I read the title of today’s reading and immediately thought I would read about why my Master is not always crystal clear with me. Instead it was about when to relate what He has been clear with. It initially was a let down. I want to know why things are not clear right now. I want a road map to where we will live, when we will live there, and so on. It seems I am not ready.
In Mark 9:9, as Jesus, Peter, James and John are coming down from the mountain where Jesus has just been transfigured before their eyes, He tells them to not tell anyone what they’ve seen until He rises from the dead. I’m sure that they understood that to mean “never”. They really did not accept that Jesus would die soon. So, understanding what they saw was not easy for them. They didn’t have the fuller context of the purpose of Jesus’ life.
So Chambers says that we, in the same way, are not to relate the word we have from Jesus until His risen life is alive in us. He describes this having communion with His risen life, as knowing about the impartation of the risen life, and having His Spirit. This bothers me on two levels.
The first level on which this bothers me is the level of reflection on my ministry history. While in the throes of my addiction, could I have had communion with the Risen Life of Jesus? I wouldn’t characterize it that way. I know I can be hard on myself for what I was gripped by at that time, but I still, in my more lucid moments, would not characterize my time in ministry as being in communion with the Risen Life of Jesus. I would have said, and would say now, that I had His Spirit living within. I would say that I was able to interpret Scriptures. In fact, that is the period in which I came up with a theological core around which to do Biblical Theology, as well as “Knot Hole Theology”. So, I believe I had part of Chambers’ requirements for being able to relate to others what my Master had related to me.
The second level on which his definition bothers me is the level of reflection on where I am now. I confess that I have not been free from this addiction long enough for its power to fade from my life. In fact, each week I still feel the tendrils of its power during my day. And I admit that the frequency of this sensation is increasing lately. This does not bode well, and I have some idea of where it comes from. I know that stress, fear, and shame are my primary triggers. I know that currently I face an unknown path and that causes both fear and stress. So, understanding where these struggles come from is not difficult. If this evil within me is so near the surface, how could I say that I am now in communion with the Risen Life of Jesus? So, if I am not, why do this blog?
Here again, I believe that the Spirit of my Master does reveal truth from the Scripture to me, and I believe that His Spirit still does reside within. So, of the three definitions, I still have the latter two. Is two out of three sufficient? Or perhaps I am in communion with the Risen Life of Jesus because I experience and live by His grace daily. Perhaps in the daily struggles within the consequences with which I live I do commune with the Risen Life of Jesus. Can I say, as Paul did, that the life I now live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me? I think I can, but I am not so sure that I can claim I have been crucified with Christ and no longer live. That is where my trouble lies.
My Master is truly Master of the Universe and everything in it. He created it, He sustains it, He continues to create it (as my brother so superbly pointed out to me), and He entered it to save His human creatures. He died in a horrible fashion, but suffered an even more traumatic event than physical death. And He was raised from that death three days later. I believe that it is this resurrection which completes the death of my Master. I believe that it is this resurrected life He now lives that defines my relationship with Him. As I follow Him, it is through a death which ends in a resurrection. My understanding falters at the point of the details of that death and life, but I believe that is where I am headed. It may also be possible that is where I am currently (hence the faltering understanding). Perhaps I am in communion with the Risen Life of my Master, but this struggle I have with my past behavior which still invades my life today argues against. Is this the work of the shame, one of my powerful triggers? Or is this struggle simply the residue of the death throes of my past? I want to be crucified with Christ, my Master. I want to no longer live but I want Christ to live within me. I want to live this life in the body through faith in the Son of God, the One loving me and having given Himself up for me. I want to have communion with the Risen Life of my Master. And this body will go and do whatever my Master wills, as Audio Adrenaline once put it, “…like some kind of zombie.”
No comments:
Post a Comment