Easter

Yield

Last Sunday at the Bridge around 9:30ish, after everything was ready, Gisy & Muriah were rehearsing, Mark was listening to his wife sing with hearts in his eyes, Donovan was dramatically overreacting to minor allergies, and no one else was there yet, I wrote this in my notebook:

“I wonder if the reason I have so little tolerance for pretense, acting, & hypocrisy is because the Truth is so much better? The Truth of who we actually are and that we are exactly where/who we are, that we are deeply, irrationally loved there, in that sometimes messy, sometimes ugly, sometimes painful, space. The Truth that we’ve been rescued.

See, the “show” is based in the belief that who we authentically are is somehow not enough, not accepted, not loved…that we are, first and foremost, NOT.

But instead, we ARE.

We don’t have to pretend any longer, we simply have to be us. We simply have to yield to His work, His grace, His love. Yield to Him, and that is all that is necessary, that is enough.

A need to create an image is a fundamental misunderstanding of who He is and what this story is (and how great that story really is.)

So when I see us hiding, masquerading, image-making, I actually see our empty parts, our missing parts, our misplaced belief in foundational NOT-ness

And Jesus has a different story, a different word.”

Then some people began to arrive and the thread was broken mid-sentence (here’s the sentence: The cross represents the old world and how far the empty ___ – I don’t know where I was going, I imagine the next word was ‘tomb,’ but I’m no longer sure.) I wanted to share it with you because we all so often struggle with our identity and our identity in Christ and how the 2 of them might not be the same. That disconnect causes us to contort ourselves into many unnatural positions, trying to be something we think we should be, or something we think they want us to be, or something whatever. Something else.

But it’s Easter, and what the cross represents is just how far Jesus would go to show & tell us who we are, show & tell us what we’re worth, most importantly show & tell us WHO HE IS and that all this pretending/hiding or how many shows we put on doesn’t change that at all. Maybe I wrote it then and maybe I’m writing it now is not because we didn’t know, but just because we need to hear it again.

The Nineties

I just finished a book called The Nineties, written by one of my favorite authors Chuck Klosterman. He mostly feels like a smarter, sharper, funnier version of me, which is a great compliment to me, but maybe not as much to him. The book is about, well, The Nineties, a decade that has been so important in shaping much of who I am, the extent of which I am still discovering. It’s a perfect, and horrible, time to read this, as I am sometimes given to nostalgia. You know the type, the “things were better when I was young” – type of thing. Even if they weren’t. Even if they weren’t even close. So, maybe they weren’t better, but simpler for sure. And with much better music.

Personally, no day has been better than today. I’d trade all the great music of the ‘90’s (including Nirvana) for 5 minutes with the Angel and the 2 boys that live in this house (one of whom is now 15 years old!!!!!).

But the last 2 years have certainly been heavy, and it is absolutely understandable to want for a simpler time, one where we weren’t quite so divided and full of rage about that division.

Klosterman points to the 2000 election debacle and 9/11 as the 2 moments that birthed our current situation, where we started to break into pieces and everything became an increasingly either/or situation. You either agree with me OR you are a heartless, ignorant monster. There are no shades of gray, no in between.

We could talk about that – and I am happy to do so, commentary on culture is one of my favorite things to discuss – but what I’m thinking and why I’m writing about it here (and not on my other space) is because this makes me think about church.

Maybe the things that tied us together ever were pretty fragile. Maybe great music and tv shows and area codes and cubicles were always too superficial to last, like ropes tied to cracked branches.

When the 1990’s began, I believed there was nothing more important than what you liked.

A funny story: When I first went to the Angel’s apartment to pick her up for our first date, I not-so-discretely perused her cd collection. It was totally acceptable, a solid B, the only problem is that it WASN’T HERS!!! I’d find out later that it was her roommate’s! Angel’s were in a small plastic case in a chest at the foot of her bed and the small collection was…just awful.

So, when that happened, in 1998, the flaws in my theory became seriously evident and could no longer be ignored. There had to be something more to bind us, all of us, together.

Also in 1998, I began to fall in love with Something More, and as Jesus became more and more real to me, other things got less and less important. As He got bigger, my theory got much smaller. As He grew, politics shrank.

I miss the ‘90’s. I miss when small disagreements weren’t dealbreakers. I miss when we could coexist. Of course, maybe the ‘90’s weren’t this idealized pastel colored picture in my head, but that doesn’t really matter, does it? I miss this memory (even if it is slightly distorted), because it can feel so disjointed and broken now.

The other part of this is that this weekend is Easter. What I remember about the ‘90’s is true in Him, in His Church. We can be different, individually wonderfully made, think different things, vote for different people, listen to different music, like different flavors of ice cream, but if He, if His life, death, resurrection is the tie that’s holding us together, then those differences are just colors and textures that are beautiful decorations on the truth of an empty tomb.

Good Grief

Today is Good Friday, everybody’s home from school and work, and except for the water in the many fish tanks, it is quiet. I’m reading a book by a Lutheran pastor whose first book is called Pastrix (probably the best title I have ever seen) and watching episodes of Wandavision on Disney+.

Today is Good Friday. What does that mean, in 2021, in the United States of America, in my heart, here, now?

During funerals I talk mostly about grief. Sometimes followers of Jesus can run away from grief, choosing instead to focus on bumper sticker theological cliches and shiny Bible verses. This is not usually helpful. Usually it makes us feel like bad Christians because we just feel sad or angry or lost or resentful or bitter, or probably more likely, make those ‘or’s ‘and’s and that’s closer to the truth.

Wandavision is a remarkably deep tv series about soul-crushing grief and superheroes. The title character Wanda is squashed under the weight of immeasurable pain. The expectations, hopes, dreams she had, what her life would look like, what it was supposed to be, died with Vision. Now what? Good Friday asks us the same question. The One we waited for, what He would look like, what He would do, what this was supposed to be, was dead on a cross. Now what? What do we do with this question, with all of the questions? We still have questions in a life of faith, but what do we do with them? Can I feel this pain AND still hope? Can we celebrate in this flood of tears? How much can a heart break?

Vision asks Wanda, “Well, it can’t all be sorrow, can it?” he says. “I’ve always been alone, so I don’t feel the lack. It’s all I’ve ever known. I’ve never experienced loss because I have never had a loved one to lose. But what is grief, if not love persevering?”

And Nadia Bolz-Weber, the Pastrix, writes, “What I know for sure is that God is always present in love and in suffering.”

I don’t think the question is can we feel pain and hope, or can love and suffering coexist, or can loss and peace hold hands and dance in harmony?

Maybe a better one is, how can they not?

You see, in an authentic full life, we feel all of those things swirling and taking turns with the lead (well, sometimes they don’t take turns and all gush out in a mad dash for the door). This is totally natural. What isn’t natural is the impulse towards shame because we shouldn’t feel some of those things.

The bottomless well of loss in Good Friday hurts like crazy. But loss isn’t the only thing in that well. It’s overflowing with all sorts of company that we are blessed enough to see from here, from Easter Sunday. Loss, confusion, frustration, resurrection, redemption, forgiveness, salvation, ache, separation, reconciliation, all bound together by nothing less than the greatest of all, the amazing undeniable love of Jesus. So, what’s today? It’s a wonderful sadness, a holy sacrifice, a broken hallelujah. It’s a really good grief.