broken for you.

i served communion to my peers tonight. before i did so, i shared a snippet of the tim keller quote that's been wrenching at my heart lately, and Jesus' words to his disciples from Matthew 26.

God will not leave me alone, you guys. he is just assaulting me lately. one thing he keeps showing me is how jealous his love is. this is something i've heard and even sung about, but not understood until now. c.s. lewis is helping me understand. i'm re-reading the four loves, a fantastic journey that will destroy everything you've ever thought about love - the friendly & familial, the earthly & celestial. lewis' words are so powerful, timeless, and accurate.

[God] says nothing about guarding against earthly loves for fear we might be hurt; He says something that cracks like a whip about trampling them all under foot the moment they hold us back from following Him. -c.s. lewis, the four loves

so to the lord's table i went, tonight, carrying my new knowledge of God's jealous, furious love for me - for us - and my growing understanding of how that same love was in Christ when he chose to take the penalty for my sin. my role tonight was to stand behind the table, though, and administer the elements to the twenty-somethings at the green room.

my mighty friend, matt romero, my brother of thunder, instilled in me the intimacy of communion. it always struck me that he'd look into each of our eyes as he handed us the bread and the cup. he'd say to me, "christine, this is the body of Christ, broken for you, and the blood of Christ, shed for you." he caught me off guard, initially. talking during communion, and calling me christine? but i came so accustomed to taking communion like this, so that even now, i'm uncomfortable with the distanced, detached tray passing we do in our services the first weekend of each month.

as young adults approached the communion table, i held the matzoh out. i locked eyes with those who would let me. i spoke the names i knew. and to everyone, i said, "the body of Christ, broken for you. the blood of Christ, shed for you."

as more and more people came back, i realized the truth of my own words, beyond the tradition. i have been coming to a place of comprehending that Jesus willfully let his body be broken for me. but as i looked into the eyes of young men and women i barely knew and didn't know at all, it sunk in that he died for them. alone. each one. nick, my pumpkin, who i would die for; and the young man in a knit cap and skinny jeans, who i've never seen before tonight. were there just one soul saved by Jesus' death, he would have done it. he would have delighted to sacrifice himself - for me, for the person i know, for the person i don't know. the body of Christ, broken for you. the blood of Christ, shed for you.


a few resources:
get a copy of The Four Loves here. just buy it. and start reading it.
start listening to tim keller's sermons on your iPod or at work. just do it.

longing

Randomly, a theme for our next Women’s Retreat just popped into my head, because I recently read Brennan Manning’s The Furious Longing of God and am currently reading Ruth Haley Barton (I just adore her)’s Longing for More: a Woman’s Path to Spiritual Transformation in Christ and after Mark’s first identifying characteristic in his message this weekend for defending the Gospel was longing. It’s so universal, but I think it gets us especially as women, because it makes us feel weak. Of course, when we’re weak with longing, we’re reflecting God’s image, because there’s a part of Him that longs for us, too. And then, to think of all the things we chase after to try to satisfy the longing when of course, the only thing that can fulfill it is God Himself. It’s the same message, it always is, isn’t it? (When I taught elementary school, during Bible lessons, my first graders would arbitrarily answer “Jesus” to everything because they figured out that 9 times out of 10, Jesus was the answer. I started getting trickier after a while.) But it’s so simple. The answer is always the same. But simple and easy are not synonymous - it would be easier to satisfy myself with power and materials and sex and affirmation and substances. To be happy with the ways of the world would be a stroll on the beach. Instead (masochist), I have decided to follow Jesus, who does not stroll on beaches but walks through fire. For fun. Because you’re a better you when you come out the other side. The thing is, my longing? It’s better aimed in one direction. His. Because He doesn’t change, He affirms my longing, and longs for me, as well.

aiming for the forehead

so many things, three things, three things, maybe four, filling my mind, so full. so full.

i just finished reading the poisonwood bible. and my head is filled with africa, with its tragedies, with its secrets and mysteries, with its injustices. with the hypocricy of (fictional) baptist missionaries and thier forced religon, with their insistence on changing africa to match up with Jesus. i think Jesus would be more comfortable in the congo than in any baptist church. the african mamas didn't understand why Tata Jesus, as they called him, Father Jesus, would take away babies from dysentery, even the baptist babies. why, Tata Jesus, why? they'd cry. it's a heavy story, latent with distrust for organized religon, and laced with little hope. so why'd i stay up until 4 in the morning reading?

i'm pretty sure i've never been as poor as i am right now. i am literally cashing in on my future to make it through my present. the financial demands from outside of me cannot be met with anything i posesss monetarily. i have never looked around my home for things to sell before.

i am marketing a book called wholly Jesus. it's superb. it's phenomenal and life changing. and last night, its author, my pastor, my mentor, told a story from the chronicles of narnia. he said, once, the white witch pulled a lamppost out of the ground. the lamppost the kids had first seen upon exiting the wardrobe and entering narnia. she pulled it up, and broke it in half, and held it out as a weapon, hell-bent on destroying aslan. he charged at her, and she struck him with the broken, iron lamppost, square between the eyes. this was not one of aslan's gentle moments, and the metal rod bounced plumb off of him and fell to the ground. mark continued the story, and i'm now realizing, he didn't mention what happened next to aslan, or to the white witch. but the lamppost shard that fell to the ground, it hit the ground and then began to rise up and be reshaped, until it stood perfectly vertical, as a lamppost, again, in the ground, shining brightly. what the white witch intended to harm aslan with was given a new identity when it came in contact with him. it got its purpose back. it became, again, what it was supposed to have been in the first place.

and i got into a car accident today. i was so distracted, so full of thoughts. adah, a character in this book i just finished, think backwards sometimes. thoughts of full so distracted so was i. it almost makes more sense that way. i was looking behind me, literally, it was a yeild and i was trying to yeild (damn it) and i just assumed that the truck in front of me had kept moving as i expected and then jenni grabbed my leg and said, "NO!" and i hit him. and i broke into tears instantly and the poor man i hit was now comforting me and i cannot tell you what i hated more. my tears, my weakness, my stupidity, my foggy mind. i whispered to myself, "stine, you are loved, even in this failure." another mentor, jonalyn, keeps feeding me these lines to feed myself, in hopes that i start to believe them. failure this in even loved are you.

so i wad up now. i wad up myself - so full of thoughts, so crammed with emotion that i want to curl up and cry forever. cry a new river for a congolese village - my salty tears would at least be free of the bacteria that kills babies, no? cry until all my insufficient funds fees have been reconciled and the bank decides it's had enough fun pillaging the little i have. i try not to think of myself with a welding iron in my hand, attempting to fix the sweet man's bumper myself, because i'm sorry, sir, i can't pay for it. can i throw a bumper at aslan's forehead?

what will become of the one who never made it out of her twenties? we remember her, boisterous-one-with-purple hair. where is redemption for her? are you sending a stimulus package, Tata Obama? will it come soon enough? and what about Tata Jesus, who is the continual brunt of my assaults? the forever white witch, throwing at him my insecurities, my drama, only not as brave as she. i'm not as brave because i run after throwing them. i've never stayed to watch my weapons, which are as insufficient as my funds, be reshaped into what they were purposed to be.

i hate this tent

he just wants to rest with us.

that’s his whole point. the whole deal. from the fall in the garden of eden until Jesus returns to earth, he wants to gather us to himself, to be with us.

to be with us.

to be with us.


i hate this tent has been my thought of the day. i was so fortunate (blessed) to have time to sit and read today and just soak in and soak up truth - about God, his word, his love - and the thought i’m left with is, i hate this tent. this covering. this flesh (but i don’t mean the word ‘flesh’ as it’s used in the church). the outsides. everything outside of my essence, my soul.

Jesus was who he was because he was unencumbered by a tent - he just lived every moment from his truest self. he was God and that poured out of him, purely, untainted. God grabs the hands of the dirty and only argues when it’s worth it and doesn’t react because his feelings are hurt. and none of those impulses (to act like God) were restrained by this ‘tently’ awareness that others might look at him weird.

i hate this tent. this tent that never wants to listen and is always distorting my truest self. i am a soul, trapped in this damn tent, created to demonstrate God in a way that my lemon tree and the cheetah and Tuscany and rock and roll cannot do, because i was created in His image. and my soul worships God, spirit to spirit. but when my soul interacts with this world, it is communicated through the tent of my skin, arms, eyelashes, voice, dance moves, red pen, handshake. and i hate how it gets disfigured, like a finger painting. you get the idea but there was so much more that could have been shown. this tent is an awful way of translating my soul.

theology (from a 20-year-old me)

Jesus says so many things. about himself. what is rad to me is how he inarguably says he is god. he is god. he is not like god or a prophet sent from god. he is god. and that's so bold. jesus was the best at being as wise as a serpent and as gentle as a dove. pilate says, are you the king of the jews? jesus says, it is as you say. you said it, i didn't. i'm not condemning myself to death, it is you who condemn me. if you decide to excecute me for accepting a title worthy only of me, then the blood is on your hands.

oh, and meanwhile, i will kick death's ass and reign victorious evermore.
(i love to paraphrase jesus and say ass.)

Jesus called himself the son of man. this was a crazy title from the book of daniel that described the prophesied messiah. Daniel "saw the son of man....to whom was given all authority...glory and soverignty..."

Jesus forgave sin, which was (prepare for an understatement) revolutionary. sin is against God, by definition. of course our sins hurt eachother, fellow man, sin hurts creation, sin damages our own bodies and souls, but sin's prime evil is that it violates God and his holiness. Therefore, only god can forgive sin. so when jesus had the authority to cleanse people of thier unrighteousness, he did that only from the power that came from his being god (the greek homoousius in Phillipians 2 means that Jesus was of the "same substance" as God.)

most astonishing to me is that jesus claimed to be "I AM". we can't begin to imageine how significant that was. THat was a claim made only by Yahweh himself in the old testament, telling his people, before the earth was, I AM. (Exodus 3). What if someone today claimed he was jesus or god? Jesus was not the messiah the jews expected, the most unlikely king, and so when he firmly pronounced that he was thier YHWH, they (in john 8:58) picked up stones to stone him.

crazy. jesus. i love that guy.