Once More Deeply Moved

It’s merely one sentence in a story in Luke’s gospel:  “When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, ‘Don’t cry.’”  However, that simple sentence, and the context in which we find it, touches us deeply as it inspires insight into what God calls us to do for each other.  Through the example of Jesus’ life, God urges us to see the tears, catch the tears, and dry the tears of our neighbors as part of His mission to stop their tears. 

St. Ignatius of Loyola suffered a serious military battle injury in 1521.  One of his legs was crushed by a cannon ball.  After three surgeries to repair his leg, he went through a prolonged period of convalescence.  Because his health was otherwise strong, he looked for ways to occupy himself during that season. His sister-in-law, Magdalena, gave him two books to help pass the time—the Life of Jesus and a book about the lives of the saints.  Inspired by reading about the life of Jesus Christ and about the lives of the saints, he began to think about the implications of these lives for his life.

That life is messy is not a hidden truth.  If your experience is similar to mine, you don’t have enough fingers and toes to count how often in a given week you hear someone say, “Things don’t always go the way you want them to.”

Whether in minor disappointment or devastating loss, that sentence gives testimony to the fact that we can’t order life to be the way we want it to be.  Diseases take loved ones too early.  Companies fold and jobs are lost.  Divorces fracture families.  Illnesses rob vitality and limit ability.  Natural disasters destroy.  Planes crash.  Friends betray.  Pressures mount.  And, yes, on a much less serious but still relevant level, children sometimes don’t get what they want.  Life is messy.  For all of us, life is messy.

One of the most astounding aspects of the Christian faith is its declaration of invincible love as the remedy for the messiness of life. 

There are remarkable things said about the love of God in Scripture.  It is said that God’s love is promised in the covenants he makes with his people (Isaiah 55:3), that “his love endures forever” (Psalm 118:1), that nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God” (Romans 8:39).  It is said that God’s love is like the unconditional love of a father (Luke 15:11-32).  The relationship between love and God is so close, it is said that “God is love” (1 John 4:16)—God’s character, his nature is love.

Among all the remarkable things that Scripture teaches us about the love of God, there is none that is more profound than the great truth that God’s love is demonstrated.  It is demonstrated in the birth of Jesus Christ:  For to us a child is born, to us a son is given…. (Isaiah 9:6).  It is demonstrated in the life of Christ:  God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him (1 John 4:9).  It is demonstrated in the death of Christ:  God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).

Are there certain Scriptures that distress you and make you say, “It shouldn’t have been that way?”  One of the passages of Scripture that distresses me is Luke 2:6-7, which tells us that there was no room for Mary and Joseph at the inn when it came time for Jesus to be born.  This is why the Messiah was laid in a feed trough in a cold and dirty cave after his birth rather than in a cozy crib in a warm hotel room.

This aspect of Jesus’ birth is troubling.  It was not befitting for the Co-Creator of the Universe to be born on the ground and then laid in a mangy manger in a makeshift stable in a cave.  The circumstances should have been royal.  At the least, they should have been comfortable.  “I certainly would have found room for a young pregnant woman in my inn,” I hear myself say smugly, without realizing at first that I am convicted by my own statement.

What’s the point of my life?  Why am I here?  What’s God’s purpose for my life?  These questions are asked in different circumstances.  Sometimes they are asked in a quiet moment of peaceful self-reflection.  Sometimes they are asked in the midst of yearning for direction.  Sometimes they are asked in desperation—as part of questioning the value of one’s life.

The answers to questions like “What’s the point of my life?” determine the outcome of our lives.  Our lives will be inevitably and powerfully shaped by how we answer the question of the purpose of our existence.  The outcome of the lives of those who say the purpose of life is task accomplishment will be different from the lives of those who say the purpose of life is to build relationships.

For Christ-followers the best place to find the answer to the question of the purpose of life is to start with the question, “What’s God’s purpose for my life?”  Romans 8:28 says, And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose (NIV).  And the next verse, Romans 8:29, announces what God’s purpose is:  For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. 

We’ve been doing it ever since the Garden of Eden—distancing from God in shame and fear in the midst of our sins and failures.  We also often distance from self-awareness in the midst of our sins and failures.  We shove those things that are uncomfortable down and out of our awareness so that we don’t have to feel them or deal with them.

Shame and fear of punishment, as responses to sin and failure, can lead to what Christian author and pastor Peter Scazerro has called a “tip of the iceberg spirituality,” which can limit the depth of our relationship with God.  In situations of tip-of-the-iceberg spirituality, 90% of what is affecting our lives is below the “waterline” in terms of our conscious self-awareness.

Frustrated. Angry. Confrontational. Unmasking. Exhorting.  Rebuking. Passionate. Urgent. Admonishing. Honest. Direct. Earnest. Serious. Strong. Distressed.

The manner in which Jesus spoke to the Pharisees in Matthew 23 cannot be captured in one word. “Distressed” may be the most general banner we can fly over the descriptive words that apply to his approach. Jesus was deeply distressed as he spoke to the Pharisees. When we observe the son of God being passionately distressed, school is in session—because we stand to learn a great deal from what distressed him.

So what caused Jesus to be so passionately distressed? What greatly troubled Jesus in this context was simply the tendency for the Pharisees to focus on outward appearance rather than on internal reality—that is, focusing on polishing outer appearances while the inner private world is dull, dirty, scratched, and in need of repair.

Do you believe you are fulfilling the purpose for which God created you? Are you fulfilled in your life and in your relationship with God?

Gary Moon, in his book entitled, Falling for God, asks a closely related question.  “Do you ever feel that no matter how hard you try or how much you desire it, the bountiful life Jesus promised continues to elude you?…  I believe that 99 out of 100 Christians rarely enjoy the rich life that Christ promised; they live, instead, lives of silent resignation.”  That’s a valuable opinion based on many years of life experience as a Christian psychologist.

Perhaps, though, a well-designed research study would prove to be false the claim that Christians “rarely enjoy the rich life that Christ promised.”  However, Christian researcher George Barna, based on scientific research (in Growing True Disciples), has this to say about the focus of the lives of most Christ followers:  “Eight out of every ten believers are more likely to count upon dimensions of life other than spirituality as the springboard to success and meaning….  The infrequent adoption of spiritual maturity as the driving focus of life suggests that to most believers their faith is a ‘bonus’ or an add-on dimension of their life rather than the priority around which everything in their life revolves.”  Perhaps one reason why so many Christians are not enjoying the rich life that Christ promises is because they are not making that rich life the one thing they are pursuing in their lives.

“Contents under pressure.”  You see it on many household items—from cans of hair spray, whipped cream, and furniture polish, to propane tanks.  It’s part of a warning that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration requires on self-pressurized containers.

Most all of us can relate to those seasons of our lives in which we feel like the contents of our soul are under pressure.  During those times we feel the pressure of illness or financial hardship or work responsibilities or broken relationships or loneliness or grief or loss or some combination of several of the above.  Sometimes the pressure is so soul-crushing, we wonder if we will survive at the same time that we wonder what not surviving even means.