Monday Musings – “Letting Go & Taking Hold”
INTRODUCTION
Throughout the season of Lent St. Paul is pondering the “Seven Last Words” Jesus spoke from the cross. Each week one of the sayings serves as text for both Deacon Emily’s message for children and Pastor Rob’s sermon. On Thursday evenings we continue our Lenten meditation with a simple meal offered in the social hall followed by a prayer service in the sanctuary. Then during Holy Week St. Paul will open the sanctuary for your personal prayer and meditation. A guide will be available to help you ponder the “Seven Last Words.”
“Monday Musing” (at least I begin on Monday and sometimes do not finish until later in the week) is another offering to help intersect the words spoken by Jesus with your life. This blog post began with the declaration Jesus made at the start of his public ministry,
The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news. (Mark 1:15, NRSV).
Another translation/paraphrase expresses what Jesus said this way,
The time has come. The holy nation of God is near. Be sorry for your sins, turn from them, and believe the Good News” (NLV)
The final Lenten/Easter blog post will recall the post-resurrection appearances and Jesus telling his apprentices,
Thus, it has been written that the Anointed will suffer and rise again from the dead on the third day, and in his name transformation of the heart and forgiveness of sins will be proclaimed to the nations… (Luke 24:46-47, Hart).
Jesus’ opening declaration and his concluding commission serve as the context from which my musings on the Seven Last Words arise. They continue to address us and invite us into God’s good work of spiritual reformation.
REVIEW – Week One
Monday Musings begins at the foot of the cross. We see a macabre circus that a Roman public execution occasioned. Contrasting the absurdity and horror of the spectacle are the words Jesus spoke from the cross. After the soldiers raise and secure the cross, Jesus looks down upon executioners, mockers, followers, and the strangely curious. His love goes out to them even as his body writhes in pain. It is hard to fathom those first words Jesus speaks.
Father, forgive them… (Luke 23:34, NRSV).
Pondering the stark contrast between Jesus’ petition and his accuser’s animus two truths arose to me. The first truth alters the depiction of repentance as desperate appeal before a wrathful God. Instead, I find the New Testament welcoming our repentance as an act born from sorrow that opens our lives to the divine love that already surrounds us. What motivates is not fear of punishment but the desire for divine love to fill and flow through our lives.
The second truth arises from the realization that God offers us more than absolution: repentance is the opening act of God’s good work to “renovate the human heart.” I pointed out that unless our RSVP is yes to God’s invitation to experience spiritual reformation, those inbred desires that originally prompt harmful thoughts, words, and behaviors will continue to have influence. Therefore, we take on a Lenten discipline to assist refocusing our attention to cross and resurrection and resetting life direction to following Jesus. After all, the one who is “the way, the truth, and the life” came and comes to humanity to both bring us into divine embrace and inspire us to live according to the divine plan.
REVIEW – Week Two
The second word from the cross that Jesus utters arises from the bodily need he feels. Jesus says,
I am thirsty (John 19:38, NRSV).
Early in the 4th century Church teachers/leaders assembled at conferences for the purpose of crafting doctrines delineating the Triune nature of God and the manifestation of the second Person of the Trinity, the Word or Son of God, as being both fully God and fully human. Both concepts are difficult to imagine. However, both find their anchoring in what the Biblical record reveals.
Over the centuries teachers and preachers wavered between overemphasizing the divine or the human nature of Jesus the incarnate Son of God. In our day secular writers and those self-identifying as “Nones”, that is persons not affiliated with any religious tradition, depict Jesus as a wise and loving teacher from whose words and witness we have an example to follow. However, they do not regard him divine. To counter this portrayal, Christian believers have a tendency to overly stress the divine nature of Jesus. Doing so misses the truth that in Jesus we find what it means to live truly human according to the divine plan in creation.
Yes, on the cross Jesus experiences the anguish and physical pain as any human would. He actually thirsts. And because we know this, we also know Jesus experienced other realities of human existence. The person who wrote the book of Hebrews expresses this well:
It is true that we share the same Father with Jesus. And it is true that we share the same kind of flesh and blood because Jesus became a man like us. He died as we must die (Hebrews 2:14, NLV).
Christ was tempted in every way we are tempted, but He did not sin (Hebrews 4:15, NLV).
The third truth I offer you is this: in being fully human, yielding to the cross, and being raised from death by God the Father, Jesus gives witness and makes possible our becoming fully human according to God’s creation intent. Simply put, through our baptismal identity and empowerment by the Holy Spirit we can desire and endeavor to follow Jesus. We can live into what he calls the Great Commandment:
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind … You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-38).
Examples of this way of living would include:
- As Jesus forgives, so can we forgive, even those we might call our enemy or tormentor.
- As Jesus showed compassion, so can we be caregivers and companions.
- As Jesus received and welcomed persons others sent away, so we can be present and attentive when our path and that of the outcast cross and God directs us to befriend.
- As Jesus offered a healing word, so can we pray for the sick, dying, grief stricken, or lost, knowing only God determines the cure.
However, throughout our life what we experience through our bodies in family and other social settings influence the formation of our will (heart, spirit). Away from God the desires that emanate from a will formed by the parade of human experiences is what the apostle Paul calls the mindset of the flesh (Romans 8:6). Living this way allows bodily desires to command both decision making and relationship building.
When, on the other hand, we pray with the psalmist,
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.
Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit (51:10-12)
Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting (139:23-24).
we turn toward the love of God that already envelopes us and make known our desire for the Holy Spirit to reform or renovate our hearts.
Mary and John
Last week I cited three desires Jesus expresses for humanity. I would even call them “thirsts” he has for us:
metanoia Repentance Intentionally turning towards God’s love and confessing sin
metamorphoo Transformation Intentionally opening our lives to Spirit-induced change
euangelion Gospeling Intentionally revealing God’s love through words and deeds
The remainder of this week’s blog is a consideration of our response to and participation in Spirit-induced transformation, that is “renovation of the heart.” The gospel writer John reveals words Jesus spoke to Mary (Jesus’ mother) and to him from the cross.
Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home (John 19:25-27).
I also want to bring your attention to what John tells us prior to this private exchange:
When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four parts, one for each soldier. They also took his tunic; now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from the top. 24 So they said to one another, “Let us not tear it but cast lots for it to see who will get it” (19:23-24).
Jesus undergoes complete humiliation. The executioner carries out the command to kill him, soldiers disdainfully rip away his clothes, and Jesus surrenders care for his mother. Yet after experiencing such humiliation and succumbing to inevitable death, God’s love claims the victory. Humiliation and death do not decree the final verdict. Rather God by overcoming the humiliation, raising Jesus from death, and making possible new life, reveals what is ultimate. Our sin is nailed to the cross.
You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross God stripped the spiritual rulers and powers of their authority. With the cross, he won the victory and showed the world that they were powerless (Colossians 2:13-15)
No matter how “fallen” our human condition and everyday desires become, they cannot go beyond God’s power to redeem, restore, and renovate. The apostle Paul sums up this truth with these words:
Yes, I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor ruling spirits, nothing now, nothing in the future, no powers, nothing above us, nothing below us, nor anything else in the whole world will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38-39, NCV).
What does this mean for us? We let go of anything that is not in accord with God’s will for our lives because what becomes our greatest desire is to inhabit God’s love for us and God’s love working through us. The more “junk” we release from our lives, the more room we make available for heart renovation. Again, as we read in scripture the “old things” pass away so the “new creation” can take hold (2 Corinthians 5:17).
Let me be clear on this most important point. In God’s economy we have already received the new life, that is salvation, at our baptism. We call this justification. However, our living into this reality, or sanctification, necessitates our letting go of those desires, attitudes, behaviors, etc. that both go against God’s will and bring hurt to neighbor and ourselves.
Jesus surrendered dignity, family/community love, and finally his life so that you and I may receive all three. And to take hold of each we let go of those desires that at one time we thought were significant but now see as superfluous or, worse, harmful.
Peter tried to save his life when he denied knowing Jesus. When being led away Jesus glanced toward him. Peter, who was nicknamed “The Rock” wept bitterly. Later the risen Jesus encounters him, forgives him, and commissions him to “feed my sheep” (John 21:17). Later when giving instruction to next generation Jesus followers, Peter intones:
Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you (1 Peter 5:6-7).
In Matthew 19 (Mark 10; Luke 18) the gospel writer writes about the day a pious and rich young adult comes to Jesus and inquiries about salvation. He wants to live in a God pleasing way. After affirming how he already endeavors to live by the commandments, the man crashes against the next instruction. Jesus tells him to sell his many possessions and provide for the poor. At that moment his desire for things wealth can buy prevails over the life Jesus provides. Heart renovation awaits another day.
Humbling ourselves before the Lord may include admitting I am not ready to let go – the anger held against another person, the lingering regret over a personal failing, the pornography addiction, the irrepressible yearning to gossip, the over attachment to a screen while allowing relationships to go wanting. Each of us certainly can add other “desires of the flesh” to the list. Now, what if I’m not ready to let go? We instead pray, “Push me towards wanting to let go.” And for some things I might even have to pray, “Make me amenable to want the Holy Spirit to push me towards wanting to let go.”
Since moving into our Mt. Gretna home nearly nine years ago, Cheri and I have embarked on several home renovation projects. With each makeover stuff got torn out of the house in order to install what is better and more desirable. The stuff “let go” also included things we’ve kept, packed, and unpacked over many years.
Likewise with our lives, God the Holy Spirit is ready, willing, and able to do the God-intended renovation of our hearts. This is an ongoing, life-long makeover. Heart renovation like home renovation first requires the removal of things (desires) that are neither needed nor life giving. Paul writes to the Corinthians:
… wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. So, all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image (2 Corinthians 3:17-18, NLT).
Finally, I offer you this encouragement to think and pray about as you apply your Lenten discipline to humble yourself before God in expectation of the Spirit’s good work of heart renovation:
In Italian, Lent is quaresima of forty (days). In German, it is Fastenzeit, literally ‘fasting time’, or time for bodily restraint. Our English word come from an older Anglo Saxon word for spring – len(c)ten – whence our Lent… Thus, Italian tells us how long it will last… German tells us what we are supposed to do in that season. But English tells us what is supposed to happen, that is, we hope to experience a springtime of faith, a time of growth and new life.
– Kieran J. O’Mahony OSA, “Hearers of the Word: Praying and Exploring the Readings for Lent and Holy Week.”