taught culture and communication, a first glance will appear rather negative. Students referred to me as dope, sick, bad, bussin, slap, and slay. Further investigation into the current meaning attached to these words is anything but negative!
But the problem of communication is not just one of language and generations, the problem extends to God Himself. Yes, God has a problem. A very big problem. It can be summed up in three statements: (1) the transmitter is perfect (2) the message is perfect (3) but the receivers are all broken. God is trying to communicate to us through our broken receivers. The brokenness occurred in the Garden of Eden when sin entered Adam’s heart. Now, all that we hear from God is filtered through our own inability to hear and understand God.
Therefore, we can say with confidence that we used to speak the language of God.[6] Genesis tells us in the cool of the day Adam walked with God in what we assume was an intimate conversation.[7] Though Genesis was first written in Hebrew, God and Adam were not speaking Hebrew. They were speaking the language of God. From the fall of Adam, the whole point of the Bible is God trying to get His message over to us. This is why Scripture is punctuated with “Set your minds on things above”,[8] “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind”[9], “Do not walk in the counsel of the ungodly”[10]
Look how the Gospel of John starts.
“In the beginning was the Word.”[11] We could not receive God’s Word because our transmitters were broken. Look how Hebrews starts, “In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.” [12] God sent the Word to us, or as John states, “And Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”[13]
But the problem was not immediately solved.
The answer to our broken receivers became part of the problem. Jesus was like us. He looked like us. He talked like us. He walked like us. He ate and drank like us. He was tempted like us. He wept like us. He became tired and exhausted like us. People he loved betrayed Him just like us. He needed money to pay his taxes like us.
Though He was just like us, Jesus could speak the language of God. The magnificence of God was loaded into human vocabulary in Christ. “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form.”[14] People heard what Jesus had to say, but did not always understand what He was saying because the fullness of God was in Him and in what He said. “You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.”[15] He also said, “You have heard it said, but I say unto you.”[16] Jesus used human vocabulary as the incarnate Son of God but communicated on an entirely different level much like a parent talking to a teenager.
Let’s look at the parent-teenager dynamic with those roles reversed.
Jesus is left behind in the temple at Jerusalem as a boy. His parents could not find Him. Several days later they found Him at the temple. What Jesus said was quite provoking – or “slap” as my students would say – “Did you not know I would be about my Father’s business?”[17] What followed was an underwhelming response, “But they did not understand what he was saying to them.”[18] What Jesus said was, “Mom and dad, I know Joseph is my father, but God was my Father, and I know my father has a carpentry business, but it is just a business, because my Father has a business but it’s not really a business, it’s a kingdom. What followed is pure humility on Jesus' part. “Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them.[19]
Let’s now turn to Philip and Andrew.
They tell Jesus a few Greeks were outside wanting to talk with him and would he receive them? Look at the direct answer Jesus gave them. “Unless the kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies it produces many seeds.”[20] Philip and Andrew may have looked at each other asking, “Is that a yes, or no?” What Jesus was saying was, “While I am in this kernel as in my incarnate human form there is only enough room for a few. But if I die the room will not only accommodate the Greeks but every tribe, people, language, and nation as one body. I will be the head, and she will be my Bride called the church.
Do you think Andrew and Philip understood this? No. The fullness of the Deity was speaking.
Let’s turn now to heaven and hell.
We talk about heaven as “up”. But in what sense is heaven up? If it’s straight up from Texas, anyone who dies in England will have to travel south-east before they go up. People who die in New Zealand will circumnavigate half the planet before going up from Texas. Heaven is not up geographically, but up dimensionally up. It is a place more wonderful, glorious, magnificent, and marvelous than our human imagination can comprehend. Jesus said there would be no more sorrow, pain, tears, decay, death, fear, time or night. I don’t know about you, but I have no reference point for that in my experience.
Well, in what way is hell down?
We are more influenced by Dante’s circles of hell in his Divine Comedy or Botticelli's Inferno. Drill down through Texas and hell would be Madagascar. But like heaven, hell is not geographically down but dimensionally down. It is far more horrific than we can imagine. Jesus said it was like fire, torment, gnashing of teeth, chains, and punishment.
With these two contrasts in mind, communicating the gospel is more like Charles Dickens’s a Tale of Two Cities. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”[21]
If this is the stark reality that awaits us – dimensionally up or down – we must take seriously (1) what message (2) to what people (3) in what way (4) at what time? Holy Spirit to fix the broken receivers.
Now to the resurrection.
You can hear in Martha’s tone a slight scolding of Jesus. “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.”[22] Jesus replied that he would rise again. Then she said, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”[23] But Jesus said, “No Martha, you don’t understand, I am the resurrection and the life.”[24] The fullness of the Deity was speaking to her, but she did not understand. This is why the angels had to remind the women at the tomb what Jesus had already said.
We have all heard the appeal to receive Jesus as our savior. But it is a bit shallow in what that means. It really means to receive the life of Jesus in you. In that receiving, you have life and death. One day you and I will die, and on that day for the Christian, death has not held on to you. It has lost its power because of the resurrection of Jesus. The kernel of wheat that was the incarnation human body of Jesus has fallen away and the fruit of that death “once for all”[25] is the resurrected Jesus, the “firstborn from among the dead”[26]. What that means for us is that our own bodies that were sown mortal will be raised immortal, sown corruptible but raised incorruptible, sown perishable but raised imperishable. One day, our own death gives way to life because of the life of Jesus in us, or as Jesus Himself said, “He that believes in me, even though he dies, yet shall he live.”[27]
So, what power is at work in you? Is it the resurrected power of Jesus?
[1] Luke 24:5.
[2] Ibid. 7-8.
[3] Ibid. 8.
[4] Low, Ethel. Fagots on the Fire. Zondervan Publishing House. Grand Rapids, MI. 1950.
[5] Oliphant, Thomas. Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly. 1862.
[6] I am using this phrase broadly to say that our receivers were not broken but could hear and understand what God was saying.
[7] Genesis 3:8.
[8] Colossians 3:2.
[9] Romans 12:2.
[10] Proverbs 1:1.
[11] John 1:1.
[12] Hebrews 1:1-2.
[13] John 1:14.
[14] Colossians 2:9.
[15] Matthew 13:14.
[16] Matthew 5:17-48.
[17] Luke 2:49.
[18] Ibid. 50.
[19] Ibid. 51.
[20] Ibid. 12:24.
[21] Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities. Dover Publications. New York, NY. 1998. 1.
[22] John 11:21
[23] Ibid. 24.
[24] Ibid. 25.
[25] Romans 6:10.
[26] Colossians 1:18.
[27] John 11:25.