Beautiful Outlaw

CHAPTER ONE

THE PLAYFULNESS OF GOD AND THE POISON OF RELIGION

THE PLAYFULNESS OF GOD

This episode takes place a week or so after Jesus saunters out of the tomb he borrowed. The apostle John, one of Jesus' closest friends, recounts it:

So many things are delicious about this story it's hard to know where to dive in.

First, the boys have gone fishing. Can you blame them? The events of the past two weeks have been, to say the least, overwhelming. The emotional high of the triumphal entry—palm branches waving, crowds shouting "Hosanna!"—it all crashed lower than anyone thought possible. Their beloved Jesus was tortured, executed, entombed. But then—fantastic beyond imagining—he appeared to them alive again. Twice. Though at this moment, they're not sure where he has gone off to. Not really sure what to do next, unable to endure one more agonizing moment waiting around the house, they do what any self-respecting angler who needs to get out and clear his head does:They go fishing. Apparently, fishing naked or darn close to it—notice that Peter needed to put his clothes back on.

Notice how casually Jesus enters the scene. His best friends don't even know its him. This is the resurrected Lord, mind you. Ruler of the heavens and the earth. Think Mount of Transfiguration. Jesus could have announced his risen presence on the beach with radiant glory. He knows there is nothing in the world that would help his mates more than to see him again. He certainly could have shouted in his commanding way, "It is I, the Lord! Come thou unto me!" He doesn't. He does the opposite—he "hides" himself a bit longer to let this play out. He simply stands on the shore, hands in his pockets like a tourist, and asks the question curious passersby always do of fishermen: "Catch anything?"

The nonchalance of the risen Christ here is absolutely intriguing. Whatever Jesus is up to, the moment is loaded for his next move.

Now, two more things are needed to set the stage properly.

First, what would you guess Jesus' mood is this particular morning? Surely he must be happy. The man has conquered death, ransomed mankind, been restored to his Father, his friends, and the world he made. Forever. He is in the afterglow of the greatest triumph of the greatest battle in the history of the cosmos. I'm going to venture that he is one mighty happy man. But not the fellas—up all night, nothing to show for it, bleary, half dead at the oars while the boat rocks back and forth, back and forth. They could use some cheering up.

Last, how did these—his closest brothers—first encounter Jesus? It was here, along the shore of this lake. Possibly this very spot, knowing how fishermen tend to keep their boat near a favorite hole. That first compelling encounter also involved the fellas skunked after a night of fishing. It, too, began with a seemingly random instruction:

So, this has happened before.

That first miraculous catch—nets bursting, boats swamping—it must have felt like ages ago, after all that has unfolded. Or unraveled, depending on your point of view. But it was their story, the way they got pulled into this whole revolution. Most Christians can tell you in detail how they met Jesus, especially if it was a dramatic encounter. That payload was a story this inner circle no doubt talked about many times after, as guys will do, as fishermen will especially do. Sitting around their nightly fire, somebody brings it up with a smirk: "Peter, the look on your face was priceless," then, imitating Peter's reaction, " 'Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man,' " and they all fall to cracking up about it again. (Luke 5:8)

My buddies and I used to make an annual fishing trip to the eastern Sierra Nevada. Though our catches might not have been miraculous, we did haul in a scandalous load of fish, and in classic man fashion—campfires, canned beans, no showers. Except one year, we brought a guy named Bill who would take an hour every morning in camp to primp and preen and even put on cologne. We'd be in the car, laying on the horn, while Bill combed gel into his hair. Years after we'd rib him for it. All anyone needed to do was start the story with "Remember how Bill…," and sombody'd laugh, snort coffee through their nose, and the whole gang would be gasping for air again.

So here the famous disciples are, three years later. They've pulled another all-nighter. Off that same beach. The boys are skunked again. And Jesus does it again.

"Try the other side." Again the nets are bursting. It's how he lets them know it's him. This has all the wink of an inside joke, that rich treasure of friendship, the running gag between mates where over time all you need to do is start the first line and everyone cracks up all over again. "Try the other side." Another jackpot. Just like the good old days. Nothing more needs to be said—Peter is already in the water thrashing for shore.

Do you see the playfulness of Jesus?

His timing, the tension, his hiddenness, a touristlike question, the same lame suggestion from somebody they think knows nothing about fishing, then bang!—the catch. And the boys are hooked again. This is a beautiful story, made so much richer because of the playfulness of Jesus.

And by the way, that little detail John tosses in—that the catch was 153 fish, precisely—that, too, is a beautiful touch.

Or, it might have gone like this: These retired fishermen, overcome with the joy of seeing Jesus, leave the writhing pile where it is, fully intending to get to it right after breakfast. Having had the cookout—which the risen Jesus grilled, by the way—one of them says, "Well, we oughta get that catch counted up," and a second says, "Yep," and Jesus, reaching for a last bite of roasted tilapia, says, "There's a hundred and fifty-three."

The boys smile at one another, realizing, Oh yeah, right—we've got Jesus back.

Any way you look at it, it is a beautiful story. Playful, funny, so human, so hopeful, so unreligious. And it is that particular quality that gives the passage its true character and gives us an essential for knowing Jesus as he really is. The man is not religious. If he were, the story would have taken place in a religious setting—the temple, perhaps, or at least a synagogue—and Jesus would have gathered them for a Bible study or prayer meeting. Jesus doesn't even show up at the temple after his resurrection. He's at the beach, catching his boys fishing, filling their empty nets and then having them to breakfast.

Now—why does this interpretation of the passage both relieve and trouble?

The relief comes in like a sea breeze on a muggy summer day suffocating with the smell of mud and dead fish. Because it is an answer to a question we didn't dare ask—that God himself knows how and when to be playful. With us. It's like a breath of fresh air.

But many readers are at the same time troubled because it also sounds a little irreverent. Which brings me to my second point.

THE POISON OF RELIGION

Jesus healed a man on a Sabbath. That pushed his enemies over the top. They decided to kill him. The account takes place early in the Gospel of Mark:

Really. Because he healed a man on the Sabbath? What do we have here?

After all the nonsense that is repeated about Jesus being a gentle peacemaker, reading the Gospels is really quite a shock. We discover a Jesus who is in fact frequently embroiled in conflict—most of which he provokes himself (like healing on the Sabbath). And every single one of these clashes is with very religious people. Not one hostile encounter involves a "pagan." Not until the end, at least, when the Roman troopers get hold of him—but he was handed over by the religious establishment.

If you were reading the Gospels without bias or assumption, you would have no trouble whatsoever coming to believe that religion is the enemy—or in the hands of the enemy. Jesus' opponents are all people we would consider to be highly invested in doing religion right. They certainly considered themselves to be so.

You will want to keep this in mind if you would know Jesus, really.

For to come to know Jesus intimately, as he is, as he wants to be known, is to release a redemptive landslide in your life. There will be no stopping the goodness. The first purpose of your existence will be resolved, and from there you are set to fulfill all of God's other purposes for you. Now—do you really think that the enemy of our souls, the archenemy of Jesus Christ, is simply going to let that happen? Satan is far too subtle to rely on persecution alone. His most masterful works are works of deception (ask Adam and Eve about this when you see them). So the Deceiver deceives by means of distortion, and his favorite tool is to present a distorted Christ. Not so blatant as a bad fish, but through the respectable channels of religion.

Consider this one piece of evidence: millions of people who have spent years attending church, and yet they don't know God. Their heads are filled with stuffing about Jesus, but they do not experience him, not as the boys did on the beach. There are millions more who love Jesus Christ but experience him only occasionally, more often stumbling along short of the life he promised, like Lazarus still wrapped in his graveclothes.

Can anything be more diabolical?

If you sent someone you loved to school for a decade, yet they remained illiterate, how would you feel about the education? If you referred someone you loved to a doctor, yet despite years of treatment they not only failed to recover from their cancer but contracted HIV, hepatitis, and gangrene, what would you have to conclude about the treatment?

I am not making accusations; I am stating facts. There are noble churches and movements bringing Jesus to us. But alas, alas—they are the exception, not the rule.

Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath. His enemies decided to kill him. Do you really think that's over?! Why would that have ended with the time of Christ? Really now—it would be just a little arrogant for us to assume we could not fall under the same religious haze.

Thus George MacDonald, that old Scottish prophet, asks, "How have we learned Christ? It ought to be a startling thought, that we may have learned him wrong." It is a startling thought. "That must be far worse than not to have learned him at all: his place is occupied by a false Christ, hard to exorcise!"² Hard to exorcise, indeed, because religion gives the impression of having Christ, while it inoculates you from experiencing the real thing. Most wicked. If you want to destroy an economy, flood the market with counterfeit bills.

So the apostle John gives a last word of warning:

A mighty important caution. But I'm afraid we read it with the same attention we give to the average preflight safety demonstration: "In the event of a water landing…" So, let's take it piece by piece. John says there is a Spirit of truth (that would be the Holy Spirit) and a spirit of falsehood (which he calls the spirit of the antichrist). He laments that many deceivers have infiltrated our world, animated by this spirit of falsehood. A sobering picture. He urges us to pay close attention, because that spirit works by presenting distorted images of Jesus.

Now—if John didn't think you could fall prey to it, he wouldn't have warned you about it. Before the ink was dry on the Gospels, the young church was swimming in this stuff.

Let me make this perfectly clear: The spirit of falsehood is often a very religious spirit. How else could it sell its deceptions? Over the past two thousand years, it has flooded the church with counterfeit currency. I'm not talking about only the blatant stuff—the Inquisition, witch trials, televangelists. Such repugnance does cause the world to turn away in disgust. A very effective technique. But while those forgeries have become obvious to us, consider—they were very convincing at the time.

For the religious spirit is like the flu—it is constantly adapting to the environment. It would be hard to hold a witch trial in our day. So what might it be in our time? Last week a friend heard his pastor say, "You can't know Jesus like you know your friends. He is altogether different from us." Blasphemy. You can know Jesus just as intimately as his first disciples did. Maybe more so. Jesus came to be known, for heaven's sake, came to make God known to us:

Jesus came to reveal God to us. He is the defining word on God—on what the heart of God is truly like, on what God is up to in the world, and on what God is up to in your life. An intimate encounter with Jesus is the most transforming experience of human existence. To know him as he is, is to come home. To have his life, joy, love, and presence cannot be compared. A true knowledge of Jesus is our greatest need and our greatest happiness. To be mistaken about him is the saddest mistake of all.

Now—he didn't go the lengths of the incarnation to then hide from us for the next two thousand years.

There is a popular "Let's get real and authentic" teaching that hopes to help us with our struggles by making it all right that God is distant, that we must struggle on with only a few whispers from him. And while that is comforting—sort of—does it really bring people to a regular experience of Jesus? That's what Christianity is supposed to do.

The records of Christ are written so you can experience him as they did, this intimate connection with the Father and the Son. John says that you can enjoy the same friendship with Jesus that he knew. For this Jesus came.

So, if you do not know Jesus as a person, know his remarkable personality—playful, cunning, fierce, impatient with all that is religious, kind, creative, irreverent, funny—you have been cheated.

If you do not experience Jesus intimately, daily, in these very ways, if you do not know the comfort of his actual presence, do not hear his voice speaking to you personally—you have been robbed.

If you do not know the power of his indwelling life in you, shaping your personality, healing your brokenness, enabling you to live as he did—you have been plundered.

This is why we pray,