Parakalein

I imagine that the disciples are losing patience with Jesus. They were so excited about his triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

By Tuesday they began to wonder?  What is up?  Can I trust that what Jesus has said will be true that greater JOy will come if they wait for God to show up.  Do they take him at his word or do they stay in an anxious state.

At the Epic Failure Conference, I met a young man who had just up and driven hundreds of miles to be at this conference.  He sensed God wanted him there.  He had no place to stay and was planning to sleep in his truck.  Another attendee heard of this and offered him to stay in their hotel room.  When they arrived and he discovered that he had neglected to put a breathing machine in his truck he stated that he needed to sleep in his truck because he was to anxious and could not bare the fact that he would disturb his brothers sleep.  The host convinced him that he would tell him if he snored too loudly.  He chose to trust that and so they slept the first night.  In the morning, he realized that they both slept well.  They shared stories in a healing of each others hurt as they listened to each others stories.  When they parted at the end of the conference they were aware that trust was a key to relaxing their fears.  Trusting that what is said is true and relaxing into the truth is when healing occurs.

It is not about doing it right or praying it right, it is about living into connections with people that firm up the confidence of loving care in the world.  Incredible connections were made at this conference.  People learned that when they try to push their grief away in fear they collapse under the weight of the shame of it.  When they without fear and without shame they collapse onto the floor they find that Jesus is the floor onto which they have collapsed and who holds them in "loving care".  Grief, guilt and shame are all instruments to bring us to trust the God who loves us.  The enemy uses them to drive us into hiding.  God invites us to collapse into his perfect love for perfect love casts out all fear for fear has to do with punishment shame and rejection.

On the first day of the conference, JR put on the screen the characteristic of "failure, rejection and shame".  He announced his sense that the cross and the Gospel intercepted the failure and gave hope.  An attendee suggested that the Gospel of the Cross encircled all the "failure, rejection and hurt" as God in Christ took on the failure to be understood, and translated it into a new understanding.  He took the rejection and translated it into redemption.  He took the shame and translated it into grace from the inside out.  The transformational work of the cross changes everything and everyone and how I see and experience everything and every one.

A new day is dawning.  This idea was as new and fresh for JR as it was for the open who shared it.  God never works in isolation but in community.  As we listen to the parts in each other the whole truth becomes more true.  The disciples were getting parts of the truth in their holy week experience.  Each one had a different truth they were to learn and as a community of faith they were preparing for a kingdom change within while thinking it was a bout a kingdom change without.

Jesus would teach them something new each of these days as he did us at this conference.  The disciples and the crowd wanted to succeed in setting up the kingdom on earth.  Jesus would teach them how to fail in a glorious transformative way.