music :: worship :: life
Throughout this season I have been reminded of a story from the life of Jesus—the story of Martha and Mary:
As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”
“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”
—Luke 10:38-42
This is the season when we get distracted by all the preparations, all the details, all the scurrying. Locust swarms of shoppers strip the malls bare and clot the city’s traffic arteries, turning streets into honking, cursing glaciers of gridlock. The simple worship service overnight grows into a six-headed beast no one can tame. Fuming families sulk in their corners, or feign togetherness to prove to the world that they are brimming with the mandatory holiday spirit. Lead-pipe evangelists pound the “Put Christ back in Christmas” drum. The Christmas juggernaut grinds us all to pulp.
I say, “Let’s put Christmas back in Christmas.” Christmas means a celebration of the coming of our promised savior. We’ve all been distracted by the preparations we think need to be made. But Jesus is saying to us, “Only one thing is needful, and Mary has chosen rightly.” If our attention wanders away from Christ and onto any other thing, we have lost that One Thing. That One Thing is Jesus. The One Thing we need do is sit at the feet of our master and king, and devote ourselves wholly to Christ.
To save the world, Jesus needed only a few handfuls of straw and a simple cattle stall to lay in. He needed no elaborate preparations. Nor does he require of us an elaborate response. When we surrnder ourselves in joyful devotion to Christ, we are doing that one needful thing.
Merry Christmas.
I bought some supplements at Vitamin World that supposedly improve your memory. Reading the instructions, I discovered that you’re supposed to take them three times a day. If I could remember to take them three times a day, I wouldn’t need the things.
Lord, you have planted in each of us a seed. You buried in the soil of our souls a seed of your kingdom. And from deep in our souls, that seed calls out to you. It is this seed that compels us to reach for you. And it is this seed that drives our longing—for communion with others who strive for you.
Lord, you have sent us your spirit to nourish that seed. Through prayer and praise, work and worship, we lift our souls up to you, and you send down the gentle rain of your grace and the warm sunlight of your love. With time and care, our kingdom seeds grow into trees tall and strong. Maturing in you they begin to bear fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Lord, when you bring us together, we become an orchard. Each of our trees bears different fruit. Separated, we become unbalanced, malnourished. But together we produce a rich harvest that feeds us all, with an abundance of good things to richly nourish your whole kingdom.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
—Galatians 5:22-23
I think organized religion is a contradiction in terms.
Lord, you have been present to me in surprising ways this week. You have reached out to me through people—people I was not expecting. People I have depended on to be your hands and feet have not been there for me, Lord. But you have showed up through people I did not expect. And you have been in places where I never thought to look for you. You have sent emails, phone calls, and visitors, Lord: People I have not heard from in ages, and did not expect to hear from. People I had forgotten or written off. People I did not even know. I suspect, Lord, that you are working behind the scenes, that you are positioning me to do some work in your kingdom. That you are lining up people and events so something mighty can soon take place. I have my suspicions.
Lord, you have shown me that there are well-meaning people in my life, who do care for the things that matter to me. I think that you are showing me that the things I strive for are not out of reach—but that the time is not right. I think you are showing me that the people I have been trying to build into a foundation are not foundation material. A structure built upon flawed foundation stones will not stand. The flawed stones belong in the walls where they can rely on each other’s strength to keep them from crumbling beneath the weight. They can support one another, there. But, the structure you are wanting me to build, calls for a strong foundation, of stones with a great deal more strength. I will need people with more perseverance, more commitment, more stability, more character.
But what about me, Lord? I, too, am flawed and broken. How can I be a foundation stone? How can I build anything for you? Why are you calling me?
Lord, I have doubted you; I have doubted your plan; I have doubted myself. I have been frustrated and angry. I have wondered again and again whether you really do have a plan to prosper me and not to harm me. It surely does not appear that way. My life is like that dead stump in the front yard—uprooted, tilted grotesquely, roots exposed to the cold, north wind. Lord, I feel like Christopher Columbus before things began to turn around, near the end of his rope, railing at you: “Lord I have grown old in your service. I have done everything you have asked. I have sacrificed everything for the mission you gave me. And never once have you showed the slightest inclination to help. What more can I do? Give me a sign. Either open the doors I need to enter, or turn me loose so I can get on with life.”
You have surrounded me with people who are very wounded, very damaged. When I expect them to act and react like whole and healthy men and women, I am expecting way too much. They are not whole, they are damaged—some of them badly so. They are not healthy, they are very ill and in need of healing.
Lord, you are teaching me to be like Christ. You are molding be in the imitation of Christ. I am your suffering servant, Lord. How did Jesus suffer? Vastly than this. But how much longer, how much more will it take, Lord, before you find me ready? How much more can I stand? How much more endurance and perseverance do you need to build into me?
Lord, what do you want from me? Lord, remove from me the things and people who are impediments to fulfilling your plan. Attached as I may be to them, if they stand in the way of your plan, remove them from my life. I dread even praying this prayer, because I know that some of the things and people you take away will hurt. It will be like pulling an infected tooth, leaving a painful socket behind. But, I am clinging too hard to what has already been spoiled, to what is no longer useful to you or to me. I have cluttered my life with things, people, and ideas that separate me from you. And whatever I cannot put down is holding me down. What I cannot leave behind, is blocking my way. I give it all to you, Lord.
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
-Romans 5:6-11
Imagine a war—a battlefield—one where the battle lines are clear: something like World War I, where the trenches and concertina wire clearly marked which side was which. Imagine God on one side and all mankind on the other. While the battle is still underway, God sends an emissary, his only son, across enemy lines to make peace with us. We execute the emissary, yet God makes peace with us anyway.
Who would do such a thing?
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