On being an Easter person...

Easter has passed, in a flurry of rainy weather, food and flowers. With a bit of chocolate thrown in.  At first, I felt a little surprised by the coming of Easter. It seemed like it sneaked up on me while I wasn't looking. I felt a bit lost, because usually the Easter season is a time of reflection for me, aided by liturgical material that helps me draw close into worship and a renewed focus on Jesus's life and power at work within me and my world.  When Easter just seemed to jump out at me this year, I initially felt that I had been negligent, too focused on Mutant to meditate on my Lord.

 I waited for the tsunami of guilt to hit.  What came instead was grace.  And clarity.  I've been clinging to Jesus, like a monkey on her mother's back.  Forget holding onto the hem of His robe, I've jumped into His arms and am clinging to His neck with everything I've got. My face is pressed into His chest, when my hands shake with nerves, He takes them in His own and holds them until I am calm again. He wraps Himself around me at night, in my husband's love.  He responds to the prayers of others with a deep sense of His peace and stillness.  He throws His head back and laughs joyfully with me in the sweetness of my children.  He breathes hope into me in the quiet life of the forest. He speaks into my Spirit through His Word. He is undeniably, powerfully, soothingly, honestly, deeply here. Alive. In me.

Yesterday, on Easter Sunday, I remembered a sermon I once heard that encouraged me to be an Easter person.  Easter people are alive, deeply, extravagantly, spiritually alive.  Easter people live daily filled with the power that raised Christ from the dead, alive and active within them. (Eph. 1:19-20)  To me, in these days, being an Easter person means being brilliantly alive even as Mutant is trying to end my life. It means serving others with the power of gentleness and compassion even as I struggle with pain in my body.  The power of Easter, the power that lives in all those who have welcomed the Spirit of Christ into them, is the power of love, of patience, compassion, gentleness, humility, forgiveness, protectiveness, trust and hope. (1Cor. 13:4-7)  We have access to the power to love, radically, sacrificially, extravagantly, but we don't all choose to live in that power.  Easter people love fearlessly.  Ah, but we have to have common sense.  No, we don't. In fact, Easter is the celebration of what God can and will do when we put down common sense and self interest and embrace love fully.

So, I think the reason the Easter weekend surprised me is because I have been living as an Easter person more and more these days. Thanks, oddly, to Mutant.  Don't get me wrong, I still want her dead, dead, dead.  And to that end, I'll be starting radiation treatments this week. 

Oh, and Grace is coming home this week!!! She'll be here with us on Sunday!  Lately I have literally been pining for her, that aching longing to have her in my arms again.  Oh my goodness, I am happy that I will be seeing her soon!

Peace out!

Following Jesus - The Good Samaritan

"What is written in the Law?" He (Jesus) replied. "How do you read it?"

He (the expert in the law) answered: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'" Luke 10:26-27

What does the law say? This is a significant question, because the law of God is true. It is just. It is fair. It is good. Psalm 119:174-175 rejoices in God's law; "I long for your salvation, O LORD, and your law is my delight. Let me live that I may praise you, and may your laws sustain me."

Even as the answer, the right answer, is coming out of the expert's mouth, though, the problem with the law presents itself. The expert didn't see it. It is hard to see certain things when one is an expert. This is one of those "You have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children" moments from Luke 10:21. Many people would see the problem, people humbled by the messes in their lives, their lack of education, money and opportunities, the daily struggle to put one foot in front of the other to get to tomorrow. But others miss it entirely.

The problem with this answer is that as easy as it is to say, it is monumentally hard to do. For today, let's just look at the first part. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind. Notice all the "alls" in there? I think of God reading this, as I write about how hard it is to love Him, and I fill sick inside. It's not Him. It's us. I know He knows this, being all knowing and totally secure in His Godhood. I can't help but think, though, that it must hurt Him. His love is eternal. His pain over our lack of love must match the hugeness of His love, right?

It's not Him. It's us. He has every right and reason to ask for our undying, uncompromising, passionate, head-over-heels, forever love. He is glorious, powerful, all knowing, all seeing, all powerful, ever present and profoundly dedicated to us, His creation. He loves us. John 3:16 tells us the extent of His love; "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

Today is Good Friday. Today is the day that God's giving hit it's absolute pinnacle. Today is the day that should make the careless quoting of the words, "Love the Lord your God..." die in our throats. This much? Do we love Him this much? With everything? With our all?

"I love you," is so easy to say. Close your eyes and see Jesus on the cross. Hear His cry, Father, why have You forsaken me? Hear His whisper, Father, forgive them... Know that He could not let you be lost to Him. Not then. Not now. Not ever. He wasn't a victim. He was ultimate power choosing pathetic weakness to display earth-shattering, mind-numbing, super-strength love for us.

The problem with the commandment, Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, is that we don't love God enough. We love other things more. We love our own comfort. We love our own happiness. We love our own freedom. We love ourselves (and if you would argue that you do not love yourself, the very fact that you are arguing and honoring your own opinion rather than God's, proves that you do). Our love does not stack up to God's Good Friday love. That is the problem. And Good Friday is the solution. Jesus' death on the cross provided the sacrifice that we need. We cannot inherit our way into Heaven because we cannot keep the law. It's a lovely law. We just can't do it. Good Friday evidenced the love that saves us. Easter morning evidenced the power that made it possible. God loves us enough that He sent Jesus to die for us, and He is powerful enough that death could not hold Jesus down.

Once we recognize that words are not enough, we have a God that not only requires our devotion to Him, but is willing and eager to empower us to devote ourselves to Him. Our prayer should always be, "Lord God, if I ever utter the words, 'I love You', to you without integrity and truth, please let them die in my throat, to be replaced by, 'Forgive me Lord'. Today is a good day to say to God, "I want to love You more."

May it be, Lord. Amen.

Following Jesus

"Have you heard the story? The Christ is finally here!"

If I had been thinking about it, I would have seriously wondered why these words were having such an effect on me. I wasn't thinking about it, though. I was feeling it. I was living my life, doing my "stuff", enjoying the first year with my new husband and periodically curling up on the couch listening to "Hosanna" and immersing myself in the total joy of Jesus' entry parade into Jerusalem.

"Behold your salvation, He comes to the willing heart.
Blessed over all nations, His love will never depart.
Now He's reigning victorious, forever He is Lord.
Christ has delivered us,
We must fall down before Him,
Lay our hearts and souls before Him,
Lord of all."

One of the oddest things, and I realized this at the time, was that as I sang the words, "We must fall down before Him," something inside of me literally wanted to fall down before Jesus, wanted to literally lay my heart and soul, my self before Him. I had never in my life wanted to fall down before anything. Not on purpose, anyway. I kept feeling an overwhelming urge to fall in worship before this Jesus, the Jesus of the gospels, of Nazareth, of Jerusalem, the burly carpenter Jesus who built things with His hands, took care of His momma, called his followers friends, who touched and loved people that no one else would even look at. In no way did I think to connect this Jesus with the Jesus of the church. Church was different, in my mind. It seemed to involve a set of rules that helped one be good and respectable, rules that I was pretty sure I'd never be able to follow.

But this Jesus...it seemed like the following thing had been accomplished by Him somehow, that He would have wanted me and all I would have had to do is want Him back. And I did want Him. I just wasn't sure where He was. Was He dead and buried? In which case, I had missed Him just like I missed Marilyn Monroe and Elvis?

In April, a few months after I had received the cassette that had turned me in an emotional question mark, my mother-in-law, Betty, invited Mark and I to go to church with her for an Easter service. We were going to her house for Easter lunch, and I felt that going to to church was a good, pleasing the mother-in-law thing to do. The church had recently hired a new pastor, and Betty seemed excited to have us come to the church, to meet him.

At first, the service seemed like any church service I had ever been in. In fact, it felt like that all the way through. The pastor, Rev. Jim Ennis, was young and dynamic and interesting to listen to, and he had a gentle, sweet spirit. I wasn't familiar with the songs like I would have been had they been Christmas carols, and I have to admit that I don't remember much of the sermon. I actually felt very closed and careful, emotionally. I do remember, though, hearing the story of Jesus' death and resurrection. Looking back on it, all of my questions about where Jesus was now, and whether or not I would ever actually know Him were being answered in this service. Pastor Jim was saying that Jesus had risen from the dead, that He was alive even now, that He loved me and wanted to have a relationship with me. And Pastor Jim invited anyone who wanted Jesus in their life in a very real way to simply tell Jesus that, through prayer. And then, thankfully because I wasn't sure how, the pastor talked to Jesus with us.

For the first time since I had received the cassette tape, and probably in my life, I talked to Jesus. It was a very practical decision for me. I didn't feel anything, really. There was no "weeping and throwing myself in the spiritual arms of the Lord I had been longing for" moment. I just said, "Okay." And that was it.

I do remember very distinctly getting into the car to drive to Mark's parents, who just lived minutes away, and saying to Mark, "If they think I am going to follow their rules, they've got another thing coming." I think now, that was bravado talk for, "I am never going to be able to be good enough for God, so if that's what He requires, I am so screwed."

So I had met Jesus. It made sense to me, that He was real and alive. I had been feeling Him for months. And I was glad to know that it wasn't the idea of Him that had been moving me so much, but the actual Jesus.

But what did it mean, to follow Him?

More later...