Hiatus and Healing

Greetings after a few days of hiatus. This weekend, into Monday, marked the one-year anniversary of a momentous tragedy at our church, so it was fitting to just let the pen, or the keys rather, rest.

Earlier in the blog I mentioned having a good companions along the way. Well, one huge example of companionship for me has been the representatives of Presbyterian Disaster Assistance who are trauma specialists who have been walking with our staff and our congregation for this whole year. They have really modeled "Christ with us" in ways that have been full of comfort, healing, and peace. They have helped us all live into the motto that is the banner of their organization: "Out of Chaos, Hope." I am, we are, so thankful their presence.

Proximity is an ongoing theme in Lent: getting close to things that, in ordinary time, we wouldn't necessarily be getting close to. Borrowing from a phrase that some of us were working through this weekend, if we picture our lives and our selves in terms of houses with rooms, in Lent, the question becomes "What rooms haven't we gone into lately?" Getting in there, "cleaning house," opening the doors to those dark closets; it gets us in touch with what we are, what we are not, and how amazing it is that Christ walks with us into every space of our lives.

There is simply something about Christ's life that is constantly drawing us into closer proximity with God. What is more, that movement of God closer to us actually loops us back into our own lives and, even further, our world. And as a result, we get to know ourselves and our world in deeper, sometimes uncomfortable, and nearly always more truthful ways. In Lent, it feels like Christ presses in even closer than usual. In this state of proximity, one of Kierkegaard's questions comes to us: Well, are you 'just' an admirer of Jesus? Or are you a follower? Kierkegaard says, "A follower is or strives to be what he admires. An admirer, however, keeps himself personally detached. He fails to see that what is admired involves a claim upon him." The proximity of Lent, I think, literally 'presses' the question. "Christ's life indeed makes it manifest, terrifyingly manifest, what dreadful untruth it is to admire the truth instead of following it," says Kierkegaard.

No wonder the heightened awareness of proximity in Lent goes hand-in-hand with a longing both for forgiveness of sins and complete renewal. The "Light of Christ" literally shines into those rooms of our lives and we start to see some things as they are. No matter what we can do or try, re-newing that room can't happen on our own.

Bonhoeffer, in our reading for Day 11, puts it in terms of righteousness:

"Disciples live with not only renouncing their own rights, but even renouncing their own righteousness. They get no credit themselves for what they do and sacrifice.

The only righteousness they can have is in hungering and thirsting for it. They will have neither their own righteousness nor God's righteousness on earth. At all times they look forward to God's future righteousness, but they cannot bring it about by themselves. Those who follow Jesus will be hungry and thirsty along the way. They are filled with longing for forgiveness of all sins and for complete renewal; they long for the renewal of the earth and for God's perfect justice."

Question to ponder:

In what ways do you experience the proximity of Christ in Lent? In what ways does what you hunger and thirst for change as a result of that proximity? What do you do to alleviate that hunger and thirst?

Psalm to consider:

For the word of the Lord is upright,

and all his work is done in faithfulness.

He loves righteousness and justice;

the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord.

-Psalm 33:4-5

Prayer for today:

Lord, may your righteous kingdom come into all the rooms of my life, and into all the world.

Amen