Bringing Faith to Life
Posts tagged Jesus Christ
Can God speak to us through our bodies?
01 year
God speaks to us through our bodies.
Why is that so hard to believe? We say that 70% of communication is non-verbal. Why do we insist that God speak through our listening ears? What do we perceive non-verbally?
Well, this may sound nonsensical, because in normal conversation, what we mean by non-verbal is messaging though “body-language.” What do their facial expressions say? What does their hand-positioning tell us? their posture? their movement? This is the language of their bodies? God doesn’t have a body — at least not one we can see and touch. At least not me.
What if God is speaking God’s nonverbal expression through MY body? Uniquely and specifically to me? How would I listen? How would I interpret? How would I attend to what God is speaking? If am not aware of God, is there something getting in the way and scrambling our communication?
Much depends on my relationship with my own body. So what does you body say to you when you address it? is your body telling you?Do you find yourself in any of these? here?
- the avoider: I don’t want to talk about that. Let’s change the subject. let’s talk about something else. So, how are you doing…?
- The excuse maker: I don’t speak that language. (I’m not coordinated, not good at sports, never got picked for the team, really not very competitive.)
- the ashamed: I can’t talk about that. Am uncomfortable talking about my body. am ashamed, embarassed, have been hurt of abused.
- the guilty: There’s nothing wrong with what I am doing. Nothing to see here. Move along. unaware or blind to the connection between body and God, in denial
- the arguer, reasoner/rationalizer: The Bible says the flesh is bad, but the spirit is good. I choose to focus on the spirit. After all, this body of mine is just a temporary possession. gonna perish anyway.
Avoiding, excusing, shaming, denying, and arguing are all ways we step away from this conversation. In doing so, do we miss a blessed, poignant and personal way God created for us to be aware of Him? Forfeit an intimate connection? Miss perhaps 70% of what God is speaking?
Perhaps this is the most essential message of the coming of Christ: fully divine AND fully human, incarnated. Here in the flesh. God, knowing our reluctant selves, argumentative, avoidant, shamed and guilty selves, said, I can live in that body. When I do, I can take the helm, if you give it to me. I will speak course correction, signal change of heading, chart the course, and apply the rudder. Heck, I can even still the winds blowing us off course.
The keys are two: attend to My touch and apply my direction. Use your body’s awareness of me to accept my guidance. (like horse and rider)
Try: ask your body to respond to these commands/instructions:
- slow,
- calm,
- focus
- look
- listen
- breathe
- imagine
- attend
- release
- turn
- wait
- GO!
These commands are activated in our flesh, through our physical nature. God speaks to us, so God can speak through us.
Of course, one can only be guided when one is moving. Nothing (but God) can correct the course of something that refuses to budge, arms crossed. Movement in any direction, God can work with.
Folded hands which signal I’m not budging is something God refuses to override.
We are made to move. Our bodies — heart, soul, mind, strength and spirit — remind us of this everyday. It’s the way God intended to get and keep our attention. It’s why God gave us a body — to incline us to follow Him in this earthly lifetime.
*(This is the thesis of my book, Made to Move: (learning to) Knowing and Loving God through our Bodies, find it here.)
When the stone the builders rejected became the cornerstone
05 years
The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.
Cornerstone of a movement Catapulter of a cause, Motivator of a people. Launch point of a mission, Rally cry of the populous, Mainstay of the faithful.
The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.
Product of his hometown; Tethered to his past, Kept from his future. Where did he come from? Who were his teachers? Where was his father?
The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.
He was tall, they say, Dark-skinned, bearded, Active, even athletic. Son to a loving mother Friend to many Known in his hometown.
The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.
Read his Bible, Found peace there. One of the flock, but lost his way. Moved to a new town Looking for a new start Tether of the old life proved too strong.
The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.
Remembered... mostly For the way he died: How he suffered, How he called out, giving up his spirit, at the last.
Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened And I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, For I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.
Did the Resurrection really happen?
29 years
Does it matter if the Resurrection actually happened?
This was the question we considered in my adult Sunday School class at a church I used to belong to. I was a regular at Sunday school, where we considered issues of faith and its practice as a matter of course. Sunday school was organized and led by the laity and always promised a lively discussion and discourse. But one Easter Sunday, a bunch of us who came for the sunrise service and stayed to participate in the other morning services had gathered for Sunday school only to realize nothing had been planned. So a class member took charge asking the question of the day: Does it matter if the Resurrection actually happened?
Our class leader didn’t think so. It’s so unreasonable, unrealistic, so hard to believe, she argued. My faith is in Jesus. If I follow him, that’s enough. Whether or not he was actually raised from the dead doesn’t matter.
I found my heart oddly soured when nods of assent went around the circle. Wait a minute, that’s Easter, this is Easter! I wanted to say. But I didn’t because I couldn’t. I couldn’t justify my response or defend it against this rising tide of head nodders satisfied with the Son of Man who showed us the way. This man healed the sick, cast out demons, calmed storms, silenced his detractors and regularly attracted crowds. Isn’t that enough?
Well, no. Because if that was enough, he’d still be here, healing and casting and calming and teaching. But, and I think all authorities agree on this, he is not. There are no longer sightings of Jesus, the good man. He did die. And scripture tells us that when they went looking for Him, He wasn’t where they put Him. Word was, they were looking in the wrong place. He had gone to Galilee and would be receiving people there. Go and see.
Easter, to me, is about the go and see. Could it be possible that a man has died and yet lives again? Not according to any text book I’ve ever read. And not, apparently, according to my Sunday school leader. She was taking the safe approach: let’s be satisfied with the Jesus we know. If we go looking for him as if he’d come back to life we might not find him, and then where would we be?
The thing is, we need more than the tame Jesus we find believable. Now more than ever, we need Christ who is beyond belief. One who works miracles, walks on water, and who accepts death on its own terms so we can know there is life for us beyond the death of all that is un-good, un-kind, un-fair and un-godly in us. Christ died so we can know that those things in us are mortal; we can live without them. We are better without them. He came to show us that life. Not just in eternity, but now during this one.
Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. (John 14:19)
Last week I visited an historic site on the western coast of Florida called Historic Spanish Point. It was filled with the stories of ancient peoples and settlers enduring hardship and trials. The most recent inhabitants considered it sanctuary and rest. The grounds were alive with story and layer upon layer of meaning.
The guide took us to see “Mary’s Chapel,”a tiny sanctuary that, in it’s day, was open to all who might come.
Next to the chapel was a centuries old graveyard filled with headstones proclaiming the inhabitants, pioneers and patrons who had found a home here. Oddly intertwined among the headstones was a trunk sprouting a few brown and dying ferns. “That’s the resurrection fern,” our guide told us. “It looks dead, doesn’t it? But in a few days, when the rains come, it will spring to life. No better place to have a resurrection tree than in a graveyard, eh?”
Oh my, yes. I’m so grateful there is such a tree in the graveyard of my life.
But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. (1 Corinthians 15: 12-14)
Seeking to See – Glimmer or Grand Illumination?
09 years
Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and rich. He sought to see who Jesus was, but could not on account of the crowd. ~ Luke 19:1-3
“The thing that Zacchaeus wanted to do more than anything else that day was to see Jesus. He failed, partly because he was small of stature but mainly because the people around Jesus prevented his coming near.” (JWRilling)
***
I am walking through the darkening streets of Williamsburg, VA which is swimming with thousands of people who’ve come to celebrate the season’s Grand Illumination. The periphery of the street is punctuated by torches set ablaze, and each has people gathered around to warm their hands and faces as the temperatures drop. A friend and I make our way down the middle of DOG (Duke of Gloucester) street. We are strolling down memory lane, having been roommates here at the college some years back, and have agreed to watch for horse droppings that were liberally distributed earlier in the day which are becoming increasingly hard to avoid in the dim light.
But one thing people do avoid are the “street preachers.” These, as did those in colonial days, stand elevated above the crowd by stools or steps, proclaiming scripture verses and Bible teaching. Not offensive. Not, you’re gonna rot in hell. Not, repent or die. Compared to John the Baptist at the Jordan, these guys are tame! They just speak words of the truth as they know it. And all the people give them wide berth.
Who, on this festive night, amid the splendid decorations and colonial costumes and fabulous fireworks, wants to listen to all that?!
My companion and I take note of this. In a sea of people crowding the street, there is a broad empty space left for these voices to have their say without ringing in the ears. She and I, both of short stature, did not have any difficulty seeing or hearing. We sped on by.
Full of hot cider and good cheer and with the booms of fireworks ringing in our ears, we retrace our steps along DOG street, retreating to the car parked several blocks away. Most of the other visitors are doing the same, some pushing wheelchairs, some holding the hands, some wheeling wagons, some are very, very merry. Many, it seems to me, are likely students at the college, taking a break from their studies before final exams.
As the crowd starts to thin we see a lone figure ahead, clad in long sleeve t-shirt and loose fitting, lightweight pants. “He looks cold,” says my friend. And that does make us both take notice. A very tall, lean, young man is standing, still and silent in the center of the road at the barricade to street traffic. He stares straight ahead. Is he looking for someone? waiting to meet a companion? Is he stationed there as security? None of these guesses seems quite right.
We draw closer, but his expression doesn’t change. The look on his face is neither bored nor amused. He doesn’t smile or frown. He does not pull out a cell phone. That, in itself, distinguishes him from nearly every other pedestrian. When I get close enough, I see that his t-shirt has handwritten letters across the front.
“SEEK
HIM”
is scrawled in all caps on the front of his plain white t-shirt. He, as a silent sentry has drawn my attention and piqued my curiosity. How, on a very cold nearly winter’s night, could he be standing there like that? Stock still. Expressionless. I can’t help glancing back in mute amazement at the figure as we pass. On the back, in the same handwriting, the shirt reads:
“AND
LIVE.”
What do we do, in the name of Jesus, that prevents others’ coming near?
What might we do, in His name, to draw them near so they might truly live?
Grand Illumination, indeed.
I go to prepare a place for you
111 years
Until that which we write, we think, we pray, comes to life, we are noisy gongs and clanging cymbals. This is the pre-Easter world, the pre-Easter us.
- Messy.
- Analytical.
- Critical.
- Judging.
- Halting.
- Hesitant.
- Conspiring.
- Underhanded.
- Plotting.
- Deceiving.
Oh, the list. Thank God, the baby Jesus was born into a smelly stable. At least He knew what He was getting himself into, or at least He recognized the stench when he got here.
But the Easter life is meant to have a different fragrance. Gone is the stench of death. Up rises the sweet smell of life. It doesn’t febreeze the smell to muffle it or fool our noses by covering it, it actually replaces it by rebirthing it. It is a coming alive “in me.” It’s an inhabitation, not just a living with, or walking beside. It’s not even a co-habitation. Life has sprung from that which was clearly dying, what others have seen and testified to as completely dead. The mortician has actually signed off on it.
That, of course, is impossible. So, are we foolish to believe it?
Yet, each day I have words, thoughts, prayers in me that are meant to be acted upon. Ideas designed to take root. Connections clearly intended to be made. And when I am true to these, they take on a life of their own. This is not my doing. Others tell me this. Am I foolish to believe this? believe them? That something could be incarnated in me? A life that is not mine and yet it is?
Impossible. Yet, I hear (and so I write): Make a place for me, just as I have gone to make a place for you. What if the place Jesus said he was “going to make for me” was actually in me?
Is there a place “in me” that would welcome my Lord? Have I prepared the guest room? Made the beds, changed the sheets, tidied up the newspapers? Have I scrubbed the floors, painted the shutters, patched the wall paper, vacuumed the… Heck, I’d better get busy. Maybe a decorator.
No, redecoration would be fruitless and a waste of time, energy and resources. Christ doesn’t come with the white glove test to see if I pass muster. He’s not that kind of commander. He comes to set up a base of operations. He seeks outposts where his commands are followed without hesitation or pause. Not because we fear His power or rank but because we defer to it. Our compliance is a place of usefulness, of actualization.
This is a real place in Easter people. Where the Kingdom has come, the knock answered, the door opened, and new life has been welcomed and told to make itself at home. Oh, what a hum and whir I hear from that place.
What is written there is life-giving.
What is thought there is laid in place.
What is prayed there is and was and ever will be.
But what is imagined there…Oh, the plans he has for us; to prosper us and give us a future. Where better to do all of this than within us? Am I foolish to believe that the place He left to prepare was that very place?
Love doesn’t leave
011 years
“I’m not leaving his side.” This is the expression of love. A love so deep that it proclaims, nothing is separating us. I am staying right here… in case he needs something, in case he hurts, to prevent him from getting lost or wandering away, so he won’t be confused or lonely. This is the language of love and devotion.
How must it have felt to Jesus to leave those he loved so dearly? Those who had loved him and been his closest companions. Those whom he had ministered to, taught, mentored, loved. These with whom he had laughed and cried, eaten, slept, prayed, walked, and sat in silence. These with whom he shared his final hours around a table where bread and wine became body and blood. What must it have been like to know that your leaving will cause overwhelming grief, mourning, pain and sorrow? To anticipate this pain and yet, agree to go?
Perhaps this pain was even greater than that inflicted by those who derided, flogged and crucified him. Perhaps this was why he asked this cup be taken, why his prayer evoked drops of blood. He longed to stay with those he loved. What reason could there possibly be to separate a love like that?
Only one: to prepare a place for us, all who love him, so we can be where He is. The only thing greater than a love like that is a Love Like That.
I sit mesmerized by our choir singing powerfully of the lamb of God slain. Crucified, dead and buried. We emerge in the silence of the dark night. As I sit in my car waiting for traffic to clear so I can make my way home, I wonder at what I’ve seen and heard. A dinner with friends so closely followed by denial and death. This speaks so loudly of the way of this world. Why do I force myself to sit before the sights and sounds of Good Friday? I know this story; it slays me.
The parking lot begins to clear and I power up my car to make my exit. I have inadvertently left the radio on and its lyrics shock the silence. “God’s not dead he’s surely alive,” croon the Newsboys. I smile to myself, then sing along. “He’s living on the inside, roaring like a lion…” I even turn up the volume a bit as I pull past the few remaining cars, motioning one woman driving a mini-van into the line ahead of me.
I wonder if she or the parking attendant in reflective orange who is directing traffic with orange-glo sticks can hear me and the Newsboys. Can they see me smiling and singing along? Probably wondering about me.
The way I see it, why wait? The weight of three days has already been lifted. God’s not dead; he’s surely alive.
Leave no doubt
0What if we forget? What if we don’t get around to it? What if we’re afraid?…to tell them…until it’s too late.
I live among the self-sufficient. Everybody’s “got this.” “I’m good,” they say. They don’t need my help, don’t entertain my suggestion, don’t want my advice. In fact, accepting help taints their ‘I can do this myself’ capacity, the capability we pride ourselves with here in America, land of the free, home of the brave. Independence is where we stake our claim.
So, if I want them to know that there may be another approach or a new way, I am told I should ‘lead by example.’ That is acceptable, inoffensive and safe. If they notice, good. If not, well I’ve shown them. It’s not my job to turn them around.
But what if what I do is “not do”? That is, what if I choose to withhold my words or resist action? This really leaves the door open to all sorts of supposition. People may surmise, “Oh, she’s such a wimp.” Or, “She lets them get away with everything.” Or even accuse, “Why doesn’t she come to their defense?”
Here, I credit the Positive Coaching Alliance who suggests that we be sure to ‘tell them why you did what you did.’ This is especially true when our actions are silent. Speaking dispels misunderstanding. We don’t do it to tout what we did or draw attention to ourselves, but rather to be clear. And, to open the door for conversation and discussion. Why? What were you thinking? How did you decide this? What will you do now? Would you do that again? All valid questions. All essential so they can consider it for themselves. What would they have done if they were in my shoes?
And if, as has happened all too often, my actions were not what I wish to have conveyed, now I have a forum to talk about that, too. “I shouldn’t have said that and next time I will do this…”
So many of us, though, shy away from this conversation. We want to let our actions speak so we don’t have. We like to quote the old standard of St. Francis “Preach the gospel at all times, and when absolutely necessary, use words.” Certainly yes. We don’t want to invade someone with overbearing expressions. Too many have used fear and force to do this. We would do well to be gentler, but we are challenged to go and tell.
Is it cowardly just to witness with my ways and let them draw their own conclusions? Am I hiding in plain sight, choosing to keep quiet about my faith lest someone might catch me doing something unChristian and call me out? Are we people who hide behind our good deeds and figure that’s good enough for God? Or are we meant to risk letting the Jesus show so that when we explain the why behind what we did or the why not behind what we didn’t, we testify to the truth.
I just love people who get creative about it. In fact, I am grateful because they give me ammunition and impetus to challenge myself to speak faith in a way that those who might not yet know the Lord will be tempted to consider Him. Now here’s someone who speaks it in style. 370Z style.
What message are we leaving behind?
How about this guy? He drives around with the message on his plate. I posted it to my Facebook page. Why not? Easter is coming. A harmless question … for the win. But I had better “be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks (me) to give the reason for the hope that (I) have.” (1 Peter 3:15) I have found that the right word is rarely as important as the timely word.
Where life gets real, there is always hope
312 years
We lost a young man in our church last Tuesday afternoon. He died as the result of a tragic accident. Suddenly. On the day he graduated from 8th grade. He was a good kid but not perfect – an adventurous boy, a reliable friend, a brother you could count on, a loving son. He regularly humbled his father at one-on-one basketball and whispered “I love you” in his mother’s ear. So said the preacher who solemnly remembered him to a packed sanctuary yesterday.
Bennett Rill was 14 years old.
He had just been confirmed in the church. That means that he had completed a 4-month study program, been mentored by an adult in our church and been interviewed by one of our pastors about his readiness to answer the question, “Do you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?”
He answered yes. That “yes” didn’t prevent the accident which ended his life. That’s a tough one. Lots of questions hover – the why’s, the what if’s, the where were you’s. I suspended those questions as I sat in the sanctuary and listened to the story of Bennett. The kid who lived life all out. The kid who wasn’t afraid to love and to say so. The kid who competed for the complete joy it gave him, not to impress but to give his best when his best was needed.
They called him the “real deal.” That is, not just the kid who says the right words but the one who does the right thing. That lives his life and his faith just the same. The one you have no doubt about – he’s telling the truth. You can see it. Not just in church. Not just in school. Not just at home. But on the field of play. And for a 14 year old boy, that’s where life gets real.
A cousin (and pastor) said of him, “He was stoked for joy.” I love that. Stoked. Prepared. Ready to go. Looking for the action. His coach said, “Bennett was ready in season and out. There was no off season.” He was ready. We weren’t ready for this.
Still, as Christians we are meant to be ready. Ready to give the reason for the hope that we have. And so I sit with this tragedy and the reading that comes close to hand. Madeleine L’Engle has written, “mediate is part of the word immediate, the place of now, where past and future come together.”
The Great Mediator reaches back into our now. Back from the future that he has already defined but where He has promised not to intervene and, I expect through great tears, He sews and mends and heals. Time and space are not linear to Him. They don’t happen in our order. This is what makes the impossible, possible. In that mediate space, chronos (our time) and Kairos (God’s time) converge.
I conclude this because I have seen it before. Some years ago when my brother died suddenly and without warning I asked in my grief, “Where were you, Lord? If you had been there my brother wouldn’t have died.” And He showed me my journal of a few days before where I had written those very words from John 11:21 “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” I had concluded that we were foolish to suppose He wasn’t there for Martha or for us. Three days before I knew I would need these words, God had provided them.
But now Bennett…and I walk into my neighborhood Starbucks, searching for words to share with this family. Suddenly, coincidentally, God-incidentally, I see three young men standing near a beautiful arrangement of pink flowers. “They are for our friends, the Rills,” they tell me.
I ask about their friend Bennett and they tell me the story of the roof and the friend who fell and the voltage. “We were with him,” they say. “See, look at the marks on my hands.” Sure enough, there are burn marks across the fingers of one of the boys. The Truth is standing before me.
But they echo in my mind in a different voice. They are the words Jesus spoke to his doubting disciple Thomas.
“Put your finger here; see my hands… Stop doubting and believe.”
John 20:27
And there Hope was, standing before me, in a rising 9th grader, speaking words thousands of years old that he may never have heard or read.
Even in tragic death there is hope. The decision is less to cling to life than to cling to the Lord of life, who has conquered death and written a much greater story. CS Lewis writes it so beautifully at the end of The Chronicles of Narnia:
“But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle
What a glorious image. May it settle upon this family and this community and lead us forward.
Communion Running
012 years
Let no one say that running is not worship. I went for a Communion Run this morning. Yep, right there, as the roadside gravel crunched under my feet, I sang …
eat this bread, drink this wine, trust in me and you will not thirst.
Works well if you have shortish strides and no place really to go.
And wouldn’t you know He even tossed in a bit of baptismal rain that threatened a downpour and spurred me to move spritely up the hill and quickly home?
Perhaps this is just an Easter event. Being that it’s Easter and I just attended the sunrise service.
I remember the sunrise last Easter. It actually rose during the service, as it’s meant to. We bowed our heads for prayer and when we looked up the sun peeked back at us. Not this morning. This morning was cool, cloud-covered and dry. The only hint of sunrise were a few wisps of pink off in the eastern sky. I willed them to be more, but they didn’t comply.
Oddly, as the service ended with the final hymn printed in our bulletin, I didn’t have trouble reading the words as I had for the opening hymn. Now, by the light of the sun I couldn’t see, I could see to read the words more clearly.
Somehow, instead of disappointing, I find this both miraculous and just as it should be. I know the risen Lord by way of His facilitation of my sight, my sound, my taste and touch and smell.
And why not on the road as I plod along in my Saucony’s? The rain doesn’t bother me at all. In fact I revel in it. Cleansing. Renewing. Changing rain. I’ve a hat and a jacket and two legs that will carry me forward.
And the mind it does whir. That’s creativity calling. It comes unbidden – in fact it almost never comes when I call it – and I stop to put down my water bottle in order to extract the sticky notes and pen that are nestled in my front jacket pouch. I just hope I can read what I’ve written by the time I get home. I hope it makes any sense. Because creativity has its own language. What seems to make sense at the moment of illumination is foreign even some minutes later.
Alas, I am a bit odd about this I know. But it is my bread and it is my wine. And today I am not thirsty. And neither will I be tomorrow. With thanks to John Indermark I know what’s happened. I have been Eastered. He writes…
“Holy Jesus, risen Christ, having shaken off the tomb and death: write your raising in the handwriting of my life. Grace me to live an Eastered life for the sake of the world you love. Amen.”
He is not here. He is risen.