(Part 1)

JBTM Daniel I. Block
87
northern Saskatchewan. I am number nine of fifteen children of an immigrant from Russia.
We were dirt poor. In the farm house where I grew up, we had no central heating and no
indoor plumbing. Our farm equipment was junk. How did this happen? I feel like a lizard in
the king’s palace. My life has been full of surprises. This does not mean it has always been
smooth or easy—it has not—but what an adventure! All praise be to God. How did I get
here? It was all of God. He took a self-conscious and socially awkward lizard and thrust him
into the palace of kings. Not literally, but I punch myself every day at the life I have had.
No one could have planned this. I certainly did not. Our passage teaches us to be open to
surprises, to let go and let God have his wonderful way in our lives.
But there is a third significance I see here. When you think biblically of living in the
palace of the king, what sort of texts come to mind? I think immediately of Psalm 23:
5
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
6
Only goodness and faithful love will pursue me all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord as long as I live.
And then I link this text to John 14:1–3:
1
Your heart must not be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in Me. 2 In My Father’s house
are many dwelling places; if not, I would have told you. I am going away to prepare a place for
you. 3 If I go away and prepare a place for you, I will come back and receive you to Myself, so
that where I am you may be also.
Wow! When I get there, I know I will ask, “How did this happen? How is it that I find myself
in the palace of the heavenly king?” It certainly is not because I set this as my goal and I
worked really hard to get there. On the contrary, as the psalmist says, the Lord has sent his
hounds of heaven, called Goodness and Faithful Love after me. I was off doing my own thing
getting lost, but he rescued me. And as the Gospel text declares, this grace is embodied in
Christ, who through his sacrifice opened the door and ushered me in. Elsewhere Jesus says,
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep (John 10:11).
And of course, as in Psalm 23 and elsewhere in the First Testament, “shepherd” is a royal
metaphor. The king lays down his life for the sheep (cf. Isaiah 53).
How did this happen? John answers this question as well: “The Word became flesh and
took up residence among us. We observed His glory, the glory as the One and Only Son
from the Father, full of grace and truth” (1:14). This actually reverses Prov 30:28. Instead
of a lizard finding himself in the king’s palace, the king has come to the lizard’s home! Paul
will describe this amazing condescension in my favorite hymn in the New Testament, Phil
2:5–11: