August 15th, 20

2018  He Wants Us

Today’s readings are II Kings 24, Jeremiah 22, Psalm 112, and John 18.  We are reading from the New Living Translation.

We don’t want him! And He knows it.  Even the best of us don’t want him – even someone like Peter.  Instead, we want a revolutionary like Barabbas.  

We don’t want him, he knows it, and yet, he desires us.  He knows we’re incapable –  that the best the flesh can do is manage some kind of revolution or reform.  It’s not capable of living out the truth.  He knows that we are locked in a lie and need the truth that will set us free.  And that’s what he’s come to do.  Even though we don’t want him, he wants us.  We’re like people who’ve cut off each others ears, like Peter chopping off the ear of the servant.  We are unable to hear the message of life, that we so desperately need.  It’s as if we’re in a world full of severed ears, and He’s come to mend and heal them, like he did for the man in the garden.  Our hearts are severed from the truth and he’s come to make them new, completely new – not reformed or adjusted, not through political revolution or religious reformation.  No. He’s come to do something completely out of this world.  He’s come to give us new hearts – hearts that want him and eyes that can see him and their need for life.  He makes our hearts new by the Spirit of Christ himself, in us.  

When that happens:

-when love breaks through 

-when he shows up at night in the garden to mend our ears

-when truth arrives as we warm ourselves by the fire

-when we realize we are not the person we thought we were

-when we betray him and ourselves  

-when the truth of who we really are apart from Christ comes crashing in on us

….something else comes crashing in on us.  

The truth and realization that he loves us just the same, and that he wants us even though we don’t want him – comes crashing in.  When we see that, new life begins.  

We don’t want him, but he has wanted us, and he’s made a way to give us new hearts so that we can see the truth of it.  We can begin to experience something entirely new – not our straining and worn out efforts for reform and revolution, or one more resolution to somehow change.  No.  Now we rest in what he has done for us.  We rest in the light and power of the new heart that has been born in us.  We begin to experience his life right now.  When that happens, a new desire is born in us.  Now we want him, just as he has wanted us.

Reject revolution and reform. Instead, embrace that new heart that’s been given to you, because of what Christ has done.  Live in the power and life of him who is the Truth.

You are loved!