Hearing the Music

A Small Blow Against Blindness

As we come to the one year anniversary of the pandemic and the subsequent shutdowns, I have been reflecting a fair bit on how life has changed, how we as individuals have changed, how our communities have changed, etc... Some of these changes involve loss to be sure. We lament a loss of a sense of freedom in which we could make plans uninhibited. My life has never had so many uncertainties before, or perhaps I should say I have never had so many uncertainties at the forefront of my life. And yet, there have been some gains. We have exercised new muscles of communication and connection. We have seen people and communities come together in creative ways to serve one another. There has been beauty in the brokenness.  

Another gain has been clarity. It seems there is a sense in which we have come to see the importance of things that we took for granted before. For instance, the writer to the Hebrews reminded his congregation to not neglect "to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encourage one another..." He says this in the spirit of considering "how to stir up one another to love and good works" (Hebrews 10:24–25). I have been well acquainted with these words throughout the course of my Christian life. However, the importance of these words has become much clearer as actually gathering together has become more fraught. As the old saying goes, "absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder."

But there is something beyond quaint fondness and even something beyond a simplistic obedience to a scriptural imperative in the call to "gather together"; there is the deep truth that we need each other. We need each other for encouragement along the way. We need to bear one another's burdens during the difficult spots of life. We need others in order to really see and know ourselves. I was struck afresh by this in an article by New Republic editor Leon Wieseltier about the hunched in perspectives we all gravitate towards. He says, "For all our elaborate culture of self-knowledge... we are still, each of us, our own blind spots. We should welcome every person we meet as a small blow against blindness."

If true humanity in general helps us see our own blind spots, how much more is it true for the Gospel community! For it is Christ that gives us the vision to be able to truly see one another. It is in Christ that we can both know and really be known. It is as we live out our lives in Christian community, gather to worship, and share communion at the Lord's Table that we truly strike a blow against blindness. As we watch churches fragment across the country or even in our city, even as we have experienced our own tensions and fragmentation, I can't help but wonder how much of our difficulties would be helped by simply being in the physical presence of one another? I see this more clearly on our pandemic anniversary.

In that vein it is encouraging to see the gains that society is making as many are on the other side of the virus and the vaccine rolls out. As I indicated last week, we are seeing our way clear toward more freedom with programs and offerings at Christ Church. As we approach Holy Week we are hoping to craft these in such a way that those who have been most cautious will feel comfortable striking a blow against blindness as we strive to gather together.

_{Photo by Bud Helisson on Unsplash}

Journey Through

How great it was to hear from our Missions Team over the past month and be reminded of our part in the great mission story that is unfolding from Heaven! Now the digital, Friday pen is back in my hand and I want to draw your attention to our current journey for a moment. Some of my favorite books as a young lad were Anne DeVries' series Journey Through the Night, which followed a Dutch family in Nazi occupied Holland during WW2. Four hard years. Four years of struggle. I have thought of them often as we have navigated our hard year during the pandemic. It is truly a journey.

I want to specifically encourage you today with two things. The first is that the last several months have seen hopeful progress with regards to our life together. We have been able to safely maintain worship together in ways that particularly respected the most vulnerable. Recently we have reopened nurseries and added indoor singing. Bible studies are being offered via Zoom and in person. Youth activities have resumed. As immunizations rise and Covid cases fall we are looking at increasing service sizes and returning to more and more pre-pandemic programming. I say especially to those who feel fatigued, perhaps feeling that you have been stretched to your breaking point and NEED some fellowship, NEED some help with kids, etc... Take heart. We believe that our journey is heading in a healthy direction. I would also encourage us as a community to hold the line here at the last. Don't give out. We do have obstacles to overcome yet. We do want to do our very best to care for the most vulnerable. We also have our building project to navigate, which regardless of the pandemic would hamper some programming. We are journeying.

The second thing to encourage you with is in regard to our own personal journeys the Lord has us on. Jim Weaver is a team leader with Mission to the World and he created and shared this image. What I love about this image is the way it charts our personal journeys from fear to growth. He of course is zeroing in on our responses to the pandemic, but we could put any challenging aspect of life in the bulls-eye and chart what the journey looks like from fear to growth. Can you find yourself in your journey?

Of course we will never grow in our journeys unless we cling to Jesus. Our text this week reminds us from Jesus' own lips that he is the Way, the Truth and the Life (John 14:6). He is the Path on which we journey. He invites us to believe him and to trust him as he prepares our way to the Father.

So let's hold fast together to Jesus. Let's navigate these months ahead with patience that only he can provide.

_{Photo by Vlad Bagacian on Unsplash}

Truth will set you Free!

As we march through these various “I Am” encounters with Jesus in the book of John, we are brought face to face with the character of the One who came to save a desperate people. These passages are of tremendous comfort for God’s people as we are invited to throw ourselves on One who is strong, compassionate, full of life, and good. However, these self revelations are also challenging because they confirm that God is so different than we are. He is the Creator, we are the creature. He is the Source, we are derivative. And what we see in many of these interactions is that human hearts are not easy with the fact that we are not God. The human heart constantly wants to elevate itself to throne status.

In John 8:31-59, our passage for Sunday, Jesus reminds his listeners that “before Abraham was, I am” (vs 58). In saying this Jesus preempts any claims that his listeners have to truth or identity apart from Him. The claim of Jesus to be the source of absolute truth is one that we have seen before and we will certainly see again (John 20:31;14:6). It also happens to be absolutely central to our engagement with the world today. As we will see Sunday, the Jews wanted to redefine their reality in terms they decided, even to the point of absurdly claiming that they had never been enslaved to anyone (John 8:33). (Hint: they were under Roman occupation at that very moment!) Jesus however wasn’t allowing them to choose their own truth. Jesus plainly called them to believe the words that he spoke. It is only in his words that they would find truth, and it is only in finding truth that they would be truly free! (John 8:31,32).

Almost daily our struggle to submit to God’s truth grabs the headlines. From refugees to the unborn, from gender to marriage, to a whole host of other issues, we seek answers to these questions from the perspective of “us". What are my rights? How does this affect our country? How do I feel about my body? Through it all we hear Jesus saying, "Believe me. Abide in my Word. It is only as you abide in my Word that you will know the truth. It is only as you abide in my Word that you will be truly free.” What a comfort these words are as the Source invites us to such intimacy! But let’s be real, this invitation to true life comes with a difficult call to die to self. But our God is patient with us and, as we will see Sunday, never demands of us something that he does not embrace himself.

_{Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash}