Can I Get a Witness? w/ Terry Ishee W4

Anthony: Our final passage of the month is John 3:1-17. It is a Revised Common Lectionary passage for Trinity Sunday on May 26.

Terry, we’d be grateful if you read it for us, please.

Terry: Yeah, absolutely.

There was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a Jewish leader. ² He came to Jesus at night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one could do these miraculous signs that you do unless God is with him.” ³ Jesus answered, “I assure you, unless someone is born anew, it’s not possible to see God’s kingdom.” ⁴ Nicodemus asked, “How is it possible for an adult to be born? It’s impossible to enter the mother’s womb for a second time and be born, isn’t it?” ⁵ Jesus answered, “I assure you, unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, it’s not possible to enter God’s kingdom. ⁶ Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit. ⁷ Don’t be surprised that I said to you, ‘You must be born anew.’ ⁸ God’s Spirit blows wherever it wishes. You hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going. It’s the same with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” ⁹ Nicodemus said, “How are these things possible?” ¹⁰ “Jesus answered, “You are a teacher of Israel and you don’t know these things? ¹¹ I assure you that we speak about what we know and testify about what we have seen, but you don’t receive our testimony. ¹² If I have told you about earthly things and you don’t believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? ¹³ No one has gone up to heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the Human One. ¹⁴ Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so must the Human One be lifted up ¹⁵ so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life. ¹⁶ God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him won’t perish but will have eternal life. ¹⁷ God didn’t send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him.

Anthony: There’s a lot there and I’m not asking for a dissertation here, Terry, but the Trinity, in my mind, so often gets reduced to some abstract mathematical conundrum instead of a relationship. And so, on this Trinity Sunday, what would you say to the listening audience about the triune God?

Terry: Yeah, this again goes into this crazy mystery of God in three persons. The way that I’ve been able to wrap my head — what little I can wrap my head around this wonderful, beautiful, mysterious thing — is that I really see it as a divine dance.

There’s this Greek term parakinesis [sic] [perichoresis] that speaks to the idea of a kinetic movement, right? And I’ve heard people refer to it as a divine dance where Father, Son, and Spirit dance in step with one another, that there’s a constant moving connection between the two.

And really the best way that I can wrap my head around this is that God in three persons speaks to us that we are to live life in community, that all of life is to be communal. This individualism which is tough in our current culture because we live in a highly individualistic society. But we weren’t created for individualism. We were created for a communal expression.

And just as Father and Son and Spirit surrender to each other, and they’re lockstep with one another as the best way to dance, to explain this kinesis, this kinetic movement is a dance that it is a free flowing, free formed version of movement. And it is the example that is on display for us beautifully for us to mimic. That as humans, as the ones created in the image of God, we are to mimic the way of God. And how are we, who are we in lockstep with in our life?

And so, the Trinity for me is a great, beautiful reminder of who am I choosing to dance with. Who’s on my dance card in my everyday life? Am I dancing with the right people? In the relationship with my wife, in the relationship with my daughter, what is that? What is the kinesis?

What is the kinetic? What does the movement, the relationship look like in that? Does it more represent the world, or would it more represent king and kingdom? The same with my neighbors and my coworkers and the people that I just spend time with, whether they are found in Jesus or not yet followers of Jesus. We choose to dance with the people around us that there’s this cosmic dance that is at hand.

And so, what does our dance card look like? Are we finding this beautiful rhythm that God has laid before us that we can be in sync with Father, Son, and Spirit? Or are we doing our own thing? Are we out of step? Are we choosing?

Are we going so freeform that it’s — I know, I love some jazz, but there are some like freeform jazz that’s just way out there. And is this pleasant to my ears? It doesn’t feel pleasant to my ears. It feels very weird. It’s all over the place. And sometimes we choose to live life where it feels so disruptive.

And that’s been something that’s been meaningful to me is looking at how Father, Son, and Spirit are interconnected with one another, one whole but relational.

Anthony: Yes. This next question I’m going to ask you, the answers can spark fighting words. And the question is this, what does it mean to be born anew or born again or born from above for you, Terry? What does this mean?

Terry: Yeah, for me in the most simplest terms, it means I have surrendered control of my life from myself or from the world, and I’ve given it to Jesus as king.

And I was, [in] 1993, sitting on a stoop at a boys’ home. I grew up in a boys’ home from the age of 12 to 18. And I had a house parent who was a giant of a human being. [He] was like six foot six, six foot seven, just a huge human being. And because he was a huge human being, I respected him because I was a big kid.

And he would do these weird things that would just like, I don’t understand this guy. This guy cries when he talks about God. That’s weird. No one that big should cry because they talk about God. It didn’t compute for me, Anthony. I didn’t get it. And he would speak so softly about Jesus, but at the same time he was a man’s man, like he was like, I like this guy.

I’m going, if I could be like him, I’d be cool with that. But man, I had so much anger, I had so much frustration, I had so much just from my childhood that was so like inside of me, it was just insanely toxic. And I remember one night we were sitting there, and Howard came up to me and said, “Are you done? Are you done being angry? Are you tired of it yet?”

And just in a weeping voice, exasperation, “Yes, I’m done. I am tired. I’m exhausted from being angry at everything and everyone.”

And he said, “You can give all of that to Jesus, but you have to surrender your life to him.”

And that’s when I was born anew. That was my moment of being born again when, in that moment, said, “I can’t do this on my own. I’m trying to figure out life and I’m just doing it miserably, but I can surrender and say, ‘Jesus, you can make me new. You can make me you can make me a new creation.’”

And in that moment, and I truly believe I became a new creation, that the old in me had passed on, that passed away and that a new, a Spirit had indwelt [sic] in me and that a new creation, a new being had taken place.

And those next two years were just a weird journey towards discipleship and really towards — when I say Jesus became my Savior when I was 15 but he became my king and Lord when I was 17. And this journey towards discipleship was lots of questions, but that’s what born again to me means this idea that I was made new in Jesus because I surrendered to him.

I allowed him to make me new and his Spirit indwells in me and has indwelt in me since then.

Anthony: As you tell the story about this giant of a human being, it reminds me of what we said earlier about testifying, telling the story, bearing witness to the goodness of God.

And I have found it’s really hard to do what you’ve never seen done, and the fact that he was willing to express to you, this is what it looks like. It’s a reminder: we all need mentors and guides in our life, right? Coaches, people that come alongside of us and say, ‘You know what? The Christ life, it looks like this. And you don’t have to carry this around anymore. You were never meant to carry that around.”

So, brother, I’m thankful for whoever that guy is. Howard, go, man And keep doing what you’re doing, Terry. We so appreciate your active participation ministry. You’ve been a blessing to me and I’m sure to many others. So, keep doing what you’re doing.

Thank you for being a part of this podcast. I want to thank Reuel Enerio, our producer, who does such a bang-up job. There’s no way we could get this out without him, and my wife, Elizabeth, who does the transcription. So, you can see every word that Terry said. It’s going to live on in infamy. And you talked about how the things we do can have an impact a hundred years from now, so there you go, Terry.

But it’s been awesome, man. Thank you. And as is tradition with this podcast, we love to close in prayer. So, if you’d pray for our audience, we’d appreciate it.

Terry: Yeah, absolutely.

King Jesus, we pause to just orient our presence on you and your Spirit as you work in and through us. Lord, wherever people may be as they listen to this, Lord, I pray a sense of an indwelling, that they would be so in key and in tune to who you are, who they are in you, Lord. And so, Lord, fill them up.

Lord, I thank you for those mentors, those guides who really exist in my life that have allowed me, as I apprenticed to Jesus, as I surrender to his way and practice his way, that they have served as guides and mentors and coaches to help me do that better. That as I spend time with you, Jesus, you have transformed me to become more like you. And Lord, that’s my prayer for everyone who is listening to this, that as they spend time with you.

Lord, that they would sense over a long period of obedience, they would be transformed. That Spiritual formation would occur, and they would walk in the likeness of who you are, and they would manifest love in every place and space that they take.

Lord, we love you. We thank you. Spirit, we ask that you would move in our church, that you would move in our world, you would move in and through every leader, that we might proclaim your goodness. We love you. We offer our lives as worship, and we give this to you. Jesus’ holy and precious name. Amen. Amen.