f2:19 aftermath

With Christmas on the horizon, I have felt the movement of God in ways which seem foreign. It may be attributed to how I am reading through Scripture again- not as an acadmician but as a person of faith. A couple of weeks ago I felt that I needed to work out because I was feeling like I needed something more active than sitting. Go figure. So, I tookmy Bible into the local YMCA and read it while doing 30 min. on the eliptical trainer. Yes, it felt strange as I considered the woman to my left reading a Cosmo and the man to my right reading Time mag. When I read the bible as something of interest that I had to know what was going on between the lovers Israel and Yahweh, Jesu and the religious and political authorities. At this point in my journey, I sensed that God was doing something transformative, a something that is as amorphous and undefined as the ocean. It brought to light the truth that how scripture speaks is dependent on what circumstances surround our lives at the time we read the passage. The stories of Abram and Sarai being unable to belief that God can make pregnant the woman who is beyond child bearing years that show that God's power is not going to be confined by our very human expectations. In a chat with a Jewish friend, I realized how closely he and I understand the sovereignty of God- or rather it is talking about God's ability to be God, to do what is in keeping with his holiness, to do things that are outside the scope of human understanding. Though we do not understand the course of things, it is best to be content that God is moving. Sometimes it just does not seem to have any good rhyme or reason to it, atleast as we see it.

What I realize is that there is a chasm between what we know, indeed, what we can ever know and who God is. In my experience not too many are cool with the mystery that lingers in that chasm. That mystery which lingers is less desirable than certainty, even if it means treating our God like a pet hamster.

Tonight in worship we fleshed out through song and word, why that mystery is so important. The real mystery is that God would choose to build a bridge to us even when we did not want that bridge in the first place. It is a bridge built toward us through Jesus Christ's life and death and resurrection. The mystery of the Almighty: Why bother with us? And why would you love us? Why...that's what we acknowledge before we worship. Once we step into the sacred space to give God all honor and glory, we no longer ask "why?" We move to "just because." We worship becausse its in the Bible and because something just seems lifegiving about it. Robert Webber said simply that worship is a verb and for me it means being intentional in our praise. It is moving into the mystery leaving our why's at the door and moving our "just because" into the presence of the Lord.