Small Boat, BIG Sea…

We all live on margins of chaos. Like Noah floating on waters cocooned in his boat, we too create microcosms of order and pray to our Maker for preservation. To dwell on the edge for a while pushing outwards, encountering difference violently rams chaos back into our imagination – shocking, even paralysing creative, playful action.   



When Peter stepped out of the boat it was two steps beyond the reason of a smart fisherman. It was an illogical step towards a dangerous Jesus who was filling that place with His glory & their boat with water. It was also a second step towards encountering Jesus on his terms. In that place a fisherman can walk on water. Yet we read that fear overtakes Peter. He ‘noticed the strong wind’ & was overwhelmed by a fisherman’s chaos. Suddenly Peter is the wily fish catcher being swallowed by an angry sea.
 


Jesus presence out on the lake expands & intensifies in the storm and though this movement is towards the Holy – towards otherness – he is never out of reach. The overwhelming compassion of Jesus is the redemptive action that restores equilibrium, brings back peace – calms the storm. 
 


The patience of God & the opportunity of another chance…
 
How often am I limited by what I believe without question ? When newness & difference draws near, intensifying feeling to anxiety & fear, so often I retreat back into the safety of the known. During those times I am conservative & less perceptive. I hang on tightly to structure & boundaries until I fight chaos back to the margins.
 


The story of a leaky boat and BIG waters says there is a tension in being a Jesus follower. Beyond Rock and Redeemer – the safe and familiar Jesus is forever restless, intense & dangerously Holy. Sometimes he compels us to experience his Grandeur through all 5 senses with the volume turned right up – like a splinter in the imagination.
 


Six times this rather annoying narrative appears in the gospels. Each time Jesus rises up and the followers of Jesus retreat back. How many times must such story be told ? Seventy times seven ? 
Until his disciples find courage to STAY & embrace missional action !

Storm’s Coming…

There are 6 stories about Jesus immersed in a storm that appear in the Gospels. Like all good stories about chaos, these stories get told from different perspectives.

In Mark’s telling of the story, Jesus sends his disciples out in the boat, and he goes off to a nearby mountain to pray. Soon, the disciples are out in the open water, it is dark and the wind starts whipping the waves up into a frenzy. We are given an image of the disciples straining & struggling to control the boat in the large swells. Off in the distance they notice a figure walking towards them on the water and they are terrified because the disciples think it is some kind of ghost. Jesus calls out to them, “Don’t be afraid. It’s me !” Then he gets into the boat and the storm ceases. And we are told that the disciples are utterly astonished.

The good news is when the storms come – not ‘if’ they come but ‘when’ they come – when chaos descends and overwhelms our lives – Jesus is not diminished or made irrelevant. Far from it, Jesus is at ease and amazingly present and powerful in those places.

In Mathew’s telling of the story, he focuses on Jesus’ disciple Peter – who is an experienced fisherman & a close friend of Jesus. In those moments after he sees Jesus walking on the water in the storm, Peter steps out of the boat and starts walking towards Jesus. What amazes me about this picture, is that while this is 2 steps beyond the reason of a smart fisherman, Peter has begun to encounter Jesus on his terms. Think about that for a moment, Peter is encountering Jesus on his terms when he steps outside of the boat. And what happens ? In this God space of holy chaos, a fisherman can walk on water.

For some reason Peter takes his eyes off Jesus – Rob Bell says he begins doubting himself. Peter notices where he is standing and he is gripped with fear. As Peter begins to be swallowed up by the angry water, Jesus reaches out his hand and grabs hold of Peter and together they return to the safety of the boat.

The good news is that when the storms of life come, Jesus is powerful and present and we are wonderfully held.

In GK Chesterton’s book ‘Orthodoxy’, he says, “… the more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it established a rule and order, the chief aim of that order was to give room for good things to run wild.”

Give me a Jesus who is rock solid but also give me an Elastic Jesus who expands and intensifies when all about me is a storm of chaos !

 

Deep Channel

The Cross of Jesus underlines, it says very plainly in the brokenness of the body of Jesus, that there is no place of god-forsakenness, that there is no place where God doesn’t suffer with us, no place where He isn’t profoundly present. 

God takes the selfish and sinful actions of men and women and their debilitating effects on others very seriously. The reason is whenever compassion & sensitivity to the Spirit of God are extinguished by human selfishness, wherever justice and mercy drown in the deep arrogance of people, the Kingdom of God is diminished. The death of Jesus on the cross reveals the overwhelming violence of men but it also speaks of the One Man, the Son of Man, the Messiah Jesus, enduring suffering and death. As a result he saves the cheerleader, he saves the world. 

The good news is that while the evil & selfish ways of too many people often overwhelm the Kingdom of God, they never extinguish it. At the point of god-forsakenness, God is most wonderfully present. All it takes is for one righteousness man who is willing to follow God where he leads and this action of the one unleashes the redeeming action for the many.

Think of Noah, think of Abraham, think of Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Deborah, Elijah, Nehemiah, Esther, Isaiah, Jeremiah and then think of Jesus. This is one deep channel of men and women in the Scriptures being sensitive, responsive and obedient to the Spirit of God. Each time God uses them, they unleash the flood gates of his Kingdom into the world. And the result is always… exponentially… so much more. 

Psalm 22: a subtext to “My God, my God why have you forsaken me ?”

When fear threatens to push us over the verge, when we are overwhelmed by weakness – sometimes we engage in self-talk. Self-talk may seem like the first sign of madness but actually it is profoundly life affirming – a response of hope. This is what we see as the pattern in Psalm 22.  Imagine Jesus on the cross crying out in pain, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me ?”

And then a voice comes back to him reassuring, “Yet you oh God, are holy… in you our ancestors trusted; they trusted and you delivered them. To you they cried and they were saved.”

Picture Jesus being mocked and spat upon, his clothes being squabbled over as though he is already dead.  And out of the darkness a voice gently whispers, “Commit your cause to the Lord… let him rescue the one in whom he delights…”

Now imagine Jesus overwhelmed with fatigue, hardly able to breath. His tongue is sticking to the inside of his mouth, like a dried up piece of pottery.

And these words come back forthrightly, defiantly like a soothing balm, “But you oh Lord, come quickly to my aide. Deliver my soul… save my life from the power of the dog. Save me from the mouth of the lion”.

Now remember Jesus was a good Jew. From the age of fifteen onwards he would have been able to recite all the words of the Torah by heart. Imagine a chorus of voices proclaiming the mighty anthem, “All the ends of the earth shall remember and return to the Lord: and all the families of the nations shall worship before him. For dominion belongs to the Lord and he rules over the nations.”

The words of Psalm 22 take us into the interior world of Jesus. Most importantly, they fill his cry of dereliction and abandonment, with the intimate presence of the Father.

Good Friday ?

I have never understood the idea of celebrating the death of Jesus at Easter.

Jesus’ death speaks of the violence of men, of life beaten out of his body. It speaks of a body breaking – screaming out to its last breath about the injustice in a world that breaks too many people.

The image of the two Marys weeping over the soldiers savagely beating Jesus is surely the image of women generally – crying out against men and their violence, against the death of their compassion and sensitivity.

That men would seek to undo the purposes of God, that they so readily destroy righteousness and justice and that they drown mercy in their deep arrogance flowing in a never ending stream. This is just more of the same in the history of men.

Oh the anger, the rage of Power when it is defied and disturbed, when it is made to feel irrelevant. The violence of authority, when it is shown to be hollow and without substance, lacking in pity.

The birth of something new of means allowing something held too tightly, to be truly extinguished, to die in dust and ashes and then to rise up reborn like the phoenix.

Jesus, on the night he was betrayed took some bread, broke it & gave thanks saying, “This is my body, broken for you… take, and eat in remembrance of me.” After they had eaten together Jesus picked up a cup and said, “This cup is my blood which is poured out for you for the forgiveness of sins…”.

This Easter, may you hunger again for this bread, may you deeply thirst for this cup. May these habits of confession, of participation, of redemption – be the way you honour Jesus’ death until he comes !

Judas Kiss…

“…And falling headlong, he burst open in the middle…” (Acts 1:18)

Ernest Hemingway says, “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.” What an amazing statement. What an ennobling and heroic observation of the persistence of the human spirit. And yet I have a question  for Mr Hemingway ? He speaks of the many but what about the others ? What about the others who die despairing and broken ? Broken at the broken places… What about all those who fall headlong – bursting open in the middle so that all their bowels come gushing out ?

Judas the disciple of Jesus was one of those. Why is the silence surrounding him so deafening ?  It make me wonder…

Judas must have had great potential. He was chosen from among many, to be an apostle no less. He must have been trusted and methodical because he was the keeper of the common purse. Judas must have been a consistent man, steadfast and unbending.  Why ? Because Jesus fully knew his dark & terrible purpose.

Judas the apostle. Judas the visionary, Judas the impatient man of action. Judas – the man who kissed life passionately with his mouth wide open.  Judas who kissed my Lord and betrayed into the hands of his enemies.

I want to ask… Why Judas ? Why ?

What was it that drove you to despair & quiet desperation ? What blocked all your sense of a bright future and left you curled up in the corner in fear ? Judas, what caused you to fall headlong – bursting open in the middle so that all your bowels came gushing out ?

I had a friend called Matt. He was a quiet and thoughtful man of great potential. He was a deep thinker, strong and unbending when he set his mind to it. On March 10, 1998, Matt died in his car – he took his own life in quiet desperation, silently despairing  - bursting open in the middle and all alone ! He was only twenty years old.

And I am still left wondering… Why Matthew, why ? I still miss him !

‘I am Thirsty’ II…

‘I am thirsty’… the placement of these words in John’s gospel , the fact that they are stated as having been said ‘in order to fulfil the Scriptures’ emphasizes that the writer of the gospel isn’t dispassionate – these words are laden with weight and significance. Jesus here is seen profoundly through the eyes of faith.

‘I am thirsty’ points to a life rhythm… I am thirsty for the kingdom of God, I am thirsty for the fulfilment of the Scriptures, I am thirsty for the day when righteousness will be written on the hearts of people and they will do justice and love kindness and walk humbly with their God…

When Jesus says ‘I am thirsty’ his words also connect with other parts of John’s Gospel. In John 4, Jesus says the Samaritan woman by the well, “…those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life”.  Likewise in John 7 Jesus declares in the Temple precinct, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and let the one who believes in me drink… and out of the believer’s heart shall flow river’s of living water.” For me the inference is that Jesus is thirsty for what lies beyond the Cross and the result of Jesus’ suffering will be exponentially so… much… more ! Every action has and equal and opposite reaction doesn’t apply here. There is a sense in which the bounded, indeed the almost extinguished is exploding and bursting the banks of the boundless.

I am Really Thirsty…

When I say ‘I am thirsty’, what I am really saying is I am longing for something… I really need something!

When we thirst, we are talking about a particular kind of attentiveness – about the space that exists between a need and its fulfillment. Slaking our thirst, quenching our thirst, is connecting our desire with the thing that satisfies it. Desire lends focus, it builds acute sensitivity to the absence of that which is desired.

The difference between me saying, ‘I am really hungry’ and ‘I am really thirsty’, is that I can push past my hunger for quite some time. However when it comes to being thirsty, my very survival is dependent upon me dealing promptly with that thirst…  

‘I am Thirsty’ I…

‘I am thirsty !’

John’s gospel records that Jesus spoke these words in the final minutes before his death.

‘I am thirsty !’ are the only words Jesus speaks from the Cross that are a direct response to his physical suffering. These words speak of a particular man in the final throes of a brutally torturous nightmare whose singular focus is a humiliating and painful death. In the ancient world the goal of Roman crucifixion was not just to kill but also to mutilate & dishonour the body of the condemned.

‘I am thirsty’ speaks of a man drifting on the edge of consciousness. Jesus is overwhelmed with spasms of excruciating pain caused by 5 inch iron spikes driven into his wrists. These two wounds are now bearing most of his weight, as he slumps heavily on the Cross. Hanging as he is, even breathing has become a painful trade off. You see Jesus can get oxygen into his lungs but it has become just about impossible for him to breath back out again. Jesus is literally drowning in carbon dioxide. And any time Jesus tries pushing himself up to make the breathing easier, searing, cramping pain reminds him of the iron spike that is also wedged into the middle of his 2 feet. With each breath, the scourge wounds on his back, rub abrasively, painfully – on the rough wood of the cross, releasing fresh flows of blood.

When Jesus says ‘I am thirsty’, what he is really saying is I am dying. His body is shutting down from a combination of acute dehydration & the shock caused by the blood loss associated with his brutal scourging.

‘I am thirsty’ says behold the Son of Man who takes upon himself the sin of world and has his body broken open in the process.