Faith Venture

Someone will come to prepare the paths for the way of the Lord. John came preaching repentance and the forgiveness of sins.

The people in the area had suddenly experienced a hunger in their souls. When that hunger strikes, actually it’s less “strikes” than a growing feeling of discomfort. The feeling that something is missing. Participation in religious ritual is supposed to take care of that. You bring the sacrificial offering on the Day of Atonement when the High Priest performs a ritual and declares the sins of the entire people forgiven for the past year.

But somehow that impersonal ritual isn’t quite cutting it anymore. You need more. It’s the feeling a friend expressed once when I noted that his tradition says “for ever and ever” at the end of the Lord’s Prayer instead of just “forever” like mine. “We need a little more assurance,” he told me. Such was the feeling among a significant portion of the population in the nation.

So John said, “You take responsibility for your sins, you take responsibility for recognizing your actions and you take responsibility for talking to God about them and you take responsibility for asking the Lord directly for forgiveness.” It’s between you and God. First you have to take an honest look at yourself. That’s a difficult step. Most  of us can look in a mirror and see what we think is ourself, not what we really look like. But telling someone else about our failings is an even more difficult step. Then to publicly acknowledge that through a public, yet personal, ritual of baptism–the level of difficulty keeps growing.

But in the end–that hunger, that disquieting feeling of something missing all goes away. You can find peace, joy, focus.

For the priest profession, though, that process had to be threatening. “How will we make a living?” they must have thought. “And what about our status in the community if no one needs our services? We should all know about those feelings. We’re just ending a period of economic disruption where many people and companies are thinking the same thing. Be understanding, it’s a human reaction. But the priests needed to take personal responsibility, too. In just 70 years, they were out of a job anyway thanks to the Romans.

In the space of three years, forces were unleashed that changed the world forever. It started with a call to people to take personal responsibility for their thoughts and actions, to acknowledge where they needed to grow, and to ask God to walk with them. It started with a weird guy in the wilderness calling them.

I was teaching on this theme of life-giving water, or the river of life in Revelation, and thinking of approaching the picture in prayer. In one of the traditions (or maybe more than one) of prayer and meditation I’ve practiced, the teachers discourage images or thinking in pictures. I disagree. I’ve found it very helpful to read a story and meditate by putting myself in that picture. My trips to Israel have been very helpful in that regard now seeing the actual places (albeit changed from thousands of years ago, I’m sure).

So, do you pray by thinking of yourself and the things you are demanding God to do for you? Or do you set aside time to see what God’s demanding of you? In terms of this image of drinking life-giving water, I’ve found it a good way to do the latter. Meditate on being filled with the water that gives life. That’ll open you to listening to what God wants for you.

A preacher talking on leadership suggested listening to what the people are praying for. If they are always petitioning things for themselves or the usual list of sick people but are not asking God to help them talk to someone about God or find their ministry, then your church may have a problem.

He’s right. Open yourself up to God, then help others do the same. It’ll change your church–and you.

I’m in the midst of teaching my group from the book of Revelation. This is one of the most misunderstood books in the entire Bible. I’m sure that some of the class is not happy that I have yet to broach tribulation and rapture–but those aren’t in the book. Hal Lindsey in some books popular in the 70s tried to tie it in, but he never convinced me (when I read his books with the scriptural text open beside his book).

Every time you study a familiar book, you discover new ideas and truths that just never occurred to you before. With this reading something struck me very hard–decision. You will make a decision (whether you meant to or not). You will have to live with that decision. You will have to answer to God about that decision. God will show you the consequences of your decision (especially if it’s the wrong one). The amazing thing is that at least twice (I didn’t go back and count) in the vision, people who chose wrongly did not repent and change direction but indeed continued to sin. Then they were punished.

Do you know people like that? Are you like that? Say you’re faced with overwhelming evidence that your lifestyle is killing you, are you willing to change? Is your relationship at rock bottom, but you’re not willing to change? Is your relationship with God nonexistent? Are you willing to change your life and say, “Yes, God, I want to live my life with You”?

This is the season of Lent. A time of reflection of the meaning of Jesus’ life, death and life again. As the writer of Hebrews says, Jesus is the pioneer of our faith. The pioneer goes first and shows the way. All we have to do is change our life–every day of our life–and live with God just like Jesus did. Something to ponder during Lent. I will.