The Abundant Life, Part 11: Bearing Honest Witness
Jesus at 2AM - A Humorous, Intelligent Look at the Bible, Church History & the Life of Faith
Release Date: 05/29/2025
Healing Eden, Part 10: Trapped by the Red Sea
Jesus at 2AM - A Humorous, Intelligent Look at the Bible, Church History & the Life of Faith
Today we turn our attention to events immediately following the exodus - as Israel makes her escape from centuries of slavery in Egypt. For God has acted with mighty power to save, and our first imagination is that - under divine care - Israel will be safe evermore. But as Israel flees into the Sinai desert, she soon discovers that Pharaoh is in pursuit with the full might of the Egyptian army. And as the Egyptian chariots approach, Israel finds herself trapped by the Red Sea. And has her toes touch the water, Israel - and we - are forced to learn an essential lesson of the life of faith: in...
info_outline
Healing Eden, Part 09: Exodus and Passover
Jesus at 2AM - A Humorous, Intelligent Look at the Bible, Church History & the Life of Faith
The exodus from Egypt becomes the gravitational center of the Old Testament as it forms Israel’s image of what it means to be saved! After centuries of suffering, God acts with incredible power to break the bonds of Israel’s slavery and leads her to new freedom under God’s direct care. It is a story of divine strength and mercy and directly foreshadows a larger salvation that is to come when God breaks the ultimate bonds of sin and death. But…, the exodus also comes with immeasurable suffering as God’s deliverance for Israel is matched by God’s judgment upon Egypt – the death of...
info_outline
Healing Eden, Part 08: God’s Name and the Promise to Deliver
Jesus at 2AM - A Humorous, Intelligent Look at the Bible, Church History & the Life of Faith
After more than 400 years of slavery in Egypt, the cries of God’s people rise to heaven — and are heard! God’s response? A call to Moses from the burning bush and a revealing of the Divine name (“I AM”) – a name that speaks to far more than eternal existence, but of unending compassion and grace. It is in this encounter that God reiterates the promise to save (making the Exodus something of a preview of salvation to come) and which reminds us again that we have a God who hears our pain, remembers the covenant with Abraham, and who acts not as a distant observer but as the One who...
info_outline
Healing Eden, Part 07: Slaves in Egypt
Jesus at 2AM - A Humorous, Intelligent Look at the Bible, Church History & the Life of Faith
In this episode in our journey through the biblical story we come to the beginning of the book of Exodus where we find Israel in a very unexpected place - enslaved in Egypt. It’s a circumstance that begs the question: What has gone wrong??? For, as we have discussed in previous episodes, Israel is God’s elect – a people set apart for priestly office in the larger project of the salvation of the world. So how is it that God’s beloved community suffers such oppression (as Israel will be slaves in Egypt for 400 years!)? Has the covenant of election been annulled? Has God turned his back...
info_outline
Healing Eden, Part 06: The Strange Geography of Election (Jacob and Esau)
Jesus at 2AM - A Humorous, Intelligent Look at the Bible, Church History & the Life of Faith
Today we return to a fundamental theme in the biblical story, that of election – the idea that we belong to the community of salvation not by anything we do, but by the sovereign will of God. To be elect is to be chosen by God for salvation apart from any merit or effort or agreement on our part. It’s often a difficult idea for 21st century westerners to swallow as we like to see ourselves as the captains of our own destiny. We imagine that if we are included in the community of salvation, it’s because we somehow earned it (at the very least by “having faith”). And if one is not...
info_outline
Healing Eden, Part 05: The Not-Sacrifice of Isaac
Jesus at 2AM - A Humorous, Intelligent Look at the Bible, Church History & the Life of Faith
Today we come to one of the most emotionally charged moments in all of scripture: God’s command to Abraham that he sacrifice his son Isaac – the heir to the covenant of salvation! And even though God ultimately prevents Isaac from being killed, the divine intervention comes at the last possible moment. And it leaves us wondering: What was God doing? Why would God put both Abraham and Issac through such trauma??? Was this some ancient near eastern practice we don’t know about? Or – as many of us assume - was it some obedience test for Abraham; a measuring of his...
info_outline
Healing Eden, Part 04: The Covenant of Salvation
Jesus at 2AM - A Humorous, Intelligent Look at the Bible, Church History & the Life of Faith
In our endeavor to understand the biblical story from Genesis to Revelation, we have come to the question that drives the entire narrative: Can the consequences of sin be reversed??? Or is humanity's fate sealed - doomed to a tragic existence in which everything adds up to nothing in the end? Today we get the all-important answer: Yes, something can be done. And it comes in the form of a covenant - a one-sided contract in which God pledges himself to the work of reversing the curse of sin and bringing the divine blessing to all creation. It is one of the pivotal moments in the...
info_outline
Healing Eden, Part 03: The Flood
Jesus at 2AM - A Humorous, Intelligent Look at the Bible, Church History & the Life of Faith
In this episode we come to the Bible's version of The Flood Story - a story that was told by many Ancient Near Eastern cultures. Yet the Bible tells the story very, very differently. For in the Bible, the Flood Story is about far more than a hero and some animals on an ark. Indeed, at its heart, the biblical account is the story of what it means for a holy and loving God to be heartbroken by humanity’s sin—and yet to still refuse to give up on us. From divine wrath to divine promise, the Flood narrative is the story of a God who can rage! And who can also repent and forgive. And then make...
info_outline
Healing Eden, Part 02: A Tale of Two Trees
Jesus at 2AM - A Humorous, Intelligent Look at the Bible, Church History & the Life of Faith
As we continue our journey through the biblical narrative from Genesis to Revelation we come to the essential element of plot: conflict. What has gone wrong? Why is God's good creation in need of salvation? The answer, of course, is given in highly symbolic terms invoving the Tree of Life, the Tree of the Fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and, of course, a very wiley serpent. In this episode I’ll do my best to decode the symbolism and get to the heart of why creation is broken in the ways we all experience. Indeed, we'll look at the very nature of sin and evil as well as...
info_outline
Healing Eden, Part 01: Twice Upon a Time
Jesus at 2AM - A Humorous, Intelligent Look at the Bible, Church History & the Life of Faith
Welcome to part 1 of our series Healing Eden - a detailed journey through the grand story of salvation, from Genesis to Revelation. And as you would expect, we begin at the beginning with the creation story, indeed the two creation stories in Genesis. But our goal is not simply to explain how the world began, but why the world began. For the creation story is a love story, told not in scientific detail, but in the mythic language of the Ancient Near East that reveals divine intention. And so we’ll uncover the deeper meaning behind light and darkness, sea monsters and...
info_outlineIn this episode we turn to – you guessed it – the 9th commandment: You shall not bear false witness. It’s instruction that – like all the commandments – seems, at first glance, very simple and straightforward: When you are called as a witness in a trial, do not give false testimony.
But when we look a little deeper, we see that this commandment is filled with implications that I think are critical to explore if we are to live the abundant life – not the least of which is to recognize that in life, there will be conflict. Wrongs will be done. Harm will happen. There will be disputes that require adjudication. If life in the community of faith were easy, there’d be no need for a commandment about truth-telling.
Indeed, it turns out that truth-telling is key for a healthy community. And in fact, can be very healing when wrongs have been committed. Sometimes the only justice that can be granted is an honest accounting of what has transpired. But owning wrongs goes a long way towards making repair.
And yet there is another reason that the people of God are called to be honest brokers in all that we do – we bear witness to God himself, whom we believe raised Jesus from the dead! …a claim that strains credulity to its breaking point. If we want to be the least bit credible when it comes to bearing witness to Christ, we had best have a long reputation of integrity – intellectual and otherwise...
The text for this sermon can be found here: Exodus 20:16 (NRSV)
If you value the podcast and are able to support the community from which it comes, you can make a tax-deductible contribution to Canvas Presbyterian Church here! (Thank you!!!)
For more sermon series, resources and means of contacting me, simply head to jesusat2am.com, send me email, or come chat on BlueSky.