Is Christian life just a different list of required activities than a non-Christian life, but with the same feeling of chores and fatigue? Not at all. It's about a relationship, a friendship with Jesus Christ that deepens as we go through the years together, and about how he comes in and changes our thinking, then our words and actions too. Christian discipleship is a relationship of being filled with Jesus through the Holy Spirit living in us - not information, but transformation. And like any love relationship, our energy and joy come not from chores but from knowing and being known, from loving and being loved! That is true not only from God to each of us, but from each of us to one another in the church, the Body of Christ.
I've been reviewing a marvelous talk given by Laurie Green, a Church of England cleric. He reminds us that the Trinity is an eternal "dance" of giving and receiving between Father, Son and Spirit. When Jesus was born to Mary and became one of us, God invited each of us, and all of us together, into that eternal dance. So the church, known as the Body of Christ, made up of all of us, is part of that dance too. Green says "we are invited to echo the intimacy of the Trinity in our lives. And to echo their intimacy in our Church."
Did you catch that? The church -- a local church, of whatever kind or size -- is beckoned into this dance of self-giving within the Trinity. She is invited, like a giggling schoolgirl, to learn the steps in the arms of the sure-footed dance instructor on whom she secretly, or not-so-secretly, has a crush. The 'steps' that we, the church, learn, are that community increases love, that giving increases what we receive, that leading is done by submitting to others. We learn that transparency creates deeper acceptance, that vulnerability leads to being included, and that being open is not a risk when we know we are completely loved. Those truths mirror the relationships in the Triune God, when Jesus says "the Father is in me and I am in the Father" in John 14:10-11.
As disciples of Jesus, we aren't solitary beings, but people in relationship with other people, brought together into relationship with the Father through Jesus by the personal invitation of the Holy Spirit. We have the joy of encouraging one another to dance more closely with Jesus, helping each other trust Jesus to control everything in our lives. We are blessed to be more open with each other as trusted companions in the dance, helping each other to see and hear and follow Jesus more fully as we dance, together, with him.
That's the life of a disciple of Jesus Christ. Not a list of chores, but a dance, together, of deepening intimacy and infinite beauty. Not information about Jesus, but transformation into Jesus, a quickstep or a waltz step or a slow step at a time. Do you hear the music?
Beautifully stated Mark!
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