(The longer version of this mediation can be found here)
Many there are--millions indeed--who are living in the sun-baked, dry, nearly lifeless desert of unbelief. They knew neither their need for God, nor the truth of divine reality. They are oblivious to the spiritual movement into God which constitutes the meaning, purpose, and end of life. These are burned out souls, living in a burned out land. Their inner and outer wasteland is unrelieved by beauty, goodness, life. They live in hardened, certain untruth, and they do not know it, so great is the darkness.
In the midst of the desert there is a river of flowing water, and along its banks are lifegiving plants of all kinds. The bank where many of us in the churches are standing is the familiarity, safety, at-homeness of our institutional religions. Here is Christianity in its various churches, with their Scriptures, creeds, doctrines, rituals, clergy, lay people. On this bank many of us are standing, and enjoying the comfort, ease, pleasure of Christianity as a religion, of being “church-going Christians.” A few of us have wandered into the stream. Indeed, I see the purpose of preaching as a way to help lead people from the desert, into the water, and across the stream to the farther shore. We see no one on the farther shore, but a few have passed in silence, in a life of profound and lasting union with God. Ultimately, the farther shore is what has been called “heaven,” but I would call it “selfless life in God.” Jesus himself crossed over, and indeed lived in that crossed-over state even while on earth, while living and walking among us. And Christ Jesus sought and seeks to lead us, to lead all, across the river to the farther shore. Genuine saints have crossed over. In meeting genuine human beings such as Francis of Assisi and Theresa of Avila, we are encountering a man or woman who even in this life tastes the glories of union with the Unknown God through faith working by love. Their divine union is real and lasting, and endures beyond death into the utter mystery of God. “By their fruits you will know them,” and such saintly souls are rare, beautiful to see, and full of God.
Few of us, it seems, make the effort to cross the stream. We seem all too content with life along the comfortable bank, with our familiar Scriptures, creeds, rituals, with a fixed ministry and priesthood, with all that “just feels right,” because we have known it for years--in some cases, for our entire lives. The point of living, however, is to enter the stream, the stream of life. In the stream we are forced to live by faith, not by the familiar and comfortable; in place of creedal belief, we must exercise real, muscular faith, that costs us everything we have and are. In the stream we encounter the living God, who more than likely does not fit into the neat categories through which we had pinned God down and left him buried in a hollow, doctrinal shell. In the river we live and move by the Spirit of the living God, and we are forced to fare forward by nothing except the light which is burning in the depths of our hearts.
“Come to the waters.” We may dally along the bank of easiness and institutionalized life, but the hidden LORD would lead us into the flowing, turbulent, sometimes muddy waters of life. We need to fare forward, enter the stream, and move into the mystery called God.
Many there are--millions indeed--who are living in the sun-baked, dry, nearly lifeless desert of unbelief. They knew neither their need for God, nor the truth of divine reality. They are oblivious to the spiritual movement into God which constitutes the meaning, purpose, and end of life. These are burned out souls, living in a burned out land. Their inner and outer wasteland is unrelieved by beauty, goodness, life. They live in hardened, certain untruth, and they do not know it, so great is the darkness.
In the midst of the desert there is a river of flowing water, and along its banks are lifegiving plants of all kinds. The bank where many of us in the churches are standing is the familiarity, safety, at-homeness of our institutional religions. Here is Christianity in its various churches, with their Scriptures, creeds, doctrines, rituals, clergy, lay people. On this bank many of us are standing, and enjoying the comfort, ease, pleasure of Christianity as a religion, of being “church-going Christians.” A few of us have wandered into the stream. Indeed, I see the purpose of preaching as a way to help lead people from the desert, into the water, and across the stream to the farther shore. We see no one on the farther shore, but a few have passed in silence, in a life of profound and lasting union with God. Ultimately, the farther shore is what has been called “heaven,” but I would call it “selfless life in God.” Jesus himself crossed over, and indeed lived in that crossed-over state even while on earth, while living and walking among us. And Christ Jesus sought and seeks to lead us, to lead all, across the river to the farther shore. Genuine saints have crossed over. In meeting genuine human beings such as Francis of Assisi and Theresa of Avila, we are encountering a man or woman who even in this life tastes the glories of union with the Unknown God through faith working by love. Their divine union is real and lasting, and endures beyond death into the utter mystery of God. “By their fruits you will know them,” and such saintly souls are rare, beautiful to see, and full of God.
Few of us, it seems, make the effort to cross the stream. We seem all too content with life along the comfortable bank, with our familiar Scriptures, creeds, rituals, with a fixed ministry and priesthood, with all that “just feels right,” because we have known it for years--in some cases, for our entire lives. The point of living, however, is to enter the stream, the stream of life. In the stream we are forced to live by faith, not by the familiar and comfortable; in place of creedal belief, we must exercise real, muscular faith, that costs us everything we have and are. In the stream we encounter the living God, who more than likely does not fit into the neat categories through which we had pinned God down and left him buried in a hollow, doctrinal shell. In the river we live and move by the Spirit of the living God, and we are forced to fare forward by nothing except the light which is burning in the depths of our hearts.
“Come to the waters.” We may dally along the bank of easiness and institutionalized life, but the hidden LORD would lead us into the flowing, turbulent, sometimes muddy waters of life. We need to fare forward, enter the stream, and move into the mystery called God.
