What Happened to Me

I'm hoping this is a good way to tell this story. I think it will be helpful for me to "write it out."

Last week, around Wednesday, I received an email from the pastor of the church I previously attended. The title was "THAT WAS A GOOD EASTER," and it included a transcript of a story I shared with the church one Easter a few years back. It was the story that most of you have already heard about God rescuing me from death when I was 3 years old. That story has been vital to me for as long as I can remember. It's shaped how I understand God and my desire for intimacy with Him. I am convinced I would be a different person were it not for this story. It's my "road to Damascus," I suppose.

So I read through the email. And it occurred to me to share it with another friend of mine who is a pastor of a church. On Friday I was up at the office by myself. It was quiet. I forwarded the email to him, and he asked if he could read it to his congregation on Easter. I told him that the story didn't belong to me, and told him he could absolutely share it. This started a discussion that led to a bit of an epiphany for me. And I use the phrase, "a bit," because I'm always conscious of how strange it sounds when someone says, "I heard God's voice." But I did. Or at least I think I did.

I told my friend that, for my whole life, people have asked me what I believe God saved me for....what my purpose was....what great thing I was kept around for to accomplish. I've found myself wondering the same. Is it my family? Is it influence? Is it some contact I've never considered or don't even remember which God turned in to something beautiful? I've thought it might be any of these things.

And then God spoke. The voice I clearly heard inside...whatever that is...said, "This story was never about you, Brett. It was always about me." Wow. Immediately I felt ashamed that it had taken 30 years to be awakened to this. We say, "To God be the glory!!" all the time. It shouldn't take this long for me to get to this spot. It's not what I'm to do....it's what He's done. Living with the burden of this story...and in many ways it is burdensome...this is so freeing. There's no room for anything but intense, intense gratitude and praise.

On Easter Sunday, Brandon, in his brief talk after the Drama for your Mama(!), mentioned Lazarus. As a side comment he said something about the fact that Lazarus ultimately died. And it occurred to me that we don't think about that much...that Lazarus ultimately died. The story of him being saved from his death is so powerful it distracts us from the reality that this man ultimately ceased breathing. I can imagine that at Lazarus' funeral people spoke of this event that happened to him...this raising from the dead. That story was more powerful than his ultimate death. It is told even today. It speaks powerfully and clearly that Jesus is the Christ. That life wins. And it occurred to me that this story I'm a player in is just the same. It's been told. It will be told after I die. My sons will tell their children. My friends will tell others.

My mom and I spoke Sunday night. I shared this encounter with her, albeit reluctantly as she already thinks I'm a Jesus freak! She said, "That's amazing. I was in the doctor's office on Wednesday. I was talking to the nurse, and somehow we started talking about faith, and I told her your story. She started crying. She said she had already been told this story by the doctor who was present at the time of your experience, and was just excited to meet the mother who endured all this watching her son dragged to death only to be rescued."

Yeah, that story isn't about me. It's a lot bigger than that. TO HIM BE THE GLORY!!! in ways beyond what I've comprehended before.

Thanks for providing me space to share this...I've been working through all of it for the past week or so now. I hope there's some point of encouragement or resonance in there for someone.

Like owning one coat is sooo 30 A.D.

from a OYBG blog posting.

I've been finding the dangerous thing about being an avid reader, and reading books within the same genre, you experience overlap, points of thought emphasized and repeated. So along with my OYB, I've been reading a biographical devotional about Rich Mullins, the chapter I am starting (possibly avoiding to read past the first page) is on simplicity. The reason I mention this, is that a few days ago I stumbled across an interesting point John the Baptist makes, in answering a question on what one should do, he says;
If you have two coats, give one away,[Luke3.11, The MSG]

I read this and I think I have so much stuff, but does it really matter? To be honest with you, I don't like wrestling with these things, because well maybe I think it makes God out to be a killjoy robing us of coordinated wardrobes. As I look at what I have, what I spend my money on and I look at the size of the worlds problems I ask my self, does it really make a difference if I deny myself more than one coat?

Unfortunately the answer I am finding for myself is, well, yes.

It does matter.

It matters because in its essence it is what separates Christianity from social justice, its why the church is more than an outreach center or a spiritualized community center. The Rich Mullins book mentions that Soren Kierkegaard once wrote, "Purity of the heart is to will one thing." That purity of heart, that essence of why consumption and simplicity matter, is Jesus, it is to will Him as one thing.

The more I think about simplicity and having fewer wants, the more I realize that Christianity's appeal is a cop-out and not why I am wrestling with this. I realize that I am wrestling with this because it is reflecting on what 'one things' I desire. The things that are my will.

Becoming

Have you ever read the scriptures and some obscure phrase sticks in your craw like the esophageal cramp you get from eating pork skins too fast?
Today's OYB passage did for me... it read, "...and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor."
Became a traitor.
Became.
Not was... not "born that way"..., but "became a traitor."
That terrifies me.
How can a disciple numbered with the twelve, a follower of the Rabbi just like Peter or James or John, an apostle chosen by the Son of God to share daily life with this inner circle of twelve... How could he 'become' a traitor?
How can I 'become' a traitor? by contrast, I see through a glass dimly for now... Judas smelled Jesus' perspiration... if Judas could 'become a traitor', what about me?
Counter that with Saul of Tarsus, a hater of the brethren, a young lawyer probably affiliated with the ACLU with an agenda to rid the society of these Followers of the Way.
Saul, named from a man-appointed King, who got struck by the Paradox; Saul who became 'Paul', who became the greatest missionary the early church had known, writing more biblical works than even Moses.
Jesus, how do I become more like this Saul/Paul dude?
Jesus, how do I not become a traitor who betrays you with my words and lifestyle of distractability?
Lord, help us be awake in this tension.
Thy will be done. amen

Between

My Dad is scheduled for Surgery next Monday to remove a cancerous kidney.
Today is Friday...That's in 3 days.
That includes an entire weekend of anticipating an event over which I have no control, an event that will greatly impact someone I love to the limits of mortality.
He's been in town this last week, unexpectedly back for additional tests at the medical center, and this time also happens to be my Spring Break.
Everything feels tentative.
Like waiting, but I'm not sure for what.
A couple of millennia past, about this time on a Friday, a Good man was slowly executed for a crime he did not commit, brutally killed by Religion for the expediency of their political agenda.
I have never understood why we call it Good Friday.
But at this moment I can certainly appreciate the Between, that amorphous time of waiting for something... or awaiting... something to happen?
We call Sunday "Easter"; the disciples call it: "They just killed Jesus, and we're probably next if they come for us."
That's why they were hiding in the home on Saturday and Sunday.
There was no jubilant procession of baskets and pastel colors.
There was no sunrise service... there certainly was no building called "church".
There was just a cluster of frightened, bewildered, anxious followers hunkered down in this weird Between time, awaiting the clank of swords and armor.
And instead they got a histrionic sister babling something about the tomb and a gardener and Jesus' corpse being moved.
Happy Easter.