During the season of Epiphany, I am pondering the means by which God the Holy Spirit brings people to the "Aha, I see Jesus!" moments. The Bible records Jesus as God in the flesh.
When people needed wine, we have no record that he sent them to the winery. When they wanted to know God, there is no record of Jesus sending them to someone else. So it is with our touching the world. As we come to know Jesus, we know to point others to that one and same Jesus. When they are thirsty, we know where the water is; hungry, we know where the bread is; lost, we know where to find the shepherd.
We know because, by God's grace, we've been there drinking, eating, and finding our way.
The Bible presents Jesus as the perfect, full presentation of God; the Creator and Sustainer of all Creation, the Word or complete expression of God, and more: God. Our aha moments are because God came to be with us.
There is much made of the idea that Christians are to "incarnate" Christ to the world. Yes, as followers of Jesus we are temples of the Holy Spirit and we are called to convey what God shows us. But there is only one incarnation. However fine the semantic line may be, there is a line nonetheless.
Finally, where would we be in relationship to Christ had we not been where others are? Paul loves to use phrases which refer to our former lives away from faith in Christ. Though our perseverance in faith depends only on God, our perseverance in this life depends on continuing to confront our need in the presence of Christ. Until our Savior enters, once again, our physical sphere, the growing, learning, and sharing will carry on.
We possess all we need to present Christ neighbor to neighbor.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Friday, January 7, 2011
"The Butt of Betrayal"
The soccer ball was stopped. "Here's my chance," I thought. "I can kick this sucker, score, and be the Phys. Ed. hero of the day." To see if anyone was going to block me, I looked up and around. Like the application of the defibrillator paddles, I almost yelled, "Clear!" Instead, I again looked down to kick the ball; my foot was already in full swing; I missed and I fell on my butt, the butt of betrayal.
As an assistant physical education director, I was fairly coordinated. The ball had stopped. But an earthquake caused the ball to roll three feet. That is a true story, other than the falling on my butt part.
We may experience betrayal in almost any situation. It is not, necessarily, sourced in broken human relationships, trickery, or tom-foolery. Betrayal does not require a source at all.
Circumstance can betray us just as convincingly as humans. I felt betrayed when my mother left our family of six kids. I felt betrayed when she lay in a coma, then in a coffin, having died at the age of 39. One situation required that someone exercise human volition; the other required none. Both times I felt equally betrayed.
Betrayal, then, has as much to do with our expectation or perception of what we deserve as it does with actions that hurt us. Perhaps that knowledge is what nurtured Jesus' response to Judas. To refer to Judas as a mere protagonist, however, reduces the record to nothing more than theater, an act, in which there would be little useful truth. Rather, what we have is a factual personification of betrayal for all eternity,
The Bible references Judas with words synonymous with Satan himself. There was a person; there was one whom Jesus knew would birth violence; he became the definition of betrayal. Jesus was able to see beyond the person who turned against him to the One in whose purpose Christ found His being. In a sense Jesus was not deceived at all. How might one be deceived if one has prior knowledge?
In this we find our example. Might we know that while we perceive betrayal, there is a principle beyond. "The Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed..." instituted the Lord's Supper. In the presence of his own enemies, he prepared a table clothed with the invitation to come, to believe, to trust, to ingest by faith. He was inviting both the deceiver and those who are deceived to comfort and hope.
Should this not be our own response to deception? Is this not a pattern for all the elect to follow? "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." Jesus knew, personally, the true deceiver; he also knew, personally, the True One. As we experience deception, we ought also to experience God's foreknowledge. We may, therefore, continue to respond with peace, invitation, love, and hope.
As an assistant physical education director, I was fairly coordinated. The ball had stopped. But an earthquake caused the ball to roll three feet. That is a true story, other than the falling on my butt part.
We may experience betrayal in almost any situation. It is not, necessarily, sourced in broken human relationships, trickery, or tom-foolery. Betrayal does not require a source at all.
Circumstance can betray us just as convincingly as humans. I felt betrayed when my mother left our family of six kids. I felt betrayed when she lay in a coma, then in a coffin, having died at the age of 39. One situation required that someone exercise human volition; the other required none. Both times I felt equally betrayed.
Betrayal, then, has as much to do with our expectation or perception of what we deserve as it does with actions that hurt us. Perhaps that knowledge is what nurtured Jesus' response to Judas. To refer to Judas as a mere protagonist, however, reduces the record to nothing more than theater, an act, in which there would be little useful truth. Rather, what we have is a factual personification of betrayal for all eternity,
The Bible references Judas with words synonymous with Satan himself. There was a person; there was one whom Jesus knew would birth violence; he became the definition of betrayal. Jesus was able to see beyond the person who turned against him to the One in whose purpose Christ found His being. In a sense Jesus was not deceived at all. How might one be deceived if one has prior knowledge?
In this we find our example. Might we know that while we perceive betrayal, there is a principle beyond. "The Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed..." instituted the Lord's Supper. In the presence of his own enemies, he prepared a table clothed with the invitation to come, to believe, to trust, to ingest by faith. He was inviting both the deceiver and those who are deceived to comfort and hope.
Should this not be our own response to deception? Is this not a pattern for all the elect to follow? "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." Jesus knew, personally, the true deceiver; he also knew, personally, the True One. As we experience deception, we ought also to experience God's foreknowledge. We may, therefore, continue to respond with peace, invitation, love, and hope.
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