A Daring Reach

Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
-John 20:27

In moments of duress we respond with either “fight or flight.”  How many times have we heard that adage?  It’s become so commonplace, we often take for granted that it is simply true.  We have only these two choices whenever we’re anxious, right?  We either fight or flee.  A centipede will do that.  As will a barn swallow.  And so will a cow.  Maybe that’s the point, that in our evolutionary-minded culture we just assume that we came from the same amoebic slime and have these responses as hold-overs to our ape-ish great-(to the n-th degree)-grandparents.  An article found on msn.com’s homepage today echoes this assumed reality: “The famous fight or flight response mechanism—yep, the same one that helped our ancestors outrun saber-toothed tigers…”

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I guess, I’ve always felt like these were pretty limited options and somehow pretty animalistic.  Maybe as a weary, worn-out people, this is what we often do.  Much of what I see in my counseling office is people anxiously combating or fearfully avoiding relationship or situations — and that seems to fit the bill.  What other options can there be?

Recently I was challenged to consider a baby’s response to his environment.  Raised in a healthy environment, whenever hungry and needing his mother’s breast, the baby reaches.  Whenever frightened and wanting comfort, he again reaches for his mother.  Whenever exposed to new things or people and uncertain about them, he reaches for security from mom.  There is no fight or flight in him.  Not yet.  It is all reach.

It is only as that baby grows and experiences the fallen world, repeatedly exposed to fearful and painful events where he reaches and finds no one, that he learns to defend or hide.  As an adult, then, he has learned to “live out all the other selves,” as Frederich Buechner put it, “which [he is] constantly putting on and taking off like coats and hats against the world’s weather.”  The original innocence is all but lost.  Accessibility, vulnerability, authenticity, strength — gone, or buried.  Buechener continues, “The original, shimmering self gets buried so deep that most of us end up hardly living out of it at all.”

From my experience, when Buechener says, “most of us,” he is speaking literally.  It is extremely rare to encounter anyone able to live out some deep and true and good heart.  It is the stuff of fairytales and legends.  When we see it, we are stirred and even captivated.  We want to be like that, or be reached by someone who is like that.  Think of heroes in Hollywood blockbusters.  Or maybe the occasional firefighter running up the stairs of the collapsing Twin Towers to rescue bleeding and burning victims.  The reason we write books and make movies depicting such a character is not because we see it around us (or within us), but exactly because we often don’t.  Our souls are buried by demands, imprisoned by pain, blinded by fear.  Broken and lost to us.

The loss of this treasured “original, shimmering self” is one of the greatest tragedies of the Fall.  A tragedy so great, in fact, that it was for rescue and restoration of it that God launched the greatest invasion the world has even known.  It is for want of this back that Jesus came “to seek and save what was lost” Luke 19:10.  His mission in his own words is to, “bind up the brokenhearted… to comfort… to proclaim freedom for the prisoners… recover sight for the blind… release the oppressed…” (see Isaiah 61:1 and Luke 4:18).

One of the ways Jesus does this is by reaching.  When Jesus “reached out his hand and touched” the leper (Matthew 8:3) and “reached out his hand and caught” Peter (Matthew 14:31), he was both saving them (from death) and modeling for them the courageous act of reaching.  He reached the man at the pool of Bethesda (John 5:1-15) and the woman at the well (John 4:1-26) in a similar way (just more indirect, though no less subtle).  The gospels are filled with stories of Jesus reaching out to us, of God stooping to face us and call us friends and bringing us up to His level.  My own life is filled with stories of the same.  So intent is He, in fact, to reach for and save the “original, shimmering self” that He obstinately refuses the false self, the coats and hats we wear.  And His refusal to acknowledge or be in relationship with the false self can often cause confusion over His intent and motive. (Consider how confusing it must have been for the Pharisees that Jesus chastized and offended.  In his offensive way with them, Jesus was still reaching for the buried self, even in refusing to address the pretense.  Whenever one of them responded to Jesus with authenticity, Jesus would address him in kind [see, for example, John 3:1-21]). His reaching is such that St. Theresa of Avila says He not only reaches by giving Himself for us, but He also gives Himself to us in a reach of rescue.

In reaching for and toward us (and how far He comes to do that!), Jesus invites us to reach back.  Even when we are living out of the cynicism and despair and unbelief we’ve learned in this world.  This was His approach to Thomas, who refused even to acknowledge Him at all.  Jesus simply offered, “Reach out your hand and put it to my side.  Stop doubting and believe” (John 20:27).

I am constantly amazed at the courage of my clients that, after all the pain of living they have experienced, after all the encounters of reaching out and finding no one, that they are still reaching for something, demonstrated by the very act of coming to see me.  Something in them balks at and refuses to completely embrace in existential despair that they are totally alone in the universe.  Maybe it’s not the original expectations that someone would be there to offer the comfort and protection they needed, but the very act of stepping into my office and opening their hearts and lives to me is in itself a courageous reaching.

The reach response of an infant who hasn’t yet learned to fight in desperation or flee in fear, and the subtle and trepidatious reach found in some of us still hoping for someone or something on the other end, is an image of God in us.  Maybe the most glorious part of that image in us, that part of “eternity set in the heart of man,” as Ecclesiastes puts it.  In a way that is brutal and even demanding, Jesus still invites us to reach toward Him, out of the deepest love for us and desire that in the reaching, “we may have life, and have it to the full,” that in the seeking, we may both find and be found.

 

Return of the King’s

Another disciple said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”
-Matthew 8:21-22 

Being in grad school can be pretty demanding, as can any number of things we engage in with our lives — marriage and kids, ministry, jobs, a crisis here or there, sickness, and a million other things.  The demands of life simply take their toll.

I’ve had some unexpected openings with my time recently.  I’m still in school, but my schedule has shifted a bit and freed me up a little bit through the day, creating some breathing room I haven’t had in quite awhile.  Not much, but enough that I’ve had time to slow down a bit.  There’s that, and there’s the space I’m beginning to make for my heart again, time to reconnect with the deeper places in me, and time to reconnect with God.

The trouble is, I’m so used to the whirlwind of busyness that when I try to slow down or when I have some down time, I can’t seem to sit still.  When I try to quiet my mind and heart, to try to listen to the voice of the Lord speaking to me, all I too often seem to get is the rising anxiety about what I should be doing, or the worry about tomorrow’s activities, or the unsettled restlessness of things in my life.  Me, me, me.  Though I’m involved in a lot of beautiful things that are bigger than me, when I slow down the vertigo-of-soul seems to indicate that in too many ways I’ve become the center of my own story.  I’ve become stuck in an orbit around myself.

I decided today that the only recourse I have is… well, is to realize I have no recourse.  I have no internal resources that can save me from this vortex of ontological lightness, as theologians call it.  If I am to follow Jesus again deeply, it must begin with Him coming into and speaking into this tornadic mess inside my heart.  Otherwise, I’m unsure where to go with my attention and energy.  My  mind only comes up with a few different places I could go — mostly either dead-end roads of boredom, distraction, or worry, as I’ve mentioned, or worse — dark corners and alleys that have crept into my heart as I’ve shied away from the Light of Life.

So, with no internal resources to rely on, I’m dropping it all and running to Jesus.  And this is what I pray:

Please meet me here, Lord God.  Spirit of the Living, God, I remember that You want to commune with me even more — far more — than I want to with You.  I don’t want distraction.  I don’t want the distance of worry and inattention.  I don’t want comfort.  And I must not wait to bury my father, to wait until all is fixed and well before taking off again with You into the deep.  I don’t want th eless wild offers of this world or of the Father of Lies.  I want You.  Jesus, I want you.  Everything else is dung compared with that — for you are the Pearl of Great Price.  I hunger for You.  My soul thirsts for the Living God.

Where may He be found?  Who can ascend His hill?  Praise be to my God, who has given us clean hands and pure hearts, that we might walk with the Living God, learn of His ways, be trained as master horseman with his steeds, be loved as a bride on the bed.  We are Yours, O Lover, we are Yours, for you have first loved us.  Jesus, you are our King and Suitor.  And I am your man.

 

How Far Will He Go?

Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?  If I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
-King David to the Lord God

How far will the Lord go to have us?

The King James translation of the Scripture quoted above uses the word “hell” for “depths,” an accurate translation of the Hebrew word שאול (Sheol).  Sheol means “grave” or “pit” or “the abode of the dead.”  What David is saying here is really scandalous… that no matter where he turns, God is going to be there with him, that no matter where he takes his heart, his God will go with him to that place, only to be with him, only to have him.  (Proof of this is the hell of the Cross that Jesus went through.)

If I really make my bed in the depths of hell, really — meaning, if I really should run as far and as fast in the opposite direction of God and life and freedom and chain myself to soul-whores and lay my heart out on the alter of my idols that steal my life and breath and if I seal my mouth with a death-mask to suffocate myself — will He really still be there, “His right hand to hold me fast?”

The reason this is so obscene is that it shatters our comfy-cozy pictures of God, our flimsy perceptions that melt when the heat gets turned up in our lives.  The God that David sings to here — and no doubt David surely knows what it is to be in the deep, lonely dark of hell on earth — this is a bold-ass God, one with a heart that is merciful, resistless, fierce, and fiercely determined to have our hearts, no matter what we do with them or where we take them.

Imagine the implications of this.  Wherever we are, right now, God is holding fast to us.  God is a blink away, a turn of the head, a imperceptible whisper, a collapse, a stumble, a glance.  Certainly hell is not where God wants us to make our beds, but David knew a God who would reach that far to be with him, to be near him, to bring him back home to His heart.

The direction of our entire lives can change with the subtlest and weakest nod in the direction of life, the faintest heart-cry for rescue.  He knocks at our heart’s door — oh, does He knock!  And throw rocks to our windows and cry out for us to let Him in! — and we only have to muster the strength to turn the knob… and in He rushes, catches us, anchors us, and invites us to a table fellowship, a friendship, to be His companion through it all.

This is astounding.  It is a moonshine-grace so pure as to blind anyone who would dare sip it, and all the while give us eyes to really see the lovesick heart of this pursuing God who will have us, no matter what.

Nothing is beyond Him, including you and me right here, right now.  His life wins us back from death.  This is salvation, being saved by His life (Romans 5:10).

 

The Cry: Jesus’ Pursuit, Part 4

Continued from An Old Man’s Encounter: Jesus’ Pursuit, Part 3, or start from the beginning with The Question: Jesus’ Pursuit, Part 1

Oh, and it’s important to know that the words Gabriel spoke to Zechariah, those that the desperate and frightened old man couldn’t believe, they were the first words God spoke to His people since Old Testament times, some four hundred years back. This is, essentially, the introduction of God back in the story. These are the first words of the gospel, Your prayer has been heard.

What prayer, exactly? I don’t believe Gabriel was speaking only to Zechariah there that day. Sure, he was talking to the old man about his desire for a son, but through Zechariah’s circumstances the angel was delivering a message to an entire world: God has heard your cries for deliverance. Zechariah’s and Elizabeth’s son, John the Baptist, would be the herald of a great message and a great New Way. And so when John would cry “the kingdom of heaven is near” (Matthew 3:2) he actually meant that Jesus, the King himself (and so the kingdom was wherever He was) was near.

John the Baptist referred to himself as a “friend of the bridegroom” or, in Hebrew terms, the soshben. In Jewish culture, the soshben served as a best man to the groom during a wedding. He would be the groom’s closest friend, the one he could count on and trust to help guard his greatest treasure: his beloved bride. He helped make all the preparations for his friend, making sure this day would be perfect for him and his bride. During the ceremony, it was customary for the soshben to escort the bride from the banquet to the bridal chamber, where she would prepare herself for her groom and what would follow that night. They understood that to become one through sexual union was a profound involvement, one signifying nothing less than the union of their souls in marriage. The soshben would guard the door of the bridal chamber until the groom arrived, since in Biblical times, at least, brides were sometimes stolen. Once the groom stepped into the chamber, the soshben’s job would be done and he would “go away rejoicing.” (Later Jesus would use the same provocative bridge-bridegroom language to point to His own relationship with His suitor – Matthew 9:15).

So already we are a bit intrigued. A wedding? A bride and bridegroom? How did we go from “repent” to talk of nuptials? What’s all that about?

I’m sure that’s what all the good Jews of Jesus’ day were wondering. Prophets of Israel had been foretelling a time for centuries when a Messiah would come on the scene and set everything right, and most of the Jews knew something about a kingdom coming. The language of a kingdom coming wasn’t unfamiliar to Jesus’ hearers. But a kingdom that was “at hand” – well, think about it. For hundreds of years people had been talking about the kingdom coming. It would have sounded a bit like our hearing of the end of the world. Sure, it’s out there somewhere, but nobody believes, really, that it will be today. Who would really expect the kingdom to be at hand, really? That came as a contradiction to what everyone thought and expected. No one expected the kingdom of God to happen now. “It could only happen then,” writes Brian McLaren, “after the Romans were ejected or eliminated, which in turn couldn’t happen (for the Zealots) until later, after the Jews were militarily mobilized and led by a great military liberator (or messiah), which couldn’t happen (for the Pharisees) until later, after the prostitutes and drunks and other undesirables were either reformed or otherwise eliminated. Put together, these conditions were so hard to imagine actually occurring anytime soon that they were considered (by the comfortably adjusted Herodians and their similarly comfortable friends, the Saduccees) completely improbable, no, practically impossible. The Kingdom of God? Maybe in some distant someday. At hand, here and now? No way!”

Yet it was just a few days later when Jesus strolled right in front of John and John yelled out, “This is the one I meant…!” The kingdom of God, indeed, is near – standing right before him.

So all eyes turn to Jesus. “Here he is,” says John the Baptist, “the Lamb of God!” Immediately two disciples start following Jesus around (John 1:35-36). You can almost hear the hearts beating faster and faster. Could it be? Could it really be true that this is the one we’ve been waiting for, the one to come to set it all right?

And what does Jesus do? He turns to them, fixes his eyes on theirs, and raises a question up in their hearts. “What do you want?”

Put yourself in their place hearing this question asked you by this “Lamb of God.” What do I want? What do I want? Is that even a legitimate question? What do I want? Well… I… I want… I don’t know… I want… (All this rolls around in your head and then, slowly, builds and swells into more than you can process.) I want peace in my house. I want freedom from the imprisonment imposed upon me by the government. I want not to worry about money and debt and my business. I want energy for friendships again. I want to take back those harsh words I spoke yesterday to my partner. Ah man, and I’d love to have another crack at raising my son. He’s really not doing well. And that thing I did last year that plagues me with guilt… I’d love to change that, change that about myself. I’d love to become the man greater than my father. If this man standing here asking these questions is promising anything at all relevant to my daily life, then I want to be where He is. At this point, the desire in your heart for what you “want” has swelled into a tsunami rushing up into your throat and crashing into your mouth, making you stutter and stammer. The only thing you are able to get out is… “wh-wh-where are you staying?” (John 1:38). Because to be near this man is to be near to the question and be closer to the answer.

The ensuing adventure for these followers of Jesus shaped and molded that very question within their hearts.

To be continued…

 

An Old Man’s Encounter: Jesus’ Pursuit, Part 3

Continued from Setting the Stage: Jesus’ Pursuit, Part 2, or start from the beginning with The Question: Jesus’ Pursuit, Part 1

So here Zechariah is, standing at the altar of incense, doing his duty and minding his own religious business and just relieved that he wasn’t struck dead when he walked into the inner chamber of the temple, when all of a sudden the angel Gabriel shows up and stands next to him.

Now, we’ve got to get the picture of cute little cherubs floating around carrying harps completely out of our minds. These are not Precious Moments figurines we’re talking about. The Scriptures refer to hosts of angles as angel armies, and the Psalms call them the “Mighty Ones” of the heavens (Psalm 103:20).  Whenever these dudes showed up, something incredible was always on the horizon, and they were either delivering the message or fighting through enemy lines as warriors.  They were present at the birth of Jesus, not hovering over the manager sweet and cuddly, but fighting an enormous dragon with seven heads and all of its emissaries (see Revelations 12, that chronicles the real story of Christmas). How many angles did it take to take out Sodom and Gomorrah? Two.(See Genesis 19).

And what is everyone’s response in Scripture when they encounter an angel? Wham! They hit the ground, usually crying out something to the effect of “Don’t hurt us!” These are fierce creatures. And Zechariah’s reaction is no different. It says that he was “gripped with fear” (Luke 1:12). As usual, the angel’s first words have to be, “Don’t be afraid,” but then he goes on to say, “Your prayer has been heard.”  Perhaps as fearful as Gabriel might have seemed to Zechariah, his greater fear that the angel spoke of was that his years on end of crying out to God were met with silence. Perhaps his real fear was not that he could hear the words of this fieral angel, but rather that God may never hear his own words of desperation.

Gabriel tells him that God has, indeed, heard him and that he will have a son. And not just any son, but one that “will be a joy and a delight,” and “great in the sight of the Lord” and “filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth” and will “turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous – to make ready a people prepared for the Lord” (Luke 1:14-16). Whoa! This man is going to be something.  He had prayed for a son.  He gets a prophet.

And yet all Zechariah can offer is incredulity. After Gabriel speaks passionately about the weight of the life his son will bear, he basically says, “Pllllbbbbbtttttt. Yeah, right. Have you seen how old my wife and I are? Bear a son? Ha! Whatever.” (Remember, we’re in the days before Viagra and plastic surgery — and even those wouldn’t help an old woman’s womb be fertile again.)

Now, Gabriel is a holy servant of the Lord, probably not accustomed to being mocked. He is the one who will later be chosen to give Mary the news of her pregnancy. He’s a messenger, and an important one. This side of the story we can see that, but for Zechariah, at a point just before the birth of the Messiah, it’s a little harder to see. I can’t fault him for being so naïve. Maybe Gabriel can’t either, which is why the old man didn’t have to be pulled out of the temple by his ankles. Rather, he was struck silent for awhile. It’s probably something that would have done him some good. Maybe, like Mary would soon do after Gabriel delivers similar news to her, he needed to “treasure up all these things and ponder them in his heart” (Luke 2:19).

But really, all of this is still in way of prologue. The story is just beginning to unfold. And what a story it will be.

And remember, too, that we’re still after the importance of Jesus’ original question to his disciples when he asks them in John 1:38, “What do you want?”

Continued in The Cry: Jesus’ Pursuit, Part 4

 

Setting the Stage: Jesus’ Pursuit, Part 2

Continued from The Question: Jesus’ Pursuit, Part 1

John the Baptist has already been proclaiming some pretty wild stuff out there in the wilderness, wild words to match well his wild clothes and choice of food. John’s a wild man, and a passionate one. He is known as John the Baptist because he has been baptizing folks to get them ready for the coming Messiah. And some people are starting to believe that there will really be a Messiah coming. A lot of expectation is raised, and a lot of anticipation. What will this Messiah be like? What will he do?

Those who are coming by frequently to the Jordan where John is preaching were known now as his disciples, or more simply, his students. They were listening intently to what John had to say. Why? I mean, why would anyone particularly want to hang around this wild man who was dressed in camel skin and ate locusts for dinner? What was he saying to them that drew their interest, anyway?

To answer that, let me back up a bit to tell you about John’s father. His name was Zechariah. This guy was a priest who had been chosen to go on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to the temple of the Lord to burn incense. This was a very rare opportunity for a priest, and Zechariah was no doubt scared out of his mind as much as he was excited.

One of the first things we learn about Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth is that they had no children. They wanted them, but Elizabeth was barren, so their hope of having any sons or daughters was waning fast, and the chances were slim.

Now, even as a priest, it was a very rare thing to get to go into the temple of the Lord. Very few priests were ever able to do so. And Zechariah was the guy chosen to go in. Now, to do so it meant that he would have a rope tied to his ankle just in case he did something wrong and he’d die in there as a result of God’s holiness and the others would need to drag him out. So this was a pretty heavy and serious matter. What made it even weightier was what Zechariah encountered in there.

Continued in An Old Man’s Encounter: Jesus’ Pursuit, Part 3

 

The Question: Jesus’ Pursuit, Part 1

Be prepared to meet Him Who Knows How to Ask Questions.
-T.S. Elliot

When Jesus speaks to the disciples (who really, at that point, weren’t yet disciples) in John 1:38, he asks them, “What do you want?” Now, that in itself isn’t necessarily all that profound. I’m asked that question quite a few times a day. I ask it of myself when I’m in the drive-thru line or the 16 year-old kid with the Taco Bell hat asks it of me when I’m in line thinking seriously about one of those yummy crunchy tacos they have. My wife will sometimes ask it if me in the evening when we have a wide open few hours to do whatever we want to do together. Even the little dog on my computer screen that pops up when I need to search for something has a bubble above his head and the question, “What Are you looking for?”

So what’s so special about this time when Jesus says it? (As a sidenote, I’m just going to start living like everything that Jesus says carries a really deep truth, because I mean, afterall, he is the Truth, so it seems natural that just like a fountain gushes water because that’s what it does, Jesus is going to gush truth. It’s Dallas Willard’s contention that the reality that Jesus is the smartest and most clever man that ever lived doesn’t often enter our minds when we think of him as Teacher and Master of Life, and that is tragic.)

To get a clear idea what Jesus is really saying, and why, let’s set the stage a bit…

Continued in Setting the Stage: Jesus’ Pursuit, Part 2

(Thanks, K, for the T.S. Elliot quote)