#728 Christ Appeals to the Resurrection: ACT Six

Your desires are not random, and they are not meant to be medicated into silence or fed with whatever the culture is selling. We slow down and take a hard, hopeful look at what the heart is really reaching for, using Acts Six of the Claymore Battle Plan and Jesus’ blunt words to the Sadducees about the resurrection. When you see the story in “three panels” creation, fall, and fulfillment you start to understand why marriage, sexuality, and longing can’t be explained in flat, two-dimensional terms. 

We also get personal and pastoral. After a talk, a young man shares his anxiety about attraction and whether he is still welcome in the Church. We answer with clarity and compassion: your deepest identity is not your temptations, your labels, or your fears, but beloved child of God. From there we widen the lens through Saint John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, where marriage is a real gift and a real sign, ordered toward something eternal rather than trapped in the temporary. 

Everything comes to a head in the Eucharist, the supreme spousal sign of Christ’s self-gift: “This is my body given for you.” 

We talk about wounded desire after the fall, the courage to seek truth, and the concrete “knees before phone” Claymore 10-minute morning ritual from the Claymore Battle Plan Outline, and the simple practice of reading an ACT a day from the Claymore Battle Plan Handbook and sharing it with a friend. 

If you’ve been stuck trying to fill infinite desire with finite fixes, this is your invitation to start living in 3D. 

Subscribe, share this with someone who needs it, and leave a review telling us what desire you’re learning to trust.

Email Jack with questions and comments to answer and discuss on future episodes! jack@ClaymoreMilitesChristi.com. Visit https://claymoremiliteschristi.com/

Transcript

Resurrection And The Third Panel

SPEAKER_00 0:00

In Acts six of the Claymore Battle Plan Handbook, Christ appeals to the resurrection, and we begin with the profound and powerful words of Jesus to the Sadducees. You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God, for in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. This is the third panel of the triptych. A triptych remembers a work of art, most often a painting, divided into three panels to form a single unified vision. We have been filling in those panels step by step. In Act four, we encountered God's original plan for love in the beginning before sin entered the world. In Act five, sin did come into the world. We faced the rupture caused by that sin and the battle that now plagued takes place in every single individual human heart, especially when it comes to our sexuality. Now, in Act Six, Christ reveals the third and final panel, your ultimate destiny. Jesus is pointing beyond history, beyond this earthly marriage of ours to the resurrection of the body. And he shows us where this whole human story is headed. So beautiful, so powerful. I'm going to pause here in Act Six. So if you have the Claim More Battle Plan Handbook, I'm going to go through the rest of that. But let's pause here in Act Six. I'm going to just take a deep breath. Breathe out all the anxiety and the noise of this very moment here and live in the present. And breathe in the awe and wonder of God and His plan for us. This morning, like every morning, before I look at that phone, I fall down on my knees and I practice that 10-minute Claymore morning ritual. It's so beautiful to bring this peace in. As I get up and I walk by my bedroom window, it's facing east, and I stop at that window every morning. There I take in the sunrise. I listen now that it's spring to the birds that are singing. They're singing that song of life as they're building nests. Man, created male and female, also experience this desire like all of nature to procreate, bring new life in. This is God's design. Yet we experience so much more, for we desire eternal life and love, for we are created in the image and likeness of God, who is love. And our earthly desires, if we understand the larger complete story, point us to our destiny, eternal love himself. We are filled with this desire and this desire for eternal love today, now, but we're also destined to live this out after this very short earthly stop. And this earthly stop has eternal consequences for us. We literally determine who we are, determine who we become, and we're going someplace. This is where our actions come in. For we're rational creatures, unlike the rest of creation, our reason is given us to seek the truth, and along with our conscience to discern that truth, along with goodness and beauty, especially the beauty of love. And God has given us what? Free will. Free will, when when working properly, becomes like a motor propelling us to choose the good. And then we take this in our own human hearts, we extend it out to the awesome beauty of marital love, and love of neighbor too, expressed through our sexuality, especially in marital love, where the two created male and female can become one and then form three, a new life, a new creation, a new family, something that didn't exist before, a new love, and we are we're called to participate in that. And our will, when pointed to the true north, to the Trinity, where we're headed, becomes again that motor to the good, to choose the good. And here the good is seeing the other as a good in our actions. In other words, willing their good. I will what's good for you. This is authentic love. What is good for them, our spouse or future spouse, all our beautiful sisters say in the world, our families. When I act in this way, my life becomes good. You can say that I am good as a person. John Paul II said young people are always seeking and searching for the beauty in love, even though the world tries to rob you of this, despite the fallen world, young people, John Paul said, sense deeply that they want their love to be beautiful. Isn't that what we're all looking for? Love and not just any love. You're searching for authentic love, a love that is beautiful. So why do so many young people set their search for the beauty of love aside and instead get caught up in using one another, especially sexually as objects, failing to see the larger story, to see the world in three dimensions, leading you to a love that lasts forever, eternal love. When you love in 3D, you start to understand that your desires have been given by design to lead us to our destiny, to the stars in 3D. Again, we got to take this to heart to see in 3D. Desires are put in our hearts by design to lead us to our destiny. But when your actions live without God, we live in this two-dimensional space, no longer connected to the vine. And what do we do then? We'll take our infinite desires and try to fill them with the finite. We're trying to suck everything out of the finite. And you'll never find what you're looking for. And we become desperate, lustful, ravenous creatures trying to fill the infinite desires of our heart with finite things. I remember when I was first starting out in business and putting business plans together, reading Dr. Stephen Covey's best-selling book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. And he's and he said, for a person to be truly effective, whether in business or in life in general, you must always begin with the end in mind. What does the model look like? What are we looking for? What are we building for? What are we loving for? This is thinking in 3D. This is what the Claymore Battle Plan is all about. Understanding then living out the entirety of our lives in 3D to take deeply and be filled with divine life and love, and then to bring that out into this two-dimensional space, but always connected in 3D. After one of my talks, a young man named Sean approached me. He was nervous but sincere. He said, I met this guy in school. We talk every day. He's smart, funny, he's kind, an athlete, and I can't stop thinking about him. I'm worried that I might be attracted to him in a sexual way. Maybe that I'm even gay. I've been anxious about this. And I've been anxious about whether I'm still welcome in the church when I'm having these thoughts and these temptations. I answered him carefully. I said, let me share something with you, Sean. Throughout my life, I've been attracted to men in the sense that I admire courage, intelligence, generosity, humor, and integrity. And these are good things. The way you described your friend, what would not be admirable about him? Attraction at that level often reflects a recognition of virtue and excellence, not a sexual desire or inclination. Though it might feel that way, this attraction, especially in this twisted culture where everything is sexualized, your question then also about belonging in the church has a clear answer. Absolutely you're welcome. No matter who you are, where you've been, or what thoughts you struggle with, you're a beloved child of God. That, Sean, is your deepest identity. Through Jesus Christ, every person is invited into an intimate communion with God and promised life in abundance. I told them, seek Jesus first, Sean. He will lead you to the truth of who he is, and in doing so to the truth of who you are. As Scripture says, seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all of these other things will be given to you as well. To answer Sean's question more fully, we need to step back ourselves and see the larger horizon of human desire through the words of Christ and the wisdom of Saint John Paul II. In Matthew's gospel, the Sadducees that I mentioned earlier, who denied the resurrection, just a little bit of background on them, they only believed in the Pentateuch, the first five books of the of the Old Testament. And there they didn't talk about the resurrection, so they didn't uh so they they denied the resurrection. In Matthew's gospel, the Sadducees who denied the resurrection attempt to trap Jesus with a hypothetical question then rooted in Jewish law. Referring to the Leverate marriage, they describe a woman who is married successively to seven brothers, each of whom dies without leaving offspring. After the death of the seventh brother, they ask Jesus, whose wife will she be in the resurrection? Jesus responds firmly, you are wrong because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. Jesus does not diminish marriage here. He reveals its ultimate meaning. Earthly marriage is not abolished in the resurrection, it is fulfilled. It's not the delete button, it's the complete button, it's where it's all pointing to. John Paul II explains that marriage is the primordial sacrament right from the beginning before sin, a visible sign pointing beyond itself to a greater reality, a reflection of Trinitarian love in the world where we're all going for eternity. It prepares us for a definitive union and communion with God. Human love is real, sacred, and meaningful precisely because it's ordered towards something eternal. This is the third panel of the triptych. The first panel revealed man and woman created for communion in the beginning before sin. The second panel revealed how sin distorted that communion, and the third panel now reveals the resurrection, where the spousal meaning of the body reaches its completion in God. Sacred Scripture calls this fulfillment, the marriage of the Lamb, all the way from the last book of the Bible. This union that already began at baptism, at your baptism, when you're incorporated into Christ, every authentic desire to love and be loved, whether expressed in marriage, family life, friendship, or sacrifice, finds its ultimate home in God. John Paul II resumed this theology of the body catechesis shortly after surviving an assassination attempt in 1981, beginning again with the resurrection. He understood that marriage, the primordial and original sacrament, is a sign of a bigger reality. God's eternal love and desire to be united with us. Before his passion, Jesus instituted the Eucharist, the supreme sign of spousal love. This is my body given for you. This chalice which is poured out for you on the cross is the new covenant in my blood. In this way he loved them to the end. This is marital language, my friends. Christ pours himself out completely for his bride, the church. Saint Paul draws together the entire love story and what John Paul II calls the summa or summary of his all his work in theology of the body with Ephesians 5. It says there, husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. He said, For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother, and he's taken this right from Genesis, and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. He goes on to say this is a great mystery. And I mean in reference to Christ and the church. Christ leaves his heavenly father and offers his body to unite himself to you. God's love always precedes ours. In the beginning was the word, and this is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us first. And then when we sinned and fell, he sent his son to redeem us and bring us back into this love story, didn't he? The catechism summarizes this truth clearly in Catechism number two one. God is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and He's destined us to share in that exchange. When all the confusion of our day and the day of the Sadducees, there in Jesus' day, our deepest yearning of the human heart to love and be love points directly to the Eucharist. There we stand at the heart of the Paschal mystery, where Christ the bridegroom gives his body and pours his blood out in a total self-gift. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, God does not create people with disordered desires. All human desire has been wounded by the fall in every person, in all kinds of different ways. Whether these wounds manifest to lust, same sex attraction, or other distortions, the healing path is the same. It's the rediscovery of our true identity in Christ. God's call is demanding, but never impossible. For love rejoices in the truth. Seek this truth where it's to be found in Christ and his church. Be courageous, even if it means going against the popular opinion or cultural slogans of the day. The church's teachings, though demanding, are a path to authentic love. For love itself is demanding, isn't it? The church and humanity entrust to you the sacred reality of love, the foundation of marriage, the family, and the future. With faith you can make this love beautiful, humanly and Christianly mature, great, and responsible. I conclude this way. It's in your actions, in the union communion with grace, filled with grace, where you determine the man that you are today and will continue to become. As Saint Athanasius said, the Son of God became man so that man can become like God. And Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, you literally become united with God. You become God. United in His body, blood, soul, and divinity. The awe and wonder of this. I know this encounter with God. I know the intimacy of His union and communion. And I hope you do too. This is a taste of what is to come. But that's enough to change my life. It's enough to change your life. This is the true body and blood of Jesus Christ in our day. He gives us the grace we need so that a body and a soul filled with grace gives us the potential for human freedom and for human flourishing. And how do we fulfill that? In our actions to love as God love. So for us, there's two main asks of a Claymore man. Kneel before you look at that phone. Practice that Claymore 10-minute morning ritual. Open yourself up, let it be done to me according to your word. And then our blessed mother at the wedding feast of Cana, do whatever he tells you. So I start to listen. I walk into this life of mine in 3D. Remember, number two there is praying with temptations. Remember that Act 11 addresses this directly. Read that in the morning, taking our temptations and opening up our desires to one who gave them to us in the beginning to lead us to our destiny. Don't forget, in 3D, our desires have been put in our heart by design. It's in our DNA to lead us to our destiny. Divine mercy app is what I do next, because I love to listen to Saint Faustina and Jesus pleading with us to come into his mercy that he wants to pour out. The second word for love is mercy. This is what Jesus does. He loves us in his mercy, just wants to pour this out to us. And he's saying that, you know, time is short here. You are privy to this conversation and the love language of St. Faustina and Jesus that is meant to be shared with you. You're no longer an outsider reading, you're an insider sitting with them. As I record this, the scripture readings for daily mass have been centered on John chapter six and the Eucharist. Don't miss those. The reality of what Jesus is saying there. Second, after your knees, right, you get up from your knees and you love the next person you see. And the second ask is read an act from the Claymore Battle Plan Handbook. You share it with a friend. And if in because you're on the eight team, you've got the 10-5 program, ten minutes the first thing in the morning on your knees, take a quick peek out the window at the sunrise, and then sometime during the day, I love to do it right before I fall asleep. I read one act from that book. That's a 10-5 program. It takes you five minutes at night, ten minutes in the morning, five minutes at night, and meditate on that. What a great way to fall asleep. So what do we do? We always are looking for whoever God puts on our path, and then we share this with them. This action's going to have an effect on you as well as offering the seed of life and love of the eternal bridegroom to others. This fulfills our destiny. Whether that seed finds an open womb in the other person is not up to you. We can only labor in God's field, and only God can cause the actual growth in that heart. So it'll depend on their yes, their fiat. All we can do is share it with them. So like Padre Peel says, pray, hope, and then don't worry. Subscribe, like, and share this channel. You know, the harvest is great, but the laborers are few. You too, Jesus said, go out into God's vineyard. One easy way that I do this is if I meet somebody, I say, hey brother, hey sister, I follow the Claymore 10 minute morning ritual, knees before the phone, and I read one of those acts every day. It's been such a blessing in my life. I have a c an extra copy in the car. I'm going to get it for you. I want to share this with you. Let me know then what you think, and maybe next week we'll have breakfast and talk about this. You know, the world changes when we share what is true, good, and beautiful with the next generation, and also with a brother or sister who God puts on your path today. Watch for this now. God is always putting people on our paths. Before we held back, maybe we didn't have the confidence to share the story. We didn't know how. Now we have it. Nothing happens by accident with God. He's always inviting us into the story and asking us to share it with others. This is what we really call true love of neighbor. True love of neighbor is to wish their salvation. Finally, I invite you to tune in Friday where I discuss this act with Mark and Cooper. It'd be a great time for you to meet them, two men on the Claymore A team. My our email is in the show notes. Email us with questions, comments, we'll bring them up on the next show. Visit our website, sign up for the newsletter, sign up as a disciple or potential leader. We do uh Zoom trainings, we have events uh in all different areas. Hey, God bless you. Thanks for being with me. Talk to you again soon, everybody.