nathaniel ogden kidd (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} bland_hyssop) wrote,@ 2006-09-10 05:01:00 |
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bowl
Praise to the Lord through Jesus Christ! For God is here, and He is good.
How can I put in to words all the things that have happened over this weekend? Surely they would not begin to ascribe to God the glory He deserves for the wonderful things He has done. Nevertheless, here I sit in the early morning with my heart pounding and words circulating through my veins, and that one, nagging command, “Write it.”
Yesterday began with the most powerful contemplative experience I have had in my life. The context was an InterVarsity leadership retreat. We were worshipping in response to the beauty and power of God’s Word in John 13, when Jesus strips down and washes his disciples’ feet, and then commands us to go and do the same for one another.
Whatever its virtues and difficulties from an objective standpoint, contemporary worship is not now, never has been, and probably never will be a form which speaks easily to my soul, in which I personally can connect with God. It’s also probably not something that I am going to be able to get away from in the course of my life. So I live in this tension: do I connect with the culture by participating in the form of worship, or do I connect with God by stepping back from the form? I found myself, in this instance, praying alone and quietly in the back of the room, ruminating on the scripture we had just studied and discussed.
Suddenly, my hands went numb. Not so much numb, really, more that I ceased to be aware of them, and was somehow aware of the fact that I was not aware of them. I found myself in a deep and beautiful darkness. My senses weren’t giving me any information. It was like being asleep, but somehow, being awake while being asleep.
Though my senses were blank, I was aware of things intuitively. A table, carefully and comfortably set. A naked man in his final hours. The trickling of water, a swipe of the towel. A series of excited whispers. I was there, somehow; I was inside the Scripture. And I was the bowl. I was the bowl which Jesus carefully took down from the shelf, which He filled with water, and with which He began to wash His disciples’ feet. The power of the image swept over me, and gave me great peace, and great joy.
Later that night, after coming down from the mountain, I allowed myself to be led by the Spirit. I allowed myself to be tenderly lowered from the shelf by Jesus, to be filled with His Spirit, to let him carry me about for the purposes He saw fit. I was that bowl again, in a very different way.
The Gospel is, fundamentally, Good News. But how often is it really good news? I find that in my own mind what Jesus gave as good news I have reduced to good theology and good behavior. Evangelism, then, becomes my feeble attempts to get others to have better theology and to be better behaved, in order that they might attain to the weak, ethereal promise that the people who believe the right things and behave pretty well in this world will have it better in the next.
But this is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus proclaimed that God is near, and that God is love. Jesus proclaimed release to captives, recovery of sight to the blind, healing for the sick, the binding of broken hearts, not just some metaphysical, salvatory event for a small community of religious people. “Lift up your eyes, and see,” Jesus says, “God is just behind the curtain of this reality. Look, you can see it quiver with His every breath!”
The Good News is that God has not abandoned us. God does not sit on some far away celestial throne and judge us for our adherence to an esoteric set of moral principles. He came to us, and He is still with us. He loves us. He is still working that same mission, He invites us to be a part of it, and He calls us to abundant life in Him. In Him there is healing, in Him there is freedom, in Him there is joy, in Him there is peace that will last.
This is the Gospel that I shared with every soul I met last night. From my druggie, atheist roommate, to the flock in Slocum, to an old friend I met at a party; Christian and non-Christian, spirited and sober, busy and still. And truly shared, as two people would share a meal, for it is Good News to my soul as much as it is to any soul. Only as the Gospel moves through me do I understand that it is truly Good News, and its incredible power is transforming and redeeming the world through Jesus Christ.
This is not what I believe, it is simply what is. And as simply as the bowl responded to Jesus Christ that night nearly two thousand years ago, so I will respond to my Lord. Lord, if you will, take me, fill me, and use me to wash the feet of any that you choose.
Praise to the Lord through Jesus Christ! For God is here, and He is good.
How can I put in to words all the things that have happened over this weekend? Surely they would not begin to ascribe to God the glory He deserves for the wonderful things He has done. Nevertheless, here I sit in the early morning with my heart pounding and words circulating through my veins, and that one, nagging command, “Write it.”
Yesterday began with the most powerful contemplative experience I have had in my life. The context was an InterVarsity leadership retreat. We were worshipping in response to the beauty and power of God’s Word in John 13, when Jesus strips down and washes his disciples’ feet, and then commands us to go and do the same for one another.
Whatever its virtues and difficulties from an objective standpoint, contemporary worship is not now, never has been, and probably never will be a form which speaks easily to my soul, in which I personally can connect with God. It’s also probably not something that I am going to be able to get away from in the course of my life. So I live in this tension: do I connect with the culture by participating in the form of worship, or do I connect with God by stepping back from the form? I found myself, in this instance, praying alone and quietly in the back of the room, ruminating on the scripture we had just studied and discussed.
Suddenly, my hands went numb. Not so much numb, really, more that I ceased to be aware of them, and was somehow aware of the fact that I was not aware of them. I found myself in a deep and beautiful darkness. My senses weren’t giving me any information. It was like being asleep, but somehow, being awake while being asleep.
Though my senses were blank, I was aware of things intuitively. A table, carefully and comfortably set. A naked man in his final hours. The trickling of water, a swipe of the towel. A series of excited whispers. I was there, somehow; I was inside the Scripture. And I was the bowl. I was the bowl which Jesus carefully took down from the shelf, which He filled with water, and with which He began to wash His disciples’ feet. The power of the image swept over me, and gave me great peace, and great joy.
Later that night, after coming down from the mountain, I allowed myself to be led by the Spirit. I allowed myself to be tenderly lowered from the shelf by Jesus, to be filled with His Spirit, to let him carry me about for the purposes He saw fit. I was that bowl again, in a very different way.
The Gospel is, fundamentally, Good News. But how often is it really good news? I find that in my own mind what Jesus gave as good news I have reduced to good theology and good behavior. Evangelism, then, becomes my feeble attempts to get others to have better theology and to be better behaved, in order that they might attain to the weak, ethereal promise that the people who believe the right things and behave pretty well in this world will have it better in the next.
But this is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus proclaimed that God is near, and that God is love. Jesus proclaimed release to captives, recovery of sight to the blind, healing for the sick, the binding of broken hearts, not just some metaphysical, salvatory event for a small community of religious people. “Lift up your eyes, and see,” Jesus says, “God is just behind the curtain of this reality. Look, you can see it quiver with His every breath!”
The Good News is that God has not abandoned us. God does not sit on some far away celestial throne and judge us for our adherence to an esoteric set of moral principles. He came to us, and He is still with us. He loves us. He is still working that same mission, He invites us to be a part of it, and He calls us to abundant life in Him. In Him there is healing, in Him there is freedom, in Him there is joy, in Him there is peace that will last.
This is the Gospel that I shared with every soul I met last night. From my druggie, atheist roommate, to the flock in Slocum, to an old friend I met at a party; Christian and non-Christian, spirited and sober, busy and still. And truly shared, as two people would share a meal, for it is Good News to my soul as much as it is to any soul. Only as the Gospel moves through me do I understand that it is truly Good News, and its incredible power is transforming and redeeming the world through Jesus Christ.
This is not what I believe, it is simply what is. And as simply as the bowl responded to Jesus Christ that night nearly two thousand years ago, so I will respond to my Lord. Lord, if you will, take me, fill me, and use me to wash the feet of any that you choose.
