lessons in dirt, pruning, and leaving.

Two things occurred to me as I sat indian style on my bedroom floor, barefoot in dew-drenched capris: my hands reeked of soil and I am staying with possibly the sweetest human beings alive.

I’m serious! I am beyond blessed by the couple hosting me this summer, just outside of Nashville. Driving 30+ minutes is a small price to pay for 65+ acres and two 68 year-young individuals who already love me better than I deserve. I love being out here, with the river a stones throw away and my heart awakened to the constant presence of our savior.

Lately, I’ve been obsessed with dirt. And as my poetry teacher exclaimed, if that isn’t a poem right there, I don’t know what is.

It started during a Lectio Divina in the downstairs of Tadlock Hall on King’s campus. A Lectio Divina is latin for “divine reading.” Basically, it consists of someone reading a passage of scripture, aloud, repeatedly, slowly and with intent. The listeners then zone in on a particular symbol, word, or idea within the Word. This practice dates back to the early church tradition, and though it may not be stylish or flashy, it is an incredibly powerful and moving method of connecting with God.

Our Lectio Divina on this occasion came from Matthew 13: the parable of the sower. More on that in a minute.

Back to my hands and the earthy smell radiating off of them. I arrived home in the afternoon to discover my host parents in the labor intensive process of weeding. I quickly offered to help in this endeavor, mostly because I was itching to do something with my hands. So I jumped into my Chacos and out the door. Ms. Sherrie handed me the clippers and I was set upon the task of pruning the Japanese Maple. Due to my “artistic eye,” I was deemed suitable for the job.

Pruning is the process of removing limbs, twigs, buds, blooms, leaves, you name it, you can clip it, from a plant in order that it may become healthier and more productive. It’s a wildly interesting production. I quickly became entranced in the act: pull a limb, assess its health, clip, snip, pull, snap, throw, repeat. 

I started thinking about all the factors involved in that little sapling this tree had started out as becoming a full-fledged tree. There’s the root system, the water intake, the amount and quality of sunlight is important. This particular tree already had some things going against it: Ms. Sherrie informed me the poor tree had had several bouts with disease and insect infestations. 

I was frustrated at first: clipping, seemingly at random, my pile of leaves steadily growing, and not much measurable improvement able to be seen.

Then I stepped back and I felt a familiar fluttering in my chest. 

Beauty. 

The tree was losing leaves and branches left and right. But it was gaining in exchange.

Symmetry. Definition. Health. The promise of future growth.

Addition by subtraction.

This is the object of pruning: to make things better by taking things away.

Back to the Lectio Divina and my obsession with soil: The goal of the third read through of this parable that night was to picture Jesus as the gardener and the soil as our hearts. I pictured Jesus and his measured way of moving. His carpenter hands, calloused but gentle, sifting through the dirt. I imagined the cadence of His walk, the movement of his arms as He weeded, the look on His face as He planted.

I was moved in ways I cannot possibly express. My words are feeble and failing in comparison to what Jesus did in my heart at that moment. He was beginning to teach me how much goes into preparing my heart to be useful.

To be good.

To be like His heart.

Jesus was cultivating good soil for planting. But after planting comes,

you guessed it,

pruning.

As I was participating in the act of pruning, I began to let my thoughts wander (not too far or for too long because, sharp things, in my hand). I started thinking about what Jesus said about His father being the Good Gardner:

Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. -John 15:2

Matt Chandler says God wounds like a  surgeon, not a criminal. Meaning his injury is precise and intended for good, not evil. He’ll never take more than is needed, or cut out unnecessarily.

“You know what’ll just break your heart is when you have to cut out all this good, living stuff.” Ms. Sherrie pointed to what was honestly my favorite part of the tree. 

“This part?” I was taken aback. Surely she meant that part, back there, waaaay behind all this good stuff.

“You have to cut away some of the good stuff so it’ll remain healthy and grow even more.”

Ms.Sherrie did what she so often does without even knowing it, and named an unnamed worry in my anxious heart – What happens when I leave?  What happens when my time here is done, and my lessons are learned, and my three months in Nashvegas are all packed up in the Silver Bullet headed back home? I have friends here (really, really good ones). I have a “home” and an adopted fam. I have places that speak truth into my heart and banish lies. I have things that challenge me and comfort me in equal measure. The soil of my heart has been cultivated in this place.

It’s been good for me, here.

This feeling was feeling eerily familiar. Too close for comfort were the memories of less than 4 months prior, lying in my empty college apartment and weeping for what I was losing. Friends down the hall, professors like family, church communities varied and wild, conversations delving deep into soul searching questions or silent companionship dismissing fears. The soil of my heart had been prepared in that place. I was leaving all of it and oh no, things would never be the same.

And I’d been right about that.

But in moving on, in moving here, in preparing to move on once more (my life is beginning to feel like one big montage quick hellos and drawn out goodbyes), Jesus has begun proving to me something I’ve been learning for months and months, in small non-intrusive ways, now lit up like a neon sign of hope:

God sometimes takes away the good in our lives in order to give us the better.

Sometimes it’s like we’re fighting God tooth and nail, hanging on to what we think is best for us. “No, you don’t understand. I need that. It’s so good. Why would you take it away just as I was beginning to love it?” I think Jesus looks at us as a dad looks at their child, clinging onto something so fragile, frail, and fleetingly wonderful, as He seeks to give us a future, forever-lasting, and breathtakingly phenomenal.

I had the pleasure of sitting under Kim Clayton, of Columbia Theological Seminary, for two blissfully full weeks at Montreat, NC. In one of her sermons, she emphatically, sometimes reverently repeated the mantra of “With Jesus, there is always more and better.” This (as well as moments from all of her incredible sermons), has stuck with me. There is a deep truth that my spirit sought to recognize in that. I think there’s something in that for all of us.

There’s an opportunity to trust Christ with the seasons of our life. To hand over the pruning shears and say “have thine own way, Lord.” To trust that He is shaping us into something new, and more beautiful, and healthier. That He is seeking to make our roots go deep, to allow our souls to soak up His love, to allow our branches to climb high and bear much fruit for the Kingdom.

And yes, sometimes the “good” we’re exchanging seems perfect, while the “better” Christ is offering seems harder, scarier, and sometimes downright impossible. In those moments, we have to remind ourselves that we do not serve a God who promised us an easy, comfortable life, but a life that though it may very well be difficult, will be lived to the full. He did  promise He’d never leave us or forsake us.

I’ll probably always be a little emotional about soil quality and root systems. But it’s more than that now. Now every time Jesus begins to pull back a branch to cut, I think I’ll be a little more likely to praise despite my fears. I’ll thank God that I got the privilege of growing wherever He’s planted me.

And as I unclench my fists, and open them to the possibilities He lays in front of me, I’ll hope that I’m becoming more who He sees me to be, with every snip snip of our good gardener’s shears.

---

“Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but – I hope – into a better shape.”
― Charles Dickens

                                                        Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
                                                             naked I’ll return to the womb of the earth.
                                                         God gives, God takes.
                                                             God’s name be ever blessed.        -Job 1:21

“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett

                 “but sometimes we have to lose the shadow things
                                                            to gain the true things in their place. ”
– Me

But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold. -Matthew 13:23

Welcome to the Funeral…

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Welcome to the Funeral.

Glad you could make it, take time out of your busy schedule to be here.

Dearly, dearly beloved,

we have gathered here today, in this place, for the loss of two

The first, dear ones, some of you might not recognize.

he’s fairly battered and bruised

he’s lost some weight along with every ounce of his blood

underneath the scarlet stained robes lies his crippled beaten corpse of a body.

his lungs have stilled

his veins were emptied

his extravagantly enlarged heart erupted

burst forth from his ribs

snuffing out life from his body

and in the end

he met his end

at our hands

The other, well I should say you all know him.

and if you don’t now, innocent child, you will know him intimately sooner or later

he was a vicious brute

raping the natural order, killing senselessly, without bias or reason

He was huge, monstrous, cosmic in proportion

all things fled from him

humanity denied him

but ultimately one and all enter his one sided embrace

you, yes you

you’ve been lying to yourself since birth about your inevitable acquaintance with this being,

allowing the fatuous fantasy of immortality to run rampant in your soul.

allow me to name the nameless fear we all pretend isn’t hiding behind every corner and in the backs of our minds

yes.

All-Mighty Death

yet.

here he lies.

lifeless.

Our first honoree wasn’t like everyone else who’ve been introduced to our second

There was something Other about him

His voice rang with authority

His words struck true

the people who knew Him muttered amongst themselves,

“what manner of man is this?

that even the winds

and the waves

(and the grave)

obeys him?”

He spoke

and people listened

enthralled

inspired

yet others reviled

this man they couldn’t

tame

silence

or define

reign in

or nail down

so instead

they resigned themselves to

driving nails through him

sticking him up on a tree on a hill

making an example out of him for all to see

mocking him as he died

inviting Death to claim his prize

the son of God with a spear in His side.

and die he did.

but our story doesn’t end there

The man’s meeting of Death struck something deep within the essence of this creature

it could feel the utter wrongness, the deep injustice, the raw outrage of the situation

this particular man’s dying struck a discordant note within creation itself

it resounded,

clamoring for attention from every rock and crevice of the earth

all crying out in one chorus with the dissonant music of mourning

and even now, little ones I know, it is resonating in the inner workings of your heart of hearts

the long forgotten dark corners and parts of hopelessness and despair

something very real in you that rails against this Creature’s reign in this world

the chink in the armor of your self-adorned personal eternity,

that knows you will taste Death’s infamous sting one day

all too soon

yet you know, innately that this Man, never should have had to

Three days may not seem like a long time

but in three days eternity passed

and was rewritten

with a different ending

and three days rewrote the present realities

with a different hierarchy at play

He dealt Death a killing blow

He told grave your time of dominion is at a close

He told the Death, You’ve eaten your fill

He rose.

and he won.

it’s as if he made spring to reflect his own resurrection

as he resuscitates the earth with new life

and as we see the flowers spring forth from dead and cold ground

we are transported within the expanse of our minds eye to that eternal shore

where there will be all manner of new creations and new things

that our GodMan, created for us

with His Great Love with which He loved us

Death, may we ask your corpse,

what have you ever created

except more of yourself

what have you ever made out of anything but hate, sorrow, and disdain?

nothing.

Now I invite you,

those who have ears let them hear and respond

step up,

one and all

look inside

see for yourself

one of the two coffins before you lies empty

three guesses which and the first two don’t count

You don’t have to be afraid

come close

I invite you now

to lose your life to find it

climb inside His empty coffin,

find life inside this death

walk out of the tomb together with me

and hand in hand

let us put the final nails in the lid of

Death’s casket

Death.

Admit defeat.

Death.

You’ve died.

the funeral is over.

Depart in peace.

He’s alive.

and my friends,

so are we.

He’s wild, you know. Not like a tame lion…

When I do spoken word in front of an audience, (which frankly is the only place to do it. Otherwise it’s just talking to yourself) when I am not a ball of nerves staring at the back wall and avoiding eye contact, I’m scanning the audience for people who are awake.

Not that I put people to sleep, or at least I haven’t yet.

But whenever anybody’s talking for more than a solid minute, people get The Look.

You know The Look. You’ve probably had The Look plastered across your own facial features at one time or another.

It’s the glassy eyed, zoned out zombie face of someone who has zero interest or investment in what is being verbally chucked at them. They’ve checked out. They’re daydreaming about that girl they’re still pining after, thinking about their weekend, or relieving that embarrassing moment from last week when they ran into their archenemies while looking ultra-rough.

The Look, for someone in front of a crowd, is a death sentence.

It means we’ve bored you.

I’m not saying the look is not always justified. There’s a lot of subjects that are boring, or at least that I find to be boring:

Math.

Whether or not the grass needs cutting.

Most sports junk (sorry boys).

Even things I’m interested in get to be mighty boring in the space of a 90 minute lecture. Or due to the speaker, let’s put on our honest pants here. It’s just a fact. We have short attention spans and some people suck all the entertainment out of every subject they talk  about.

But here’s something I’ve been wrestling with for over a month.

The one subject people should never get the Look from is The Gospel of Jesus. 

There is absolutely NOTHING tedious about this story, because, guys, this is the Story.

Have you ever found something so beautiful, so full of truth and pain and sorrow and joy, so incredibly unbelievably sincere that you can’t help but cry? Okay, I’ll admit that I’m a poet so maybe it’s just in my poetic nature to seek out transcendental experiences but I have absolutely sat in my bed and wept about the Gospel.

Like face in hands, sobbing, ugly cried.

Because even when boiled down to it’s bare-boned basics, the Gospel of Jesus is astounding.

God, meaning all-powerful, all-knowing, all-capable Creator and Sustainer of life, was so filled to the bursting with His great love for us and His own Glory, that He sent His Son. This Son, who was God and with God at the beginning, wrapped Himself up in the very thing He willed into existence in the first place, and He lived.

He lived a life. A perfect life. To the letter. But He also loved. Deeply. Messy, raw, healing, eye-opening, uncomfortably real love. There were no nice, neat edges in this tale. No gleaming knight in shining armor on his high horse. None of that here. Only a man who drew in the outcasts. A man who told those who were told they didn’t cut it, that He was changing the rules for them. This God-Man who got His hands dirty (He was born in a glorified, urine soaked stable for crying out loud). Who entered humanity knee-deep in the mire we’d created for ourselves to offer His hand as the way out.

This man, God incarnate (don’t even get me started on all my incarnation feelings. I’ll save it for another Yuletide. Maybe by next year I’ll be able to articulate it better but until then go listen to THIS song.), then gave Himself over to the people He crafted from nothing, allowed nails akin to railroad spikes to be driven into His flesh, insults to be hurled at Him from voices He had painted onto vocal chords Himself, bled and then died. For us. For them. For all.

And then He arose. Told Death he wasn’t in charge anymore. And came back.

For us. For them. For all.

And He’s coming back. He’ll sit on the Throne and say “Behold, I am making all things new.” (Revelation 21:5) And then He’ll do just that.

And what, may I ask, is boring about any of that?

But somewhere along the way, brothers and sisters, we have dulled down and numbed the glorious excitement of the Gospel. It’s become boring even to us. It’s become something we tune out, give the Look to. It’s become something we’re embarrassed of.

Dorothy Sayers puts a dagger straight into the heart of the matter in her essay The Greatest Drama Ever Staged (which you should totally read):

“If this is dull, then what, in Heaven’s name, is worthy to be called exciting? The people who hanged Christ never, to do them justice, accused Him of being a bore—on the contrary; they thought Him too dynamic to be safe. It has been left for later generations to muffle up that shattering personality and surround Him with an atmosphere of tedium. We have very efficiently pared the claws of the Lion of Judah, certified Him “meek and mild,” and recommended Him as a fitting household pet for pale curates and pious old ladies.”

Dear daughters and sons of God, this ought not to be.

I cannot believe that once we encounter Christ, we come away unscathed. Unchanged. When Christ shows up, He shows up big, and with eternal impact and implications. So why don’t we live like it? Why do our lives not reflect the awe-inspiring lengths our Creator went to possess us? Why have we begun to act as if the Gospel is a same-old, same-old tale that can be spoken in a monotone and sung in the same key perpetually?

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the most thrilling story every told!!

It’s, as the Angels told those shell-shocked shepherd’s, Good news of Great joy, that is for all people! (found in Luke 2:8-10)

We should be shouting it from rooftops (not an actual suggestion), telling everyone we meet, reminding ourselves constantly of the immense, powerful, universe shattering thing our God did to reach us. We should be singing new and BETTER songs that both  praise and inform (as my Brother so eloquently put it, every song should give the opportunity to hear the Truth and respond in kind). We should be speaking with passion and authority, digging deep into God’s alive and breathing Word and coming up stronger for it. We should be creating art that sings of Him, doing our jobs in our chosen fields with fervor and diligence to honor Him, loving our friends and neighbors better.

And we should face unafraid of the unknown, scary, life-altering things He calls us to. ‘Cause He never promised it would be safe following Him. But as Mr.Beaver tells the Pevensie children in Narnia, “‘Course he’s isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

In short, Christians, we should give Jesus His claws back. He’s the Lion of Judah, and who are we to try and soften Him, tell Him to color inside our lines, or dumb Him down? Jesus is exciting. And terrifying. And wild. And untamable. And the furthest thing from boring that will ever be or has ever been. So let’s let Him liven things up! Allow Him to roar a mighty roar once more. He’s a force to be reckoned with, that Jesus and His outlandish Gospel of Love that broke the grave and Grace that makes angels and demons tremble to behold. He’s both the Lion of Judah and the Lamb of God. What a beautiful contradiction.

I for one want that to be the Gospel I carry.

Woe to me if I make it out to be a bore.

 

**************************************************************************************

“Judah is a lion’s cub;
from the prey, my son, you have gone up.
He stooped down; he crouched as a lion
    and as a lioness; who dares rouse him?” – Genesis 49:9

“To have experienced the Christ, to have encountered Jesus of Nazareth, to have run head-long into the person of God in the flesh, must have been like stepping into the path of a hurricane. No one would do it intentionally. Human beings do not seek out hurricanes. Hurricanes HAPPEN. Suddenly. Often without much warning. If we can avoid “being there,” we do. If we can’t, we don’t. To experience the Christ is to run headlong into the path of a hurricane.  ” -The Way of the Wolf

“Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death,
And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.” – C.S.Lewis

 

Resurrection Matters (or Why Death is Not the Boss of Me)

My church has been in Mark for a year.

Over a year actually, Easter to Easter plus a couple months in change. But all that’s about to change as we are finally winding down our longest sermon series yet.

One final week in Mark.

But obviously, before we could close the preverbal and literal book, we had to reach one or two last milestones in the story:

Namely, the Cross.

And the Empty Tomb.

First let’s talk about the importance of the Cross. Because, people, it’s vital.

In the Cross, we’re bought and paid for. The debt our sin ran up is covered. Jesus paid, with His criminal’s death upon that archaic, despicable, heart-wrenching torture device, the tab for us. He said, “I’ve got this,” in the most beautiful, poetic way possible. With His death, we were forgiven.

Maybe a better way of putting it is that we are purified from our sinfulness. God can look on us because we are covered by the blood of our Savior. The Lord has made it pretty clear that blood is what’s required:

“Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.” (ESV Hebrews 9:22)

So Jesus had to die. (we can get into the truth of our sinfulness another time.  James is pretty blunt about it: “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” -James 4:17 Pretty much covers all of us. But just ask any new parent if we are born sinful.)

The Cross is central in our beliefs because of the simple fact that it has to be. We needed it.

But here’s where I start to get a little miffed with our Christian niche cultural:

We’ve been worshipping the Cross for a long time.

Look. Get in your car and drive to the nearest Bible Family Christian Jesus Book Story. Walk in. Count the number of crosses you see in the first five seconds.

Bet you money it’s more than 20.

Still not getting me?

Look in your own life:

Do you have a cross necklace, ring, any other type of jewelry? Is it on your Bible somewhere? How many t-shirts do you have that bear the image of this torture device dating back to the 6th century BC? How many of us have it tattooed on our very skin?!

Do you know how incredibly difficult it is to find songs to sing on Easter Sunday? Coming from someone who has had her fair share of experience planning services, I can tell you in all honesty that I spent at least an hour sitting with my boss one afternoon, scouring our musical resources looking for even decent songs about the Jesus rising from the grave.

There are certainly a lot referencing the Cross.

Why is it hard to find songs about the fact that our God is Alive?

My pastor says this a lot, and I find it constantly proven in our culture:

There’s a lot we can do with a Dead Jesus.

We can sing to him. Praise him. Hear about him. Talk about him.

And best of all, he doesn’t require a whole lot out of me. So I can sing about Him dying for me and still be safe and content.

Look, before I get blasted with angry comments, know I am in NO WAY lessening in ANY WAY the importance, significance, beloved-ness, glory-filled, holiness, God-Given Saving nature of the Cross of Christ.

I’m just saying.

Where’s our love for the events of that Third Day?

The Resurrection. 

That holiest of days when Death was told “You have no jurisdiction here.”

The moment when the not even the grave itself could hold back our Lord.

The pinnacle of History in which a dead Jesus comes back to Life.

I just need to say that again:

What once was dead, Jesus made alive!!

And I meant that exactly the way I typed it. “What once was dead…”

Because what the Empty Tomb shows us is that Jesus is a savior who not only saves us, but who can breathe new life into our vestigial lungs. He can say to our un-beating hearts of stone, “Time to move again! Be flesh and blood once more!” Who can put life back into our limbs!

He’s a Jesus who can reanimate, rekindle, rejuvenate, revivify our dead lives.

He can resurrect us.

 ^“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,  made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.” (Ephesians 2:4-5, emphasis mine)

” I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” -Jesus.  (John 10:10) And have it NOW! And have it FOREVERMORE! 

The Resurrection saves me from living like I’m half-alive. The Resurrection brings my true life to me in the here and now, the Kingdom Come. It makes our belief go from being in a murdered man to a Risen Messiah!

My prayer is that we live like it.

My prayer is that the Resurrection becomes more than just an event that we celebrate with hiding eggs and eating candy once a year.

My prayer is that we become the people the Bible talks about, the people united in LIFE! The people of Christ.

My prayer is that Jesus would resurrect our hearts daily.

My prayer is that we would understand that when Jesus took the keys to Death and Hell, that we won. Death is defeated. The Grave is beaten. We will see those who sleep now, awake once more! We will look Death in the eye, and as one body sing, scream, holler, and shout out,

“OH DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING? OH HELL, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY?”

Death is not the boss of us. I asked about your jewelry earlier, so it’s only fair I tell you about mine. I’ve been wearing a lot of skulls lately. My madre hates it, thinks it’s emo. But I’ve taken it up as a constant reminder, silly as it may be, that Death is dead. It’s has no power over me anymore. Death can’t touch me and my life is now and forever found in the life of Christ.

Oh Lord Jesus, let this true be in our lives.

Amen and Amen.

********************************************************************************

“See, if Jesus dies on the cross but isn’t resurrected, how do we know all our sin is paid for? If Jesus dies on the cross but isn’t raised from the dead, how do we know sin has been defeated and that death is dead? How do we know? We don’t without the resurrection. The resurrection stands for us as believers as the apex of God’s love made manifest for us in the person and work of Jesus Christ.”

“Where are you at now, death? What you got now, death? Nothing…All that is sad will become untrue. We put our hope there.”

-The Initiating Love of God, Matt Chandler

“Now daughters and the sons of men
Would pay not their dues again
The debt of blood they owed was rent
When the day rolled a new

On Friday a thief
On Sunday a King
Laid down in grief
But awoke holding keys
To Hell on that day
The first born of the slain
The Man Jesus Christ
Laid death in his grave”  -John Mark McMillan, Death in His Grave

“and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.” (Revelation 1:18)

Blind Faith and Its Outcomes.

Faith is a word that’s thrown around a lot.

Like a LOT, a lot.

Faith in humanity being restored, or taken away. Faith in friendships. In good faith. Having Faith. Keeping the faith. Losing Faith. Faith Hill. Faith like a mustard seed. Faith is being sure of things hoped for, but not seen. Faith in religion. Faith in God. Faith, faith, faith, faith, faith.

Say it often enough and it doesn’t even sound like a word anymore.

I know for this writer, one that was basically born in a church pew, Bible in one hand, hymnal in the other, Faith is a word with a myriad of meanings and a labyrinth of subtext.

Oh, but Faith is so much more  than just a word.

It means my Papa and his enormous amount of confidence in Christ, with his faith that I’m pretty sure could move mountains and has most assuredly led my family through most everything a family can go through. Gives a whole new definition to the personage of a Patriarch.

It means the hymn “It is Well.” Even when it’s the farthest thing from “well.”

It means holding hands with my Church, seeking Christ’s face in the midst of joy and heartache.

It means picking up my Bible on days when it just feels like a millstone in my hands, not dishing out any fortune telling truths, and I’m not willing to listen to anything more poignant than that.

It means repeatedly doing something that I don’t even think is a smart idea, or at least not a fun one, because Jesus is simply prompting me to continue.

And so I continue. (Jim-facing at God, though I may be.)

I recently took an online class on the book of John. (Mistake. Future reference: take all important, deep, theological classes in person. Whew.) In that class, I came face to face with a Jesus that is obsessed with pure, unadulterated (or the completely tainted, ruined rags of) faith.

In John, there’s the story of Jesus’ first miracle, at the wedding at Cana.

So Jesus is just chilling at this wedding of a family friend with his mom right, and then, calamity of calamities, they run out of booze.

Well, of wine. But anyways.

That’s it. Party over. What a shame, and frankly kind of a downer.

At first it seems Jesus is content to let this small, domestic, day to day tragedy pass him by.

Then Little Mama Mary has this gem of a comment:

“They have no more wine.” (John 2:3)

I don’t know about you but that sounds like a PRO – mom comment to me.  Like “Wow. This room sure is messy.” Or “Honey, I sure am tired after making that huge meal. Now there’s all these dishes…” Jesus’ mom is so being a mom here.

“Oh, dear, they seem to have run out of wine…”

To my thinking, and at great risk to my bodily health from all the Moms in my life by saying this, but if there’s been only one person in the entirety of human history that DIDN’T need mom’d, it’d have to be Jesus Christ. Right? Jesus must be side-eyeing her so hard, like “Mom. Please. Don’t be this person right now.” (I mean obviously not, he’s Jesus. That’s just how I’d have responded…)

It’s not too far from the the actual response that we see from her son however:

 ^““Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.”” (John 2:4)

I imagine Jesus just sitting there, enjoying the festivities with his mom, and all the sudden she nudges him and sort of demands him to do something to remedy the situation.

Something miraculous.

He clearly isn’t really wanting to do something miraculous at that moment. But Mama Mary, being mom-like as moms do best, proceeds to make a plan, ordering the servants to listen and do whatever her son asks of them.

And here is the part my mind has been reeling over since I read it a week ago:

Jesus does it.

Jesus listens to Mary’s request and then preforms His very first miracle.

I sat there, stunned. God in human form, seemed to just have let his surrogate mom talk him into a miracle. Why?!

As I was reading this academic essay on signs in the Gospel of John, all very informative, I came across this beautiful phrase, gently tucked between two parenthesis, almost as if the writer had been mouthing it to me like a giant secret in a stage whisper:

 (For Jesus never can resist Faith.)

Wow.

I’m gonna need to retype that.

For Jesus never can resist Faith. 

More precisely, Jesus cannot resist us, His children, His beloveds, putting our faith in Him.

Now you’re probably sitting there thinking, “Big deal Mickensie. Everybody knows God wants us to have faith in Him.” But more than knowing it, do you live it?

Do I live like I have faith in Jesus? Am I willing to blindly follow Him, to face my deepest fears, most frustrating trials, darkest doubts, as well as to the heights of my achievements, hidden talents, creative capabilities, and all around life to the full?

Because here’s the thing: putting my faith in Jesus requires a lot. Jesus is not tame. He’s not safe. He is not domesticated, as a we’re often times guilty of making Him appear to be. He’s not going to go easy on us. He’s fierce, he’s tumultuous, and relentless, and constant, and, and, and,

f a i t h f u l.

And I think when we surrender our ridiculous illusion of control, when we abandon all hope of getting our lives together on our own, when the wine is all gone but the feast must go on, and we turn to Him, I believe he delights in those moments.  Like my dad feels when I ask him to fix my car, trusting completely  that even if he has to look up sketchy youtube videos and crawl on his hands and knees, he’s capable of fixing it. Or how my brother feels being my life-guru, when I ask him what he would do and he spouts off the phrase, “Now look, Mickensie…”

I truly believe that Jesus adores seeing His children putting their faith, little and broken as it may be, in Him. He finds it irresistible. He loves showing us just how much he can do with a mustard seed.  Weeding out the doubts that have crept in and cultivating a garden in our lives, that produces so much fruit we don’t know what to do with it all!

Turning the watered down, thimble of faith we offer up, into enough wine for a wedding.

That’s my new goal. If Jesus desires faith, that’s exactly what I plan on giving. He’s asking some heavy, complicated, difficult things from me right now. And I know it’d be easier to, like a song we sang at my church this Sunday, to run after ” the call of lovers so less wild.” (seriously. file under songs that ripped me apart.) But I know, or better said, I have every faith that He, my wild, untamable, unpredictable Jesus, is crafting something so extraordinarily beautiful and breathtaking that I wouldn’t be able to comprehend it if He told me.

A phrase from camp that has been on a constant loop in my head and heart for the past three weeks puts it in perspective:

Don’t ask God for steps 2-10 when you don’t have the faith to take the first step.

So this is me, metaphorically taking the first step. A blind, deaf, and dumb leap faith. Off the cliff I go.

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“If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.” 2 Timothy 2:13

“And my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking great ‘Amen!’ from countless angels, from hero’s of the faith, from Christ himself!” -The Vision, http://www.24-7prayer.com/about/thevision-en