HE LIVES WITHIN MY HEART

On this fifth Sunday of Easter I am wondering if the full meaning of Jesus' resurrection has dawned in on us yet.  I am wondering if the full meaning of the resurrection can even be realized by our minds in a broken and splintered world. 

Talk about a mind-bender, ""He suffered death and was buried, and rose again on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures" (Nicene Creed).  The apostle Peter said it this way, "Jesus…you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.  But God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power" (Acts 2:2-4).  The apostle's Creed reads this way, "Jesus Christ…suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into hades; the third day He rose again from the dead…"

How does one truly get one's mind around all this?  That Jesus suffered, died, and was raised again is a mammoth size declaration.  It's a game-changer.  If it is true then every other truth in the world is subjugated to this one truth.   If it isn't true then, with the apostle Paul, we must say, "Our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain…your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins" (I Corinthians 15:14, 17).  If it is true then, with Thomas, We must bow before Him and declare, "My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28)

Many of us have chosen the way of Thomas.  We've seen the risen Jesus at work in our world, at work in our lives, and everyday the words that roll off our lips are, "My Lord and my God."  The anthem of our lives is,

I serve a risen Savior He’s in the world today.

I know that He is living, whatever men may say.

I see His hand of mercy; I hear His voice of cheer;

And just the time I need Him He’s always near.

He lives, He lives, Christ Jesus lives today!

He walks with me and talks with me along life’s narrow way.

He lives, He lives, salvation to impart!

You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart.

("He Lives," by Alfred H. Ackley, 1933)

In the early 1920s Communist leader Nikolai Bukharin was sent from Moscow to Kiev to address an anti-God rally. For an hour he abused and ridiculed the Christian faith until it seemed as if the whole structure of belief was in ruins. Then questions were invited. An old Orthodox Church priest rose and asked to speak. He turned, faced the people, and gave the Easter greeting, "He is risen!" Instantly the assembly rose to its feet and the reply came back loud and clear, "He is risen indeed!"  (Today in the Word, September, 1989, p. 8.)

A TESTIMONY

At this late date in my life I have a confession.  To all you who are super saints and figured this out long ago, I apologize.  For those of you who might daily wrestle with what it means to be a follower of Jesus, and how to actually live at that level, maybe you will relate.  Here is the confession: Living in Jesus so that He actually holds authority in my life is a tricky business for me.  Actually being the person Jesus is calling me to be is a great mystery to this heart of mine. Getting out of the way so that Jesus can be the Way is easier for me to talk about than to do.

John the Baptist said of Jesus and himself, "He must increase; I must decrease." Paul wrote, "Be transformed by the renewing of your mind." A thousand times I have confessed that the "want to" is there.  I just have a weakness in knowing how to get it from "want to" to really doing it.

The apostle Paul said, "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus," and, again, I say the "want to" is there but the doing it falls short.  Often I have prayed,

God help me.  How shall I actually live the life to which you have called me?  How do I let the Holy Spirit help me to set apart Christ as Lord in me?  How do I take what it means to be me and let "me" go to God?  What does it mean and how do I do it, take up my cross and follow Jesus to wherever it means to follow Him?

When Paul was wrestling with his own sin, brokenness, and humanity he said, "O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"  Then he said, 'Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord."

The truth is that I have decided to follow Jesus because of His extended grace and mercy to me, and I have absolutely no desire to turn back, turn away, or let go of the awesome thing God is doing in my life.  However, I refuse to admit to something that might make me appear to be more than I am.  To that end I confess my weakness and admit to my humanity.  I don't know how to pray except to say, "God, be God in me."  Your will be in me as it is in heaven."  This is all I know to pray, "Jesus be the Lord of all matters that pertain to me."

A wonderful thing about following Jesus is that there is never a need to beat up on your self.   In Jesus we see that God is not a "beating up" God. Rather, He is the God who, in great compassion and tenderness calls out to us, "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give your rest" (Matt. 11:28).  A thousand times or more God has reached out into my life with these powerful and almost irresistible words, and every time I have found that God is my Advocate not my opponent. 

Thomas Merton has a wonderful prayer for folks like me, who are probably harder on ourselves than God is 

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.” -- Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude

 

"I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you."  Is that the kind of God you serve?  He is not a measuring up God.  He is the God of all grace who captivates our imagination when He demonstrates His love for us by dying for us "while we were yet sinners" (Romans 5:8). What kind of God would do that?  In our world the gods don't die for people, people die for the gods.  That's just how it works.  Yet, in Jesus we see a way of being that calls the old order into question and manifests in the life of the folks, immeasurable grace and mercy.

I may not be perfect but in a grace I don't understand I am saved.  I am being redeemed.  I am in the midst of a new life created in the infinite imagination of God who raised Jesus from the dead and who dares give life to this old mortal body of mine.  Who would have thought it?

At this late date in my life I have another confession – JESUS IS LORD. 

A BENEDICTION-BLESSING

There is a benediction-blessing floating around the Internet these days that is worthy of a discussion.  It appears in many forms, brief and expanded.  It is rarely documented, and fairly obscure to the protestant mind.  Nevertheless, it is a blessing worthy to pray. The origin of this Franciscan Blessing is not known. It's not a typical blessing we might expect to hear, but it's a good one.

May God bless you with discomfort...at easy answers, hard hearts, half-truths , and superficial relationships.

May God bless you so that you may live from deep within your heart where God's Spirit dwells.

May God bless you with anger...at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people.

May God bless you so that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace.

May God bless you with tears... to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war.

May God bless you so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and turn their pain into joy.  

And may God bless you with enough foolishnessto believe that you can make a difference in this world, in your neighborhood, so that you will courageously try what you don't think you can do, but, in Jesus Christ you'll have all the strength necessary.

May God bless you to fearlessly speak out about injustice, unjust laws, corrupt politicians, unjust and cruel treatment of prisoners, and senseless wars,genocides, starvations, and poverty that is so pervasive.

May God bless you that you remember we are all called to continue God's redemptive workof love and healing in God's place, in and through God's name, in God's Spirit, continually creatingand breathing new life and grace into everything and everyone we touch.

Source: "Troubadour: A Missionary Magazine," published by the Franciscan Missionary Society, Liverpool, UK: Spring 2005.

A CONVERSATION

In J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, a young hobbit named, Frodo, is given the burden of bearing the one ring of power. It's a ring that has the potential to put Middle Earth under the suffering and pain of a deep darkness that is already exerting its influence. With a cadre of friends, Frodo determines to make the journey to Mount Doom, to destroy the ring by throwing it into the volcano from which it was constructed.

It would be a fearful journey through enemy territory, and imagining the road ahead of him, Frodo shares with Gandalf the Wise that the burden of the ring should not have been placed with him. In the conversation between Frodo and Gandalf we read,

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.

“So do I,” said Gandalf “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
                                      J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings 

(New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1994), 51.

ON BEING CAREFUL

            Lent is a day-by-day, moment-by-moment, journey with our God to the place of the Skull, and the silence of the day after Jesus' crucifixion.  We are reminded on this journey that the ancient Hebrews journeyed with God for forty years in the wilderness after their exodus from Egypt.  Why did they wander in the desert when it was only an eleven-day journey to the Promised Land? They had trust issues concerning their God. 

            Israel could not simply let God be God.  They were consumed by their own passions and by their own thinking.  Richard Rohr speaks of how "the primary addiction for all humans is addiction to our own way of thinking" (Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation, November 21, 2015).  It's true, isn't it?  We think what we think and then think that it is always and without exception "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help us God."  Human beings far too easily fall into the trap of our own narcissism.          

           

            In the desert the Hebrews fell into idolatry, sexual immorality, testing God, and grumbling.  Welcome to the 21^st century.  Not much has changed.  These sins still haunt the people of God today.  Paul saw it two thousand years ago and warned the church, "these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did" (I Cor. 10:11).  Not us, we might say.  Not us.  Yes, us.  So Paul counsels us, "If you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall" (vs. 12).          

            Maybe Lent is that time for the church to revisit her own humanity.  None of us is beyond the possibility of sin and failure and weakness and falling victim to our own narcissism.  Truth is, we are all addicted to "our own way of thinking."  In a heartbeat we can take our eyes off God and live in the ways and means of our own flesh.   None off us is beyond the counsel, "Be careful."

            Thankfully, in Lent we also learn that "God is faithful" (vs. 13). We are under no obligation to fall victim to sin. God is always present to "provide a way out" (vs.13), as we live with our very real selves. Jesus is with us day by day.  Our times are in the hands of God (see Psalm 31:15).