Asleep at the Foot of a Feast

I just don’t understand how you can miss it. When I make my way through the Bible, I find a gripping and wonderous world to explore. I find mysteries and adventures of the spirit around every corner. I read things that reverberate with a depth that tells me that we have yet to discover the really good stuff, those inexhaustible riches in Christ. I walk through the New Testament and catch a fragrance of something exotic and beautiful waiting to be encountered by the Church today. But when I talk with most other believers I sense that they are asleep at the very foot of this enormous feast. When I listen to them tell their stories and express their desires I realize that they don’t even know that there’s more out there. They all seem preoccupied with a handful of tasks that demand unrivalled attention. I want to shout at the top of my lungs so they can understand how much they are missing, but whenever I begin I meet with either cold stares or suspicious looks.

Frankly, I am amazed that we are even reading the same New Testament. I see Jesus walking through a crowd of people entrenched in ritual and tradition. Then I watch as he tears into things that they hold sacred in order to prove to them that God cannot be thus reduced to repetitive ceremonies and maxims. I stare in amazement at his boldness in obliterating everyone’s conceptions of what God is like, often giving illustration by breaking their most carefully observed rules. This is the Man that we follow. Yet somehow we end up acting more like the ones he came to disturb in the first place. The majority of Christians that I know are scared to death to do anything differently from “the way things have always been done.” Any suggestion that there may be more for us to discover in the Lord brings remarks of suspicion and scorn from those whose hearts are meant to know these things intimately. I find this experience painful and discouraging sometimes.

Do you realize that our faith is geared towards inner things rather than outward things? Did you know that the Christian life cannot be reduced to a collection of correct behaviors or practices? Most of the Christians I speak with on a regular basis are significantly preoccupied with executing a mental list of things they feel that they must do or else God will not approve of them. They go to church at all the appropriate times (as if there is such a thing) even though I don’t think they like it all that much. They dutifully sit and listen to someone teaching them the same things that they have heard for perhaps decades of their lives, and they are convinced that this is simply the way it should be. They pray on numerous occasions during the week, but always with the same words over the same things, and none of what they say indicates any awareness of the deeper things in Christ that I am bursting to communicate.

God has given us a gospel that is truly good news! He was not content to dwell in heaven apart from us, but intended from the very beginning to dwell within His people. Everything He did for His people throughout the history of Israel was to illustrate this for us. The garden, the promised land, the tabernacle, the ark . . . all of these things were pictures of God’s intent to dwell among His people in the most intimate way. But they never understood it either. When Jesus came to them and announced that the way of the Spirit was an inner way, a life filled with mysterious wonders, they branded him a crazy man (or even worse, a heretic). He told them that the presence of his Father within him meant that even the words that he spoke to them were not his own words, but the very words of his Father. That was just too much for them to hear, so they had to kill him. His very own people did not recognize him and so they took it upon themselves to dispose of him as quickly as possible. It was their duty to God.

I sometimes feel that not much has changed along these lines. When you share with God’s people that Christ is in you, that his very nature has become yours and that his very life and righteousness has come to dwell within you, you are met with looks of incredulity and fear. If you don’t believe me, then try telling a group of Christians that they have been made as righteous as Jesus Christ, and that when they approach God they need not worry that God has something against them. Or try suggesting to them that when they pray to God they don’t need to talk to Him with the formalities to which they have become so accustomed (“Our most gracious and heavenly Father, we just want to ask you to be with us today . . .”). Try telling them that their relationship with Him cannot and should not be reduced to such rigid meeting times and places (“Should we worship on this mountain or that one ?”). Perhaps worst of all, I dare you to tell them that evangelism is not the reason for our existence, the reason for creation. Dare you even believe that yourself? What, in fact, would Christians do if that one central tenet were taken from them? I scarcely can guess; but I would hope that they would discover that knowing Christ as their all in all was the original purpose for their existence, not some secondary tasks or acts of service for him.

In the meantime I remain amazed and bewildered at the lack of interest in these things among most Christians with whom I have contact. They just have too many more pressing things to worry about, like high attendance Sunday, or figuring their pledge for supporting the next year’s budget with their tithe, or staying on top of the busy schedule that the church has provided them for their nights and weekends. We are worried and bothered about so many things, but I am sure that only one thing really matters. Do you know what that is?