2008. 8. 24 Rev. Kim, Young Bong

John's Gospel 'Words of Life' (106)
“Two Worlds”
John 20:30-31

1.

The 2008 Beijing Olympics that started on August 8 is closing its curtain today on the 24th. Whenever there is a big game of this scale, American media shows special commercials. It happens at Super Bowl games and also at the Olympics. Extraordinary commercials that you don't normally see are broadcast. During this period, for someone like me, I take a greater joy in watching these specially produced commercials than sports games. This time was no exception.
During this Olympics, there was a commercial that attracted my eyes especially. It is a commercial of United Airline that sponsored the Olympics. The airline company produced many kinds of special commercials for this Olympics, and one of them titled as Two Worlds, in particular, attracted my attention.

It starts by showing a city colored in gray. Buildings are gray, the sky is gray, and roads are even gray. Cars going down the streets are gray, and pedestrians are also all gray. They take on the appearances of people, but it seems as though you are looking at ghosts walking. It feels like everything is dead. Peoples’ expressions are all dead. It's as if you are walking in the middle of a graveyard.

Then we see a close up of a young man walking in the crowd. The young man takes a ticket out of his pocket. It looks like an airline ticket. At that moment, suddenly the wind blows and the ticket flies away. The young man runs to catch it. The ticket flies over to a gray stairway and disappears at the end of the stairs, through the window of a door. The young man opens the door to catch that ticket.

When the door opens, a new world of wonder in full color discloses before the young man's eyes. The young man throws his body into this world of mystery. Then two angels take him to sit him in a golden chair and fly among flowers. The young man's face lights up and smiles broadly. After touring around this mysterious world, the young man comes down from the golden chair, crosses the stars, and comes back to the place he previously inhabited, the gray city.

As the young man takes his step onto the gray street, the gray sidewalk turns into color with his every step. The colors expand onto nearby blocks of the sidewalk. The young man asks to shake hands with the person next to him. Then the dead expression of a gray passerby livens up into full color. That color of life spreads onto buildings, trees for flowers to blossom, and the street lights light up. When one person experiences the new world and comes back, the world he belongs to is transformed because of him.

At that moment, a voice is heard. "Experience United’s new first class and business class. This will happen." Let's watch that advertisement video.

YouTube Video, Two Worlds (Original version; United Airline Commercial for 2008 Olympic Games)

2.

Watching this commercial, I thought two things. The first was, "wow, that is an exaggerated commercial!" Because I have flown in business class before I know that it's an exaggerated commercial. Are you surprised that a pastor has been in business class? Only once, because the economy class seats were overbooked, I won the lottery for the business class seat. At that time, receiving the long hours of special treatment, I felt that I had been treated very cheaply in the economy seats all that time. But after receiving that VIP treatment and then getting off onto Kimpo airport, I experienced no change. I did feel good that I had lucked out by accident, but that did not change my reality. What I experienced in the business class was not as mysterious or mesmerizing as how it's depicted in this commercial. I could not afford the seats for that kind of experience and even if I had the money, I didn't want to.

Watching this commercial, I had another thought. The moment I watched this commercial, I thought, "wow, how could they have depicted the truth of Christianity so simply and clearly?" So I got on the Internet and watched this commercial video again and again. This commercial can be divided into 3 parts. The first part is before the young man goes into the different world. This part can be titled as 'Gray City'. The second part is where the young man journeys into the fantasy world. The third part is the scenes that occur after the young man finishes his journey, crosses over the stars, and returns to this world.

Let us consider this as an analogy to the truth of Christianity. The life of a person who does not believe in Jesus Christ, the life separated from God, the origin of true life, is like life in a gray city.

A materialistic life, a life that considers physical pleasure as the be-all and end-all, a life that cannot believe unless one can verify with his eyes and touch with his hands, this life is a gray life. You may be alive but you cannot be certain that you are truly alive. It is the life that has no reason to be sanguine, a life with no worthy purpose or mission. The person who cannot believe in the God-filled spiritual world, who can only recognize the materialistic world, is like someone who chooses to color only with the gray crayon when he has so many other different colors.

In a recent edition of Newsweek magazine, an article was written of the movie director, Woody Allen, who has described life with a cynical view. He defines life as ‘a meaningless little flicker’. He says that all life events are no different in that they eventually become a pile of trash. The reporter asks, "Why do you continue to make movies?" He answers, "I can't really come up with a good argument to choose life over death. Except that I'm too scared. I need to be focused on something so I don't see the big picture. I make the movies to avoid the hole in my heart."

I do not have the kind of insight to evaluate Woody Allen's work thoroughly. I acknowledge that there must be a reason for some of his fans to be completely hooked on his work. I have no intention of raising an opposing view to their preference or choices. However, I can see the prototype of a gray human being from Woody Allen's confession. I can feel the color of death, gray, densely from his outer appearance, facial expressions, and body language. Thinking that his life will end eventually as a trash pile, and his attempt to focus on movie making to forget the fear of that ending, this seems to be the typical appearance of the modern man who has lost meaning and purpose.

3.

Today’s scripture, John 20: 30 & 31 is the conclusion of the entire Book of John. Although chapter 21 seems like the conclusion because that is the final chapter in the current Bible, the author of the Book of John wrote the conclusion of the book in chapter 20. In the conclusion, the author explains the purpose of writing the story of Jesus. Quoting him word for word, “You may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

In this conclusion, the author of the Book of John asserts that those who don’t believe in Jesus as the Christ and the son of God have “no life”. This means there is no true life unless you believe in Jesus Christ and are connected with God. Those living lives in that way live only with one’s breath. They cannot be free from the material world that can be seen. They can’t but live bound by the fickleness of coincidents, accidents, and fortune. If a man can’t find himself in God and earn the new life, he could easily fall into skepticism and pessimism. His life becomes a meaningless life, living as if he is not living. This is not much different from being dead.

If this is the case, is this grave-like gray life really the inevitable destination for all of us, as Woody Allen said? Is he right when he says that life is a meaningless flicker, flickering in a weak wind to be eventually blown out? Do all the things we do in our lives eventually become a pile of trash? Is there really no way but to scrape by each day with an unfocused gaze, without meaning, direction, goals, intention, nor energy?

The Christian faith answers that this is not true. It says that life wasn’t intended to be gray, but to be colorful. It says that life is not a meaningless little flicker, but the masterpiece that contains the Creator’s care. It says that what we do during our lives could have eternal value. It says that life has meaning, a direction, a purpose and an intention, and the gaze of a person living such a life shows the sparkles of an eternal life. It says that there is a solution to filling one’s deep inner hole that cannot be achieved through anything else.

The first step for the change is to believe in Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ and the son of God and accept Him as your Lord. Believing in Jesus Nazareth as the Christ is comparable to the young man in the commercial, standing on the gray stairs, which opens the door and throws himself into the mysterious world. Believing in Jesus Christ means acknowledging that the world that we see is not everything. Living with the acceptance of Jesus Christ as savior means that we believe that there is a true and eternal world that is totally different from the world we experience now.

4.

After accepting Jesus Christ as savior and the son of God, all of our spiritual lives become like the life of that young man in the ad who travels the fantasy world; we escape our ordinary lives and travel into God’s eternal world. God’s world is not far away like a fantasy. It is inside us and in the world in which we live. No, actually, this world in which we live is inside God’s world. And so, in order to experience God’s world, what we need to do is close our eyes for a moment to the familiar material world and open our eyes to God’s world.

Gathering once a week for this time of worship can be compared to the young man who is sitting in that gold chair traveling through the stars. This is the reason that nothing can replace worship; this is the reason we should not take worship lightly. There is nothing that can introduce us to God’s world regularly and continuously as worship. So that is why we must come to worship whole-heartedly. In order to experience God’s mysterious world, we must do so with devotion.

How do you prepare yourself for worship? Do you prepare for Sunday worship with prayer? Do you organize your environment as the weekend nears, in preparation to focus on worship? Do you plan your time so you won’t be late for worship? Before you leave home, do you prepare your offerings with a grateful heart for God’s grace? Are you present for each and every part of worship? If you worship with deep spiritual desire, you can experience God’s world every week.
What do you pray for? Are you experiencing God’s world through prayer? Or, is it that our prayer looks like that man kneeling down below the gray stairway, pleading for God’s help? Our prayers must help us travel through God’s world by taking us up those gray stairs. Through prayer, we must travel through God’s world, listen to God’s Words, and see God’s Glory. We need those deep prayers.

Reading God’s word and reflecting on God’s word is also like traveling in God’s world. So is being immersed in praise. So is gathering in our community of faith and sharing our spiritual lives. So is helping those in need. Through this kind of spiritual life, we, like that young man in the ad, leave the gray city and travel to God’s world, and experience God’s mystery and beauty several times a day.

5.

However, we must not think that this is the end. The ad you’ve seen is divided into three parts. So far, we have only seen two of them. Many people involved in Christian faith would like to stop here. If possible, they want to remain in God’s world. However, if we do not return to the real world after experiencing God’s world ? that is not Christian, but fanaticism, a heresy. Jesus does not want those who believe in him to escape into a fantasy world and become enraptured there.

We must enter that third stage. If we have experienced God through worship, prayer, reflection on the Word, praise, spiritual fellowship, or through service in love, we must treasure that experience and return to our world. And with the power of the experience in God’s world, we must change the world beginning with where we are. We must share ourselves with those we meet. Everywhere we go, grays will turn to natural colors, what is dead will live, and from dried-up trees, flowers will grow. This is the power of faith.
The author of the Gospel John declares that it is precisely for this reason that he wrote the Gospel. How could that be true only about the author of the Gospel of John? All the 66 books have the same purpose. Jesus came into this world, preached the Good News, was crucified, died, and was resurrected for the same reasons: to give us true life so that we may be free from our meaningless lives; so that, having saved us from lives that are dead, we may turn this life from gray to natural colors.

Now, with these things in mind, let us watch the commercial once again. This time, view this not as an ad for an airline company but as an example of Christian life.

Youtube 영상 “Two Worlds” (Revised version)

6.

Dear Congregation, how difficult are your lives these days? Some of you may be living hell-like days because of unspeakably difficult matters. Those people may feel that they are listening to an unrealistic story when they listen to today’s sermon. But if this is the case, all the more cherish today’s words more deeply in your heart. This is because the ability that can change the hellish reality comes only from Heaven. It is because the hellish reality can be changed only after a powerful experience of Heavenly Kingdom, being filled with the power of the Kingdom.

This is a story of a woman. Several years ago, at the time when Korea received help from IMF, so many small business owners went into bankruptcy. This woman’s husband’s company also went under during that time. For more than a decade, she had lived like a princess, hiring servants with money, but unexpectedly she became a penniless person. Her husband lay in sickbed, and creditors took everything that could be of worth. Children asked for money every day and night for school supplies and private classes, but it was difficult even to lay hands on ten dollars (thousand won). She thought she should find a job for money but could not think of any work that she could do. Left without a choice, she called an employment office and started to work as a house helper.

She, as a house helper, did others’ laundries, cleaned houses, and prepared meals. These were things that she once paid another to do for her. Now, she was doing that for little money. After several hours of hard work, what she would get was several tens of dollars. Such amount was just petty cash to her in the past, but now, she had to sweat to earn that amount of money. She frequently was hurt by the owner’s attitude of handing over the money as if she was donating to charity. She reflected: “Have I despised people in the past because of the power of wealth?” She felt like she was living in hell.

Bitterness accumulated in her heart, and although she wished she could confide with someone, there was no one to talk to. Without a choice, she went into a church and prayed alone, sobbing. “I repent anything I may have done wrong in the past, so forgive me, and please now lift me up!” She prays desperately. But, darkness does not seem to fade away, and it does not seem like she could get away from the valley of tears.

Then one day, during worship, she heard the words of Jesus, “what you do for the smallest person you do onto me.” That moment, a thought flashes through her mind. She realizes, “then, what I do now, that is, doing laundry, cleaning house, and preparing meals can be what I do for Jesus.” From that day on, she believes that and begins to practice it. She does the same laundry, but she does it as if she is washing Jesus’ clothes. She pours out her soul while cleaning as if she is cleaning Jesus’ house. Because she kept doing this with this belief, it really began to feel as if this were the case. Working became a pleasure. She became energetic and happy. She finds the meaning of her work. She is filled with satisfaction even before receiving any money.

The principle of Christianity that we reflected on through the airline commercial is not an unrealistic story. This occurred to this woman. She experienced the Heavenly Kingdom through worship, and when she confronted the reality with the power of the Kingdom, she was able to change the reality. When she didn’t have this ability, her life was gray. But when she connected with God and confronted her reality after receiving His grace and power, this reality changed. Like the words in hymn 495, the reality hasn’t changed, but wherever she lives, she could live as if she lives in the Heavenly Kingdom with the power of the Kingdom.

Later, her husband recovered from his illness and regained his health. Until that time, she worked as a housekeeper with pleasure. She did not need to work any longer after her husband started business again, but she felt her work is worth while and continues to work. And the earning from her job is wholly offered for missionary work. She said, “I serve Jesus with my work, and the money I receive from it can help mission. Isn’t this a grateful thing?”

7.

What do you think? The story I told you is not some hollow story, something irrelevant to you, a fantasy, don’t you think? Isn’t it the most urgent and important story for our everyday lives, in these days of increasing difficulties? If we truly believe in God as we live our lives, isn’t this clear evidence that we can live in our reality as if we live in God’s Kingdom, by transforming our lives? If it occurred through this woman, why can’t this occur to us?

Dear congregation, let’s put more effort in our spiritual lives. The harder our lives are, let us put more effort in our spiritual lives. The power that can conquer the hard reality comes from Heaven. Without this power, we cannot conquer our hard realities, and even if we do, it can become a noose that leads to corruption. Therefore, let’s put more effort into worship. Let us have a closer relationship with God through prayer. By meditating on His words, let us try to listen to God’s voice. Let us serve one another through spiritual fellowship. Let us serve based on love. When we do this, we will gain the power to transform the gray reality into a colorful reality. This is the power of the eternal life that we, as believers, need to demonstrate.

Lord,
Save us.
Save us from the gray city,
From a deathlike life we live
Let us see Your Kingdom
Let us see Your glory
Let us have the heart to yearn for Your Kingdom and Glory.
Let us live this world
with the power of the Heavenly Kingdom
Let us live this life
With the power of eternal life.
Amen.