Gospels

When You Can’t See God

May 7, 2015 By Michelle

No matter how many times I read the story of the road to Emmaus, I always get hung up on one verse: “God kept them from recognizing him.” (Luke 24:16)

It wasn’t that the two travelers simply didn’t recognize the risen Jesus come alongside them, but that God “kept them,” or prevented them from recognizing him. It was intentional.

At first glance, that intentional obscuring of the truth seems unnecessarily cruel. After all, the followers of Jesus had certainly been through enough grief and devastation at that point. They’d witnessed the arrest, torture and murder of their beloved leader. All their expectations, everything they’d believed in and hoped for, lay smashed at the bottom of the cross. They were lost, bewildered and reeling from the shock.

Yet God kept the travelers from recognizing the risen Messiah in the moment of their deepest and most profound despair.

This, it seems to me, is the quintessential tough-love moment.

I don’t know about you, but God’s tough-love teaching is not my preferred method. I think it’s fair to say we’d all much prefer that God reveal himself to us straight up, exactly when and exactly how we need him.

But God doesn’t always work that way.

True, it would have been easier and gentler for Jesus to reveal his identity immediately in that moment on the dusty road to Emmaus. But consider this:

Might Jesus’ immediate revelation have inhibited the opportunity for greater, deeper spiritual growth in the men? Might an immediate revelation have inhibited some of the hard internal heart work that needed to take place?

Sometimes I think God intentionally blinds us to his presence, not so he can see into our hearts (after all, as an omniscient God, he already knows our innermost thoughts), but so that we might glimpse the state of our own hearts.

After all, if God is obviously present, would we do the hard work of looking into the depths of our own hearts to uncover our weakness, our lack of trust, our unbelief?

If God is immediately and palpably present, might we skip happily along, blissfully ignorant of our spiritual deficits?

Jesus understood that Cleopas and his friend simply could not get past the obvious facts of Jesus’ crucifixion. In the telling and retelling of that story, they could not move past their shock and unbelief. They forgot what Jesus had told them again and again: that his death was not the end, that all hope was not lost.

In obscuring his identity as the risen Messiah, Jesus forced the Emmaus travelers to look hard inside their own hearts in order to face their lack of trust and faith.

Like I said, it’s tough love. Jesus doesn’t always give us the easy answer. His goal isn’t always to make us comfortable or offer us the easy way out.

Sometimes Jesus prods us to do the hard work of looking inward, digging into the detritus of our hearts and resowing our spiritual soil, so that ultimately we are able to enjoy a deeper, more authentic relationship with him.

How to Open Your Eyes and Really See

September 10, 2014 By Michelle

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As a kid my sister thought the priest was God. It was his ornate robes that misled her – his “uniform” gave him such an aura of authority and power, she assumed he was the Big Man himself.

I wasn’t much better off. While I knew enough to realize the priest wasn’t God, I still acted like he was. I was so focused on following the rules to perfection, I missed the point of faith entirely. I worshipped the law and the man in the fancy robes, and missed God.

Early on in the Book of Mark, the Pharisees — who were the ultra-religious rule-followers of the day — criticized Jesus for forgiving the sins of a paralyzed man who had come to hear him preach.

“‘Only God can forgive sins!’” the Pharisees claimed, appalled by Jesus’ bold proclamation and his gall. (Mark 2:7)

They missed the irony in their own statement, of course. They couldn’t see that it was God himself standing right before their very eyes.

The Pharisees had a very clear expectation of what God should look like and how he should act. The fact that Jesus was born in a barn in Nazareth, dressed like a wandering shepherd and kept company with the lowlifes of society simply did not jibe with their definition of God. They expected a mighty ruler, someone who established authority instead of subverting it.

The Pharisees didn’t recognize God because they expected him to look like someone else. They expected him to look more like them.

I get that. Sometimes I mock the Pharisees for their obvious flaws, but the truth is, I am a Pharisee. I miss God when he’s standing right before my very eyes. I miss God because he doesn’t look like I think he should.

I don’t see God in the man on the corner, holding a tattered cardboard sign in the sweltering heat. But I see him easily in the people I admire and the people I want to emulate. I see God in the people I want to like me.

I don’t always see God in the person who practices faith differently than I do. But I recognize him easily in the people who sit next to me in the pew each week.

I don’t see God in the people who live by standards I consider less-than or flawed. But I recognize him in the people who seem to live exactly like I do.

Turns out, I see God in the pretty places, where everything and everyone look good and wholesome and right; where the rules are followed and standards are upheld.

I see God where I am comfortable and in the people who put me at ease.

I see God where you might expect to find him — in stained glass, in blossoms and birds and spectacular sunsets, in people who look and think just like me.

Like a Pharisee, I see God where I want to see him, not where he really is.

The beautiful truth is that God is in every place and in every person. And what the crowd exclaimed the day the paralyzed man stood up and walked home with his mat in hand is true for me and many others, too:

“We’ve never seen anything like this before!” (Mark 2:12) we exclaim in awe. Because we’ve never really opened our eyes to see.

{This post originally ran in the Lincoln Journal Star.}

Sharing with Jennifer’s Tell His Story community:

Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: The Most Exquisite Gift

March 10, 2014 By Michelle

For the next six Sundays I will be posting the Sunday devotional that I wrote for my church’s Lent devotional booklet. These will be a little bit different than my usual style: a little more reflection and devotiony, a little less story-based. I’ll also start with a Scripture reading and end with a prayer. This is my way of stepping back from the blog a bit during this Lenten season – thank you for your grace.

That Sunday evening the disciples were meeting behind locked doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders. Suddenly, Jesus was standing among them! “Peace be with you,” he said. As he spoke, he showed them the wounds in his hands and his side. They were filled with joy when they saw the Lord! Again, he said, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.” Then he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit…” (John 20:22)

Think about this for minute: Jesus gave the gift of the Holy Spirit to his disciples as they sat together on the evening of Easter Sunday, just hours after he had risen. The disciples didn’t do anything to earn this treasured gift. Jesus didn’t require them to perform a certain number of good deeds or even believe a certain doctrine. He didn’t even require that they profess their faith to him.

In fact, this very moment came on the heels of their betrayal of Jesus, just three days after they’d abandoned him to the Romans and allowed him to die on the cross.

But none of that mattered to Jesus. He didn’t hold it against them. Jesus simply offered his disciples peace, twice, signifying that he forgave them, and then breathed the essence of himself in the form of the Holy Spirit into them, no questions asked, no strings attached.

You know what’s even more amazing about this story? Jesus does the same for each one of us.

We all make mistakes. We all sin. We all separate ourselves from God through our thoughts, actions and words. Jesus knows this about us, and He loves us anyway – fully, completely and unconditionally.

We don’t have to jump through any hoops, prove ourselves to God, perform a certain number of good deeds, follow a certain set of laws or rules – we get the gift. Period. In spite of our past and even our present flaws, we get the gift of the Holy Spirit, no questions asked, no strings attached. Knowing full-well we will flounder and flail and fall, Jesus trusts us anyway. He trusts us with this most exquisite gift: himself.

Dear God, I am humbled by your generosity and your infinite grace. You know my flaws. You know my sins. Yet you lavish the ultimate gift on me, day after day after day. Thank you for trusting me with the most precious gift of all, the gift of the Holy Spirit in me, a gift I don’t deserve but still receive. Amen.

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Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: Different Doesn’t Mean Wrong

February 24, 2014 By Michelle

A black and white photograph of my maternal grandparents hangs on the wall in my parents’ living room. In the picture my grandfather stands handsome in pin-stripes, a white corsage pinned to his lapel. In front of him, their shoulders barely touching, is my grandmother. Her floral hat is angled just so, her porcelain skin framed by a spray of ribbons and gladiola across the shoulder of her suit.

It’s their wedding portrait, but there’s no tuxedo, no white dress, no lace-trimmed veil. On the day they married, my maternal grandparents didn’t walk down a church aisle or stand before a congregation of friends and loved ones. Instead, they were married in the rectory adjacent to the church. My grandfather, born Baptist, was not permitted to marry my grandmother, a Roman Catholic, inside the church.

I used to sit in the blue chair in my parents’ living and stare at that wedding portrait of my grandparents. Truthfully, it made me sad. I mourned the fact that my grandmother hadn’t been allowed the kind of wedding most girls dream about. I mourned that my grandfather, one of the most faithful men I ever knew, had been barred from marrying the girl he loved in a proper church wedding.

For a long time I railed against what I perceived as the Catholic Church’s intolerance of other denominations. When, after many years of unbelief, I returned to faith and religion as a Protestant, I naively assumed my new religion was free of division and divisiveness. Turns out, I was so blinded by my new love for God; I couldn’t see that some Protestants drew their own lines, with Catholics, and others, on the other side. I was disappointed. It was a different “enemy,” but the same old dividing lines.

“If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink,” Jesus told the crowd gathered in the Temple on the last day of the Feast of the Tabernacles. “Rivers of living water will brim and spill out of the depths of anyone who believes in me this way, just as the Scripture says.” (John 7:37-39)

Like Brad observed last week, Jesus chooses the most basic, elemental symbols to make his case: hunger and thirst; bread and water. Water comprises 70 percent of the Earth and about 57 percent of the human body. It is the most basic, but also the most fundamental component to our survival. We all thirst, every last one of us. Jesus chooses the symbol of water for this very reason – because he extends the invitation to everyone.

I love how Jesus always cuts straight to the chase. It’s simple, isn’t it? If you thirst, you are welcome. If you thirst, you’re in.

Yet it’s easy to forget this, isn’t it? It’s easy to forget that Jesus wasn’t about doctrine and creeds, rules and regulations. He simply opened the door and offered the invitation. To everyone.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t advocate that we all adopt a milk-toast, one-size-fits-all religion. I value and appreciate the differences unique to our denominations. I love how we all have a slightly different take on the body and the blood, the bread and wine, the sacraments and the rituals and the prayers and the creeds.

Maybe I’m naive, maybe I’m simplistic, but I believe we can celebrate these differences without deeming one or the other wrong. I believe we can find a way to embrace and appreciate doctrine without allowing it to trump Jesus.

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Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: The Bread of Life

February 17, 2014 By Michelle

In a fit of panicked work overload, I asked Brad to write this week’s #HearItUseIt post, and he graciously agreed (with a little begging on my part!). Thanks, Bradster!

When I was about sixteen years old, a friend and I attended an event at a local non-denominational church. The event may have been a concert or a talk by a well-known athlete. I don’t recall. What I do remember is that it was all a bit of a set up.

At some point, counselors came through the rows asking about the state of our souls. My designated evangelist chatted a bit before staring seriously at me and asking “Are you a Christian?” That kind of personal question was strange to me, but I knew this was one I could get right.

“Yeah, I’m a Lutheran,” I responded.

He looked at me and said, with just a touch of sadness in his voice, “I used to be a Lutheran before I became a Christian.”

He then turned to my friend and asked the same question, to which my friend responded, “I’m a Catholic.” The counselor had no response, suggesting that my popish friend might require intervention beyond mere evangelism.

It’s a real temptation to feel like we have all the answers, to think that the ones in some other group are a bit naive or downright wrong. After all, when Jesus describes himself as the bread of life, he uses some exclusive sounding language. In verse 44 he says that “no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws them to me” (NLT). This seems to suggest that God selects some to be brought to Jesus, while others are, by implication, rejected before they get a shot.

Fortunately, the central metaphor of the story is bread — “Anyone who eats this bread will not die . . . ” (v. 58, NLT) If God offers Jesus as the bread of life, he brings people to that bread through hunger. It’s hard to imagine a more universal image since we are all programmed to get hungry and thirsty, just as we are all programmed to seek meaning in our lives.

Jesus did not proclaim, “I am the obscure password of life. If you can produce the secret knock, the door shall be opened to you.” Instead, he offers himself as the most basic fulfillment of the most basic need.

Questions for Reflection:
Have you ever felt spiritually excluded? How can we be welcoming of people who hold different beliefs while still remaining true to our own?

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