There is for me.

It came around just before this last Christmas season. I won’t say it snuck up on me, exactly, I mean, I saw it coming. But all the same it walloped me. Again.

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1:14

The Word became flesh. And dwelt among us.

The Word. The Second Personal Expression of God. The One through Whom all things were made. Wonderful Counselor. Son of Man coming on the clouds of Heaven. Messiah. Christ. Jesus of Nazareth. God with our skin and our bones and our muscles and our feelings.

Among us. Here. Not on my street, exactly, not even on a street like mine. But still here, walking and eating and enjoying cool breezy days and sweating when it was hot.

Listening and talking and telling stories and learning peoples’ names and generally acting like you and I might act in a similar situation.

It still grips me when I think about it, it seizes my imagination.

Full of Grace and Truth.

Grace. Mercy. Steadfast love. That conviction deposited deeply in a soul that whispers no matter what you’ve done, no matter how weak or limited or stupid or stubborn you are, you are truly loved. No matter what, you belong.

Truth. Things do matter. There is a better way and another way that is not better but worse, maybe much worse. Truth about God and us and the way the world works and doesn’t work and was meant to work and might work again.

Truth often causes us pain; but Grace helps us not waste it.

I recently told a group of therapists and ministry leaders, Jesus loves us as we are but never leaves us where we are.

I said that and then the Christmas season came and my wife set up the manger scene in my study and I was looking at it one night.

And the force of it hit me all over again. Word. Flesh. Us. Grace. Truth.

Who is this Creator that knows all of us, hears all of us, holds all life in his hands, continues all life by the force of his being and the breath of his mouth, who—while continuing to do all that—actually inhabited our limited space for a time—just exactly the way we inhabit it?

If he went to such extravagant lengths to reach us, why do we hold anything back from him?

This is the fifth of five blog posts exploring the question “what is the Gospel?”  Not meant to be an exhaustive study, just a relevant one, we’ve looked at a number of New Testament passages. 

It might be useful, in thinking about the Gospel, to ask what is it for, or what it is the Gospel is meant to achieve amidst humanity.  Is the purpose of the Gospel to save people from judgment and separation from their Creator?  Or is the function of the Gospel to affect people as they live, changing them into the beings they were originally designed to be?  While both are true, the Gospel entails much more than these two pillars.

In the first post of this series, we looked at a passage St. Paul wrote to the churches of Asia Minor (Galatians) in which he recounted a discussion he’d had with the Jerusalem leaders of the church over the very nature of the Gospel.  As he argued with the Galatian followers about the absolute sufficiency of the Gospel, and of the dangers of diluting or distorting it, the crescendo of his Gospel theology climbed until he reached this ringing climax of ultimate personal identification with the Gospel of Jesus:

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)

In discovering Christ, in coming to spiritual life in Christ, Paul has discovered this eternal truth:  none of us is truly alive until we are in Christ.  It is in Christ, the eternal Word, the physical embodiment of the Breath of God, it is in this Christ that for us life itself exists.

Some of us might look at this take on the Gospel as quite exclusive (unless one is in Christ, they’re not really able to have the life their Creator intended them to have).   Others, like myself, see it as highly invitational (given the cruel limitations of our human tendencies towards ignorance and stubbornness, God has not left us to our own devices; rather God in his mercy seeks to free each of us from a sentence of half-living in the shadows, for a far better life of abundantly rich living in the light). 

However we see it, there are several common errors many of us make in how we treat the Gospel.  The first two we’ve touched on before.

Some of us are glad to find the rich spiritual truths of the Gospel of Jesus, but see it primarily as a mission of opening our spiritual eyes to the truth of who God is and forgiving our sins. 

Others of us find a Gospel that addresses the injustices of this fallen world, so we focus on the social aspects of the Gospel, such as feeding the poor and alleviating the burdens of those who suffer injustice and other deprivations.  Thankfully, these are elements of the Gospel, but still insufficient to a fair treatment of it.

Many more of us, though, make a third and really significant error in our approach to the Gospel.  We think of it as exclusively Christ’s mission and not ours.  We are grateful recipients rather than fully engaged participants.  But the reality is that the Gospel makes no distinction between believers and disciples.  We’ve stumbled into a false dichotomy, one of “accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior” and then deciding—if we ever decide—how serious we want to be about becoming an earnest disciple. 

In the NT understanding of the Gospel, believing in Jesus, embracing the Gospel, incrementally growing as a disciple, experiencing life-change, being sanctified (made more and more like Jesus) are all one continuum.  Disciples are students who learn the teachings and lifestyle of their teacher.  They are mastered by their master. 

We’ve tolerated an egregious compartmentalization of the Gospel of Jesus in American Christianity.  We’ve put a separation between belief and behavior where the spirit of the Gospel never intended one.

So what is the Gospel for?  Think about what St. Paul said in Galatians 2:20.  It’s to bring us into full life, that life begins now and continues on and on and on.  Consider two things Jesus said, that we must be born again—life starts in a new way (John 3:3), and that he came to bring us life, abundant life (John 10:10).

The purpose of the Gospel is to re-connect us with our Creator, with our fellow creatures and with the creation in which we find ourselves.  The definition of religion is to connect torn ligatures, to “re-ligature.”  The Gospel re-establishes our relationship with God and with others. 

Jesus teaches that because of his Gospel we may now live in an ongoing, conscious relationship with him and his Father.  “Abide in me, and I in you.”  (John 15:4)  James speaks to our reconnection with others as a part of our faith.  “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this:  to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”  (James 2:27)

We began this exploration of what is the Gospel with the Apostle Paul’s word to the Corinthian Christians that they should examine themselves to see if they were in the faith.  We looked at the strong stand he took in the first Jerusalem Council (Acts 15) during which St. Paul fought for the truth of the Gospel, that it might be preserved. 

                                                                                                                                                                                      To Timothy, one of his own disciples and colleagues in ministry, Paul wrote, “Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.  By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.”  (2 Timothy 1:13-14)

So each of us needs to ask ourselves if we are continuing to pay close attention to the “sound words” of the Gospel, living in the faith and love of Jesus, and with the help of his Spirit, keeping conscious appreciation of the “good deposit”—that is the treasure of the Gospel.

Not exhaustively, but thoughtfully, we’ve identified these as some of the elements of the Gospel of Jesus:

• Christ—the Jewish Messiah, the promised deliverer, the prophet of whom Moses spoke—died
• His death was for the sins of those who believe in him
• His death was according to what had been prophesied
• He was buried
• He was raised on the third day
• He appeared to his chosen followers
• The effect of his death for those who believe in him is that they are justified in the eyes of God
• This justification is a gift
• He accomplishes this justification by purchasing our freedom-redeeming those who believe in him
• He reconciles us to God-removing the enmity that exists between sinful humans and the Holy God
• The Gospel gives us power to have spiritual sight instead of being spiritually blind
• The Gospel empowers us to turn from darkness to light
• The Gospel gives us the ability to turn from the power of Satan to God
• The Gospel gives us a place among those who belong to God
• The Gospel changes us-sanctifies us, makes us “other” than we have been, makes us holy
• Christ shares our flesh and blood, so that through his death he destroys the one who has the power of death, Satan
• We are delivered from the fear of death
• As he lives forever, Christ is able to save fully those who come to God through him
• In the mystery of how the Trinity functions within Itself, Jesus’ ministry as our high priest means he continually makes intercession for those who are his
• Christ offered his sacrifice of blood through the Holy Spirit
• His sacrifice purifies us of a conscience of guilt and uselessness so that we can serve the true God
• Jesus will come again, not to deal with our sins, but to save those eagerly waiting for him
• As Jesus shares our human nature, he is not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters
• Jesus modeled for us how to handle opposition and suffering, and how to trust the Father in heaven with our well-being
• Christ has healed us with his own wounds, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness
• The Gospel is good news for all who are poor, that is, economically depressed, broken-hearted, spiritually distressed, empty, deprived
• The effect of the Gospel in this disordered realm is to bring real freedom to all who are captive to the will of others, so that they may be free to live as their Creator desires they live
• The Gospel sometimes brings miraculous effects, healings such as recovery of sight to blind people, to demonstrate the power and intent of God to restore all of his children with the power to see things as they truly are and make wise life choices accordingly
• The Gospel causes those who are downcast, inwardly bruised and imposed with burdens in this life to find healing and freedom
• The Gospel of Jesus is the beginning fulfillment of God’s promise to establish an age of favor, deliverance and blessing for all his children 

It’s a remarkable list, thirty elements, and it’s not complete.  The Gospel is a multi-faceted jewel. 

And, again, why is it so important that we know the Gospel, continually review it, come back to it, think about it, apply it and marvel over its multiple facets?  Because the Gospel offers us life—full, unparalleled life. 

Again:  “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

And what is “living by faith in the Son of God” look like?  It means repeatedly, tirelessly bringing our thoughts and our minds, our hearts and our wills, our lives as we live them each bit at a time, into the spiritual presence of the risen Christ so that he can patiently help us re-form them, transform them.  Living by faith in the Son of God means incrementally learning how to think and act as he would if he were us.  It is the process of spiritual transformation. 

How well do we know the Gospel? 

How does the Gospel affect the way we live, the choices we make? 

Finally, how would our life, our outlook, our reality be different if there were no Gospel?

Inflame our hearts with love for You, O Christ our God, that loving You with all our heart, with all our mind, with all our soul, and with all our strength, and our neighbors as ourselves, we may obey Your commandments and glorify You, the Giver of all good things.  Amen.

Yes, we do.  The Gospel of Luke contains a story that gives us good insight into what Jesus thought was the thrust of his Gospel message.

In Luke 4:16-21 we read that when Jesus visited Nazareth, the town in which he grew up, he went to synagogue on the Sabbath as was his habit.  As a visiting rabbi, it was customary he be given the opportunity to read one of the scripture passages of the day and speak to the people.  He was handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, a very large scroll.  In our version of the book it’s divided into sixty-six chapters.  But in his day it was one long, undivided scroll.  He had to have known the text of Isaiah intimately to have turned the scroll to the passage he read.

Jesus turned to a passage in the part of Isaiah we know as chapter 61.  He read these verses:

   “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
                                because he has anointed me
                                to proclaim good news to the poor.
                He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
                                and recovering of sight to the blind,
                                to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
                to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

In the synagogue practice of Jesus’ day, the reader of the Scripture text stood to read.  The rabbi sat to instruct.  Luke says Jesus rolled up the scroll of Isaiah and handed it back to the synagogue attendant.  Then he sat down.  Everyone simply stared at him.  And then into their attentive silence Jesus spoke these thunderous words:  “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

It was an absolutely stunning declaration of both who he perceived himself to be, and the Gospel message he was sent to proclaim.

There are four elements in the passage Jesus read from Isaiah, and they give outline to his Gospel, or good news.

It was to the poor he was proclaiming good news.  What do we suppose Jesus meant by “the poor?”  Certainly the economically depressed constituted the poor for Jesus because he focused much of his ministry among and to them.  But we should also remember the phrase from the Sermon on the Mount in Mathew’s Gospel that the poor are also the “poor in spirit.”  For Jesus the poor are also those who are broken-hearted, spiritually distressed, those who are empty, or deprived.

To all these and more Jesus says his Gospel is an announcement that those who are hungry will not always be deprived.  In the economy of his Father the empty will be filled and their emptiness will be replaced by fullness.  To those who are broken-hearted they will be comforted and healed.  Those distressed spiritually will find encouragement and vision and lightness.

Jesus goes on to say that his mission is proclaiming liberty to the captives.    Some human beings are literally slaves to other humans.  One impact of the Gospel of Jesus is to free women and men so that they may live as their Creator desires, not as another person demands.  As the message of Jesus permeates this disordered realm, those who are captive will be freed.

Human captivity comes in a variety of forms, however.  The genuine spiritual seeker trying to live a good life increasingly realizes a difficult and cruel reality.  We are grossly limited by our very nature to be the people we earnestly desire to be.  So Jesus promises freedom also for those of us captive to unseen, but equally cruel, forces.

The Gospel of Jesus includes proclaiming the recovery of sight to the blind.   Miracles are recorded of Jesus restoring physical sight to blind persons, giving powerful demonstrati0n of the power of God in his Gospel.  But Jesus also made clear that a common affliction of humanity is spiritual blindness (John 9).  A physically blind person knows they cannot see and has to learn to accommodate that limitation.  But a spiritually blind person by very definition does not recognize their disability, and so lives a dangerous and precarious life.  They think they are perceiving life in all its physical and spiritual elements as it truly is and, therefore, making wise life choices accordingly.  But they are not perceiving spiritual reality accurately, because they cannot see, and so they are hopelessly in danger of making poor choices and missing the main points of this life.

Jesus continues that his Gospel sets at liberty those who are oppressed which means he will bring relief to those who struggle with the burdens this life so often imposes.  Life can be difficult and challenging, much more for some than for others, and the oppressive realities many of us endure severely limit our ability to find peace or joy.  Life in this realm often brings relentless fatigue and hopelessness.  Jesus says his Gospel will have the effect of causing those downcast and inwardly bruised to find their way to healing and freedom.

This passage concludes with the phrase “to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,” rendered “the acceptable year of the Lord” in other translations.  The prophet Isaiah was not referring to a calendar year as we might think of it.  He was describing the future age in which God firmly and finally moves to redeem and restore his people by sending the heir of David’s dynasty, the prophet like Moses, the Anointed One, the Messiah.

When Jesus told the folks of his hometown in the synagogue at Nazareth that today this passage—including the proclamation of it being “the year of the Lord’s favor”—was being fulfilled in their hearing, he was declaring himself to be the Messiah.  They clearly understood his remarks this way because they took umbrage at them.  They’d seen him grow up, and good reputation or not, who did he think he was?

As Jesus goes on with his ministry he performs many miracles, demonstrations of the power of God to interrupt the natural process so as to emphasize the truth and power of his Gospel.  Jesus not only proclaimed good news, he physically demonstrated illustrations of the fulfillment of God’s intentions towards his people.  If the passage from Isaiah 61 is one way of describing the mission and Gospel of Jesus, his miracles underline the fact that he has both the position and the power to fulfill that mission.

Those of us who want not only to believe what the Gospel actually is but participate with Jesus in living it out in our lives need to ask ourselves some questions.  If the invitation to do life with Jesus is usually more comprehensive than we think, where are my blind spots?  What are my prejudices that block the impact of the Gospel in my life?  How am I resistant to the full effect of the Gospel in my life?

How do we see if we are spiritually blind?  How do we find our way to spiritual freedom and sight?  By following him and daily opening our selves to his Spirit, inviting him to open our eyes and our minds and our hearts—admitting our need and asking his help.

This passage in Luke begins with the words, “Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit” and that’s how we must live our lives if we are to follow him.

There’s wonderful invitation in this passage, but warning, too: the hearers—who knew Jesus and thought they knew him well—rejected his message, and so they rejected him and his Gospel.

He never returned to Nazareth.

Brennan understands the dynamics of authentic spirituality and human frailty better than most. He recognizes that—no matter our life-calling, declarations or intentions—we all have days where presenting ourselves to the Presence of God and trying to stay focused to the Presence is about all we are capable of.

And Jesus, having come to live among us and do life as us, understands this too. “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are…” writes the author of Hebrews.

But if Jesus and Heaven are understanding about our weaknesses, are we as understanding of our opportunities and obligations? For simply showing up and shutting up are not too much for us offer our Creator every day. And yet, the way we so often choose to live suggests that showing up and shutting up are more than we are willing to give.

“For God alone my soul waits in silence…” the psalmist writes.

And again, “For God alone, o my soul, wait in silence….”

Is this a quaint relic of ancient spirituality? Or is this the most profound key to substantive living, one that easily eludes us?

In giving God specific time every day where we show up and shut up, we create space in our own personal world where God can be God to us. When we make ourselves present and available, when we make ourselves still to listen, we make space in our world for God to be God.

It’s the simplest thing to do. Yet most of us find great resistance doing it.

Even when times were simpler it was always this way with us. But now we’re overcome with opportunities of engagement and distraction and we don’t have to risk the deplorable emptiness of silence if we don’t want to.

Because—and let’s be honest about this—there is great cost in being silent before God and great risk.

The great cost is that I have to develop the sort of self-discipline by which I yield my ability to be entertained, distracted and engaged. I give up letting life pull me along, finding buzz and energy in other sources, allowing outside stimulants to give me focus. Being silent before God makes me aware of the spaces in my soul, of the emptiness in my being, of the chasms in the world. It can be scary, sensing the gaps.

And I said there is great risk, too. But what risk can there be in being quiet, in stilling one’s soul so as to be present to the Presence? The greatest risk of all: God might not show up. He might not show up because he doesn’t want to be available to me. He might not show up because I’ve offended or disappointed him. Or, he might not show up because he actually doesn’t ever show up. He simply might not show up because he is not there.

And yet…when I’ve been quiet, when I’ve yielded, when I have stilled myself, when I have waited…the Presence does make itself known. It’s really the most remarkable thing. Not always, not on command, not on my terms—never on my terms, it seems—but in the silence he is there.

So, it turns out, the ancient admonition, “for God alone, o my soul, wait in silence…” is the most profound key to robust spirituality, to substantive living.

If we are not silent, how can the Creator communicate to us? How does God clarify and emphasize to us things he has made known if we do not be quiet, think, reflect and listen?

How does the Spirit of Grace and Truth administer grace and apply truth to the pathways of our thoughts and feelings if we do not quiet ourselves in a receptive state on a regular basis?

All of creation owes God its attention. How much more those he has created and endowed with his powers of self-awareness, reflection and decision-making? And of all God’s children, who ought to make the most consistent, steady, devoted effort to show up and shut up if not those who say Christ is their Lord?

He doesn’t. The man dies.

For four days Lazarus is dead. Since so few of us have died and come back to talk about it (four days I’m saying) we don’t really know what it was like for him during that time. Was he aware of time? Was he asleep? Was he somewhere else, another dimension?

Whether he was asleep or elsewhere, at some point Lazarus became aware he was now in a very dark place, a cool, deadening place, firmly wrapped in a blanket of cloth and ointment. If he remembered being so gravely ill, my hunch is he didn’t feel like that now. If he remembered hurting with the pain that so often is this life, I think he felt no suffering now.

We can’t know for sure where he was. He might not have known where he was. However strange it was, it had to have been more peaceful than the process of dying.

Wherever he was, and however he was, he then heard a Voice, a familiar voice, the voice of his friend. “Lazarus, come here.”

Where was “here”? “Here” was back into the world where suffering is common and hope often deferred.

He had a choice to make. Perhaps if he ignored the Voice it would go away. He could stay where life in this realm couldn’t hurt him anymore. He could stay safe. He could cling to comfort where he had found it.

Lazarus made his choice. He got up from where he was and he followed the Voice.

Occasionally our lives have moments that bear resemblance to the day Lazarus woke up to the Voice. I don’t mean we find ourselves in a Middle Eastern tomb with Jesus standing outside calling our name. I mean we can be moving along in life, gravitating to those places of comfort and safety where suffering is mitigated and fear is dialed down.

And then we hear a Voice in the distance. It’s not clear. It’s hard to hear over the din and stimulation of our lives. But if we notice it and then listen—which are two different things, let’s be honest here, we hear lots of things we never really listen to—if we notice and then listen, sometimes we get a glimmer of clarity.

And if we hear and then listen and then recognize the glimmer of clarity, we have a choice to make. Do we get up? Do we risk laying aside the blankets of insulation and comfort we cling to? Do we risk walking out of our shadows of safety into vulnerability and exposure?

This is the question we have to face time and again if we’re interested in a genuine spirituality.

The search for a robust spirituality is to hear the Voice of heaven (Jesus) through the gauze and goo that so easily enwraps us in this life. And not only to hear the Voice but to listen to it and to follow it.

“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts,” writes the psalmist.

“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts,” writes the author of Hebrews, repeatedly.

So hearing and listening and obeying the Voice has to do with our hearts. Our hearts are easily hardened. Some of our hearts are hardened because we don’t think we’re worth speaking to. Think about your own heart. Does your heart feel like you are a person God is interested in? Cares about? Will speak to?

So, hearts that are willing to believe that we are worth speaking to are open, softer hearts. Others of us have hearts that are hardened because we’re too busy, or too preoccupied. And some of us have hearts that think they know better than anyone else; these are hearts that need no other voice.

It’s openness that matters, and then paying attention to the specifics. Because the Voice is usually not vague. “Come out, Lazarus.”

Come look at this. Come out of there. Come do this with me. Come give me that you’re holding onto. The Voice gives us direction, and the direction is life.

“Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

I’m learning that recovery and the truly spiritual life are flip sides of the same coin. The genuine and robust spiritual life is a life of recovery. It may be recovery from independence or codependence or dependence. It might be recovery from isolation or pride, envy or resentment, or other things entirely.

Spiritual growth is moving from disintegrated to integrated living, from and fractured thinking and feeling to wholeness. And that’s what recovery is.

Each day is a gift. Each day is opportunity. Are we hearing? Are we listening? Are we following?