Who Do You Say I Am?

A hard week in my current life took me away from the blog for a bit.  I don't want to let current stresses skew my backward glance.  I don't want my eyes to run over the page and my lips to mouth words that my mind isn't internalizing, so I set it aside.

I'm in a better place now.  I can return to my former scrawling with eyes that see  the words as both the seeds planted and as the growth that has come from them thus far.

January 15, 2005
Last night in the bathtub, I meant to relax reading a library book entitled, "The Life of Christ for Dummies."  Given the title, I figured it to be a relatively light read--good for a tub soak.  But as I began thumbing through the book and glancing through the appendices, I read about Christ's "Motley Crew" and found deeper thoughts begin to surface than I expected to pull from this book.

I read about Judas Iscariot in a new way.  He was described in terms that startled me:  not as the perpetual bad guy biding his time until he could finally put his diabolical scheme into effect, but rather as one zealous for the poor.  When he saw Jesus approving the squandering of expensive perfume on himself, Judas thought Jesus was abandoning His mission to care for the poor and was giving in to the temptation to become like the "corrupt religio-political leaders" that he'd previously condemned.  Judas gave Jesus over into the hands of those he felt Jesus was now trying to now emulate.  I've never looked at him this way!  It speaks to me about where I want to go to church.  We've visited around since we moved down here to the city, but haven't found that "place" where we're meant to go.  I've not really thought about how the "social doctrine" promoters of today can be just as bad as the religio-political power brokers are if they end up re-enacting this sort of modern-day Judas.  If we put care for the poor and needy--our social doctrine--in this life above our or their personal relationship with the Christ, if we supersede potentialities for the next life with compulsively relieving current stresses, then we will stay obtuse in sin.  When Jesus decides to do something that is larger than our social-doctrine minds can comprehend, then we balk and betray Him.
Judas betrayed His purpose; Peter betrayed His heart.  Interesting that Peter understood His purpose well enough to avail himself of forgiveness even though he had denied their relationship; while Judas was so preoccupied with Christ's earthly ministry that he utterly missed the eternal aspect, and when he failed on an earthly scale, he felt he had no recourse but suicide.  Ultimately, no  humanitarian inclinations will in their own virtue protect one from the road of death.

Now that I'm at the end of reading and recording it, I can see why You kept me from this one until today.  It was not just the sadness of the last few days.  Not just the distracted uneasiness.  For reasons I can't even begin to detail here, this post falling this weekend is a moment of deep ministry from my former self to my current one.  It is as if I knelt before the younger me and received a gentle hand on my old, graying head, heard a whispered blessing--a blessed reminder that things eternal trump things temporal...
every time...