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Jul 18, 2009
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Christ’s Heart
Do you have language for your longing for God?
Does your love of God ever speak and when it does,
what are the words that you use?
Psalm 63 offers beautiful language for what longing for God may be like:
O God, you are my God, I seek you,
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,
beholding your power and glory.
Because your steadfast love is better than life,
my lips will praise you.
So I will bless you as long as I live;
I will lift up my hands and call on your name.
The longing of the Psalmist is a picture of humanity’s longing for God. And it is God’s longing for us. This is the same longing that Christ gives voice to in John’s Gospel. It is rooted in the longing for steadfast love – God’s steadfast love for us and our steadfast love for God. “If you love me…love one another.” Long for one another. Long for God.
Glenn Hinson, a Baptist theologian and spiritualist, speaks often of Christ’s ministry as one of ushering in a new humanity. Jesus teaches that the foundation of this humanity is the traits listed in our passage from the third chapter of Colossians.
Compassion and kindness,
Humility and meekness,
Patience, forbearance, and forgiveness…
…and more than any of these: love.
These are the virtues of Christ’s new humanity. This is the humanity that has the Heart of Christ. This is the humanity that can navigate the complications of life, the difficulties of a constantly and rapidly changing world. This same humanity will appear strange when compared with the competing virtues of the world. This new humanity will appear backward or foolish, idealistic or naive.
Over the last couple of weeks we have been exploring what it means to be Christ’s hands and feet. We have spoken of the good works we can offer the world. We have spoken about how we can walk into the world offering grace and peace. I think that as challenging as these actions certainly are, the most difficult part of being Christian is this final part. To have the Heart of Christ is the hardest thing of all.
Last week I was supposed to attend a friend’s party. It was a cookout. For various reasons I had to decline my invitation at the last minute. So, as a gesture of friendship I sent him a box of his favorite Christmas candies with a Christmas card. “Christmas in July!” It was a silly gesture, but I wanted to be at the party and felt badly for being absent. So, I sent the candies with another friend and went about my day.
Later that afternoon, I was walking down the street and received a text. The text was a picture of a statue of St. Nicholas that my friend keeps in his house with the words “Christmas in July, indeed. Thank you!” I longed to be with him. And he understood and reached out to me with the same heart.
To be known, to recognize one another, to express longing and love in even the simplest gestures. This is what our psalmist is attempting to articulate. And this is how Christ lived and asks us to live. This is the core of what Paul writes to the Colossians.
For Jesus, each and every moment, each relationship and encounter is pregnant with this intimacy, this longing and love. Jesus is masterful at bringing this to the fore in all his relationships. It’s not sentimental. It is sacrificial. It is the simple recognition of this new humanity, this new creation. It’s not about potential, but about what already is. This truth is the foundation of his ministry.
Jesus is able to live this life because his love is steadfast. His love is relentless. It is founded on God’s longing for all of us. It is founded on the knowledge that we are made new.
How different the world would be if it knew the longing God felt for it, if it knew the longing that we have for God, if they new this love, this steadfast love for God, for neighbor, for friend and enemy alike…If it knew. How might the world be different?
It is so easy to get caught up in all the competing stresses of life. It is so easy to let the voices of cynicism and greed, of shame and violence rule our lives. We confuse the longing for God with the longing for all of those other things, those things that cannot love us in return…whatever they are for us.
Life often seems to be careening out of control. We are overrun by technology and more demands upon our time than there seems to be time in the day. We are beset with illness and struggles and suffering. It is so tempting to let these things define us…to forget God’s steadfast love.
Yet we are the Church, the embodied symbol of this new humanity: Christ’s Body. And as such, we are called to give witness to Christ’s Heart. We are called to live the virtues from Paul’s letter to the Colossians. We are called to longing and steadfast love.
Jesus knows this. And he knows how hard this is for us. “Forgive them, they know not what they do” is a prayer for all creation from the cross. Jesus knows our confusion. Jesus knows our blindness.
And in response he says, “I am meek and compassionate, patient and humble…and I love all creation. I will forgive you even in the darkest hour. I will wait for you. I long for you. My love for you is steadfast, you have already been made new.”
Christ’s Heart is our Heart.
Thanks be to God. |
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