[Pearls Ep 164: Bringing Sunday into the week.]
We hope you had an experience of God’s blessing this weekend (and trust that it was there, in any event).
On Friday we looked at this from St. John Chrysostom:
“Jesus shows that He needed no other to help Him, if so be that He Himself is the Life; since if He needed another, how could He be the Resurrection and the Life? Yet He did not plainly state this, but merely hinted it. But when Martha says again, ‘Whatsoever you ask of God, God will give You,’ He replies, ‘He that believes in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.’ Showing that He is the Giver of good things, and that we must ask of Him.”
St. John is telling us that we need to turn to Christ and the power of the Resurrection in all our needs.
And beyond that, not only is Christ the giver of all good things, just as He is the resurrection, He is all good things.
This is what we’ve been witnessing throughout Lent.
Two weeks ago, Jesus says that I AM the Living Water.
And last week, just before Jesus restores sight to the blind man, He says, I AM the light of the world.
This is the foundation of taking our wounds and trials and sufferings – the parts of our life where we feel stuck, or hopeless, or “dead” – and placing them “in the tomb” for Jesus to resurrect.
If we’re struggling with pride, we place that in the tomb. How? By meditating with this scripture passage and imagining locking away the times that we have been prideful, or that prideful part of ourself, in the tomb. And then we beg Jesus to resurrect that part of us. And we hear Jesus say I AM the humility you need.
And the same if we’re struggling with anger. We place that in the tomb. And then we hear Jesus say I AM the meekness you need.
If we’re struggling with forgiveness. We place that in the tomb. And then we hear Jesus say I AM the forgiveness.
If we’re struggling with envy. We place that in the tomb. And then we hear Jesus say I AM all that you need.
And so on.
What if we know something is wrong, but we can’t put our finger on exactly what it is? We just place ourself in the tomb and call on Jesus who knows exactly what we need and who says, I AM who knit you in your mother’s womb.
If we do this repeatedly and with great trust, over time, Jesus will reveal to us how He is resurrecting that part of our life. Perhaps we might see changes in our behavior. Perhaps Jesus will place the right person in our path to help us.
He can do all things.
All we need do is simply ask, trust, watch and then respond.
And it isn’t only our issues that we should bring to Christ for resurrection. We can use this form of prayer as a beautiful and powerful way to intercede for others.
Lenten blessings –
Steve
Steve and Karen Smith
Interior Life