Are You Spent?

I'm coming off a long hiatus here, but I finally feel I've got something to share, however brief it may be.

As a child I really feel I was sheltered, or maybe just unaware, of the problems people were facing. Now at almost 30 years old I'm faced with them everyday. I'm faced with my own issues, and I'm made very aware of the falleness of the world around me as I take phone calls and listen to people and where they're at. I could say that 'it's ministry', but I think I'd rather say 'it's everywhere.' You can't escape the fallen nature of the world...the hurts, the evils, all of it. But there's got to be a better way, doesn't there?

Enter a brief hymn of Paul in the beginning of 2 Corinthians that brought much encouragement to me this morning. Here it is:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion
and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can
comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from the
God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through
Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and
salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient
endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because
we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.

Ever realize how life seems to have those two poles: suffering and comfort? The tension of joy and sorrow? The tension where everything is held together and everything is falling apart? The beauty of Paul's words is that we are held together in Christ...pulled toward suffering and despair by the events of everyday life, but yet pulled toward hope by the salvation of Jesus Christ.

So many times I just want to give in. It's so easy to give in and just go down the spiral of suffering into disillusionment and despair. However, in my experience thus far, God is here to strengthen us and give us hope in what seems like hopeless situations. This is the promise of God in this present life, is it not? That somehow though we'll have trouble in this world we've overcome it through Christ. It has not overcome us.

God's Not So Scary

There's a little story in the book of Matthew where a few disciples have a chance to be with God the Father and Jesus the Son at the same time. They're standing on a mountain when this happens and the commentary reads like this:

"After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John, and led them up a high
mountain by themselves. There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the
sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. Just then there appeared before them
Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus...While Peter was still speaking a bright cloud
enveloped them, and a voice from the cloud said, 'This is my Son, whom I love; with him
I am well pleased. Listen to him! When the disciples heard this, they fell face down to
the ground, terrified. But Jesus came and touched them. 'Get up', he said. 'Do not be
afraid.' When they got up they saw no one except Jesus." Matthew 17:1-8

The reaction of the disciples to the voice and presence of God is reminiscent of the reaction of the Israelites in the Old Testament when they encountered the awesome presence of God. When I think back to God's revelation of Himself in the Old Testament it seems scary. There is an awesomeness to it. There is a sense of otherness. In God's effort to communicate with humanity he kind of freaks them out. I would suggest this doesn't have so much to do with God being frightening in the sense where the God of the Old Testament is the big finger in the sky pointing at us when we do wrong. Instead I would suggest God is desiring to reveal himself to us, but that revelation is too awesome for us to bear. The glory of God (which literally fills all the earth) is revealed at different times and places in scripture and people can't handle it. In God's attempt to be with Israel there is still a separation.

Enter Jesus.

The disciples standing on the mountaintop are freaked out. They fall to the ground...faces hitting the dirt...and then Jesus approaches them and tells them not to be afraid. Jesus is the divine connection with humanity that makes connection with God the Father possible and perhaps we could say more comfortable. When Jesus is saying 'When you see me, you see the Father' he's telling us that the God who reveals himself is such awesome ways has become one of us...to empathize with us...to learn and live our lives and what they're like. Jesus still possesses the awesome qualities of God, but he is a living, breathing person who translates that awesome character in a way we can understand and relate to. Jesus doesn't replace the awesome nature of the Father, but the Father sends Jesus to us as a further effort to be personable with humanity and to restore the intimacy lost at the Fall.

An off the cuff thought, but what does that say for the oft quoted verse on salvation that Jesus gives when He says 'no one can come to the Father but by me.' Could this be as much a reference to God the Father's continuing revelation of Himself? You can't know the true nature of the Father unless you first know me...because Jesus is God revealing His nature, character, heart, etc in a way we can understand and relate to.