The Heart of God Found Among a Heap of Trash

Part I: Doorway to the Deep Heart- Calvary and Knowing God

Almost every journey begins with walking through a door, a kind of threshold that means the expedition is beginning. The journey of the deep heart must begin outside the walls of Jerusalem. This is where the trash of the city was thrown, where the remains of the temple sacrifices were burned, where criminals were tortured with painful ingenuity.

This is also where God reveals his heart.

This place, outside the gates, is where the Good Shepherd laid his life down for the sheep (Jn 10:11), where the King of kings served his people unto death for their ransom (Mk 10:45), where the Passover Lamb freed us from the bondage of sin (1 Cor. 5:7), where the Husband gave his life for his bride to make her holy, spotless, and without blemish (Eph. 5), and where the Divine Warrior, through the weapon of weakness, powerfully defeated the principalities and powers (Col. 2:15). Calvary alone, then, is the doorway to the deep heart of knowing God.

In John’s gospel, “glory” can mean either the radiance of God’s majesty or the revelation of his character. And, strikingly, the brightest glory and the greatest revelation of the heart of God is in the moments of Christ’s most horrible humiliation and deepest degradation as he hung dying, bloody, and thirsty, enduring not only the shame of the cross but the curse of God for sin (Gal. 3:13).

In contrast to the gnostics of the day, knowing God didn’t come through some secret knowledge- the Romans made sure the cross was in the most public place possible. In contrast to rationalists, God didn’t reveal his heart to those who had the greatest cognitive capacities and vacationed in university libraries- only those with childlike faith know the man covered in blood and screaming in agony is a victorious King. In contrast to the moralists, knowing God didn’t come through exceptional obedience- the One crucified as the worst kind of criminal by the Romans and the religious leaders himself was the only perfectly obedient Son…even unto death.

The deep heart longs to know God and to know him you must step outside the gates of Jerusalem among the city’s trash heap, among the temple’s ash mound of discarded sacrifices, and among the horrific display of incredible agony suffered by the worst criminals.

On a hill, you’ll see three crosses.

The one in the middle is the very heart of God.

That cross is the door to becoming deep hearted through knowing God.