Muse

Salt Church, we celebrate the Advent of Jesus—two millennia ago, the Great I Am truly arrived on planet Earth and changed the game. Now, If we lavishly “celebrate” his arrival, what does that presuppose? That we love Him! Love for Jesus is the natural prerequisite that the entire holiday hinges on. So in John 14, when Jesus begins to say “if you love me…” we would be hypocritically celebrating Christmas if we did not attend to his wish: “...keep my commands.” Dang. We cannot properly celebrate Christmas if we do not obey Christ—this is our great gift to Him this season and the acid test of our devotion! The simplest distillation of “keeping his commands” is to simply do whatever he did (minus walking on water and the like). In light of this, we must soberly understand the following: having the capacity to become like Jesus (achieved through the gift of the Spirit) does not mean that strength, wisdom, and maturity automatically flood our beings. As an athlete trains or a scholar studies, so must the children of God concentrate, fine tune, and discipline themselves to become like their Master. We watch Him, mirror Him, become like Him, love Him, and then naturally begin to keep the commands: this is the gift/sacrifice that rightly celebrates his arrival. Instead of lecturing out all of the commands in the Bible, I think we’d best focus on how Jesus lived, and trust that right living will flow from his methods. John 15 documents Jesus’ simple plan for our holistic transformation: “remain in me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me.” In our last moments together, let’s look at Jesus’ classic joint discipline of solitude and prayer in particular, one timely for the holidays. These rhythms aren’t inherently meritorious, but they function as some of the God-ordained means by which we obtain spiritual power and interact with Jesus. (Fortunately the advent of the Holy Spirit, a being now alive in us who acts as the channel between Jesus and his followers, enables us to legitimately share the mind, heart, power, and joy of Jesus Himself. Seriously though: Jesus calls Himself the “Truth.” Then the Holy Spirit is called the “spirit of Truth.” And then we have the spirit! We are all sharing DNA here!) Let our gift to Him be a humble imitation of his legacy—the commands will begin to take care of themselves. And may we keep this truth uppermost in our thoughts: Jesus does not need our “gifts.” He commands us to do only what is best for us. He yearns, truly, for us to “come away with him.” Are you weary? Defeated? Walk with him and learn the supreme way—the “light burden.” That is all he requires. Our gift to him is a gift to ourselves.

Withdraw…

I think I would spew heresy by claiming Jesus to be introverted or extroverted, but this much is certain: the man knew how to flee the scene. Before he went public with the kingdom ministry, Jesus solo-fasted in the desert for 40 days (Matt. 4). Before Jesus chose his apostles, he spent a lonely night praying in the hills (Luke 6). After his “showstopper” miracle of creating bread and fish out of thin air, he hiked back into the hills, quite alone (Matt. 14). When the Apostles, fresh off of their first ministerial duties, returned to Jesus, he said “come away by yourselves to a lonely place” (Mark 6). If he really is our teacher—our “rabbi”—then we logically must withdraw too! Theologian Wizard Dallas Willard muses on this too, explaining that “silence is frightening… it strips us as nothing else does, throwing us upon the stark realities of our life.” In solitude and prayer, we face reality, no longer able to hide in noise, busyness, or other people. Contemplative Richard Foster notes that “human beings seem to have a perpetual tendency to have somebody else talk to God for them… such an approach saves us from the need to change, for to be in the presence of God is to change.” Salt Church, we in Christ are called “priests.” High priests were the ones, by definition, who encountered God full-on—no intermediary! Now that the veil has torn in two, Christ invites each person to become the site of divine revelation and activity—high priests and priestesses. Simple and mysterious as prayer is, let C.S Lewis encourage all of us novices in the endeavor: “we must lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us.” Let’s start there this holiday. Prayer is only boring when it is a charade. Be honest with God. Dream with God. Plead with God. Wrestle in prayer, and know that it is a journey. But understand this, “to pray is to change. Prayer is the central avenue that God uses to change us” (Foster). In short, pull away like your teacher this season, and begin talking (or blubbering!) to Him who lovingly commands it of you. Wait and see if the Spirit does not change you into someone more like Jesus as you “remain in Him,” and do what you see Him doing.

Return…

In the wilderness, then, Jesus gained strength through communion with his Father and returned to civilization to pour that energy into bone-dry hearts. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Martin Luther understood this “fill-up-pour-out” connection, deeming it critical to pray three hours before his “busiest” work days. The natural world echoes the spiritual one, too: growing kids simply need more meat and potatoes to grow and play! As with prayer and food, both terminate in doing something. The world will not change if you and I “flee the scene” forever. As the mystics of old had it, “we leave the world so as to heal the world.” Our main aim, though, is to “bear the beams of God’s love,”—often realized through solitude and prayer— and then, like Moses, to confront the world with a face ablaze with the brilliance of God; the world must remain our end destination— “your kingdom come” actualized (Matt. 6). As Willaim Penn spins it, “true godliness does not turn men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it and excites their endeavors to mend it.” When Jesus meets with us via our shared spirit, our hearts become more like his, right? Alright, then this is going to look like something. As some say, Christianity is more a “sport” than anything! We are to love in “action and truth” (1 John 3:18). To remain in Jesus is to hike away from the crowd to refuel, like Him. It is to get on our knees to serve, like Him. It is to speak the truth in love, like Him. It is to recline and eat with sinners, like Him. It is to unswervingly give praise and gratitude to the Father, like Him. We are aiming to get Jesus’ attitude and conduct into our muscle memory. We outpour the spiritual strength we have gained into others, for community is Jesus’ “school of love” (John Mark Comer), and “loving others” is the end-all command (John 13:34-5), as well as the one reality that continues into eternity (1 Corinthians 13:13).

Reflection…

One straight shooter, Flora Wuellner, laments that “the church has become an organization of well-meaning idealists, working for Christ but far from his presence and power.” Ouch. Salt Church, are we changing into people who look, act, speak, and live like the citizens of Heaven that we are? And if not, what are we to do? I hope this Christmas Eve article has encouraged us all to not only celebrate the coming of Christ, but the legacy he leaves us—how to “live the good life.” May our gift to Him this Christmas be the obedience of “remaining in his love,” like prayerful retreating, and, by extension, keeping his commands.

• How are you “remaining” in Christ? What of Jesus’ conduct do you replicate? What do you overlook?
  
• When is it easiest and hardest for you to draw away to pray? Why? Really examine the data and your tendencies! (“Carnal momentum” is a term I use for when it’s a wrench to pull away from the group/entertainment because I am so deep in my own peevishness and comforts!)
  
• How are your actions helping to heal the world and bring Heaven to Earth?
  

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Prayer

Time to practice! Go, and be with your Maker. “Draw near to God and he will draw near to you” (James 4).

Tip: Apprenticing under Jesus is a journey, like we said. If you feel aimless, here’s a first step for solitude and prayer: go outside, and walk one mile. Begin your walk in thanksgiving. You tread on God’s Earth, and all that you see and experience is a gift. Remember what he has done for you. Move into a time of expressing the grief of your sin or the darkness of the world. Bring your human desperation to Him; He can handle it. Ask him to fundamentally change you. (I routinely ask God to enable me to care at all about others. Yikes. But he can work with it if we will only give it to Him!) Finally, dream with the Dreamor. What do you want? What do you need? What does your family or community desire? Put your heart into it. He can always say no, and he often—lovingly—does! It’s borderline nihilistic to believe that our prayers do not change anything. Pray on the one-mile walk like the Creator himself strolls at your side, and he has just asked you the electric question: “What do you want me to do for you?” (Mark 10:51)