Posts Tagged ‘Jesus’

Can’t I just skip Advent?

December 3rd, 2008

We are now part way through the first week of Advent, and I’ve decided I don’t like Advent. Not really…but sort of. I had all my ideas for how I wanted to enter into Advent and then God decided to pull me into Advent in a whole different way…

One of the things that I had wanted to do this Advent was focus on the idea of Jesus being the light of the world and take time to anticipate His true Light coming into the world. Part of the way I envisioned doing that was by starting Advent in complete darkness and meditating and praying in darkness for a while so as to experience the need for light. Then lighting a candle and in doing so look forward to the coming of light. I wasn’t able to do that on the first day of Advent like I had hoped. I had wanted to experience the symbolism of darkness so that I could experience the symbolism of Christ as light, but instead I feel like God has taken me into real tangible darkness. I didn’t turn off all the lights and pray in darkness like I had planned, but I did take a plane back to Prague and as we drove home in complete darkness I felt the darkness of Prague and the darkness of my own life like never before. Things have felt sort of dark for a while now, or maybe more accurately I’ve felt this rumbling of darkness coming, and right before we left for Prague I started to really feel that darkness, but last night when we got back to Prague I felt darkness pressing in all around me in a way I never have before – heavy darkness, tangible darkness, spiritual and emotional darkness.

I realized today also that even though I had all these readings and stories and symbols that I wanted to draw me into Advent, Jesus chose to drew me in by taking me to a place where I feel like I have to wait, where things feel really unclear and really “icky”. But, isn’t that really the heart of Advent? Advent is about waiting, it’s a time when we enter into the experience that Israel had of waiting for a messiah. It’s a time when we realize that we also are in ways still waiting for and needing a messiah. I have known that’s what Advent is about, but lately I have really experienced that. I have really felt and experienced being stuck in ways and situations that I can’t get out of, stuck in waiting, stuck in darkness, and I deeply long for relief, for a break, for rest and redemption and restoration. I long for a messiah. I long for Christmas.

I wanted to really enter into Advent and God answered that and took me to a place where I really do long and desire and wait, even with a ting of desperation… but, now that I’m in that place, I don’t want to be. I want to skip Advent. I want to skip the waiting. I want Christmas.

Lord, help me to rest in the place that you have me, and accept it for your place for me.

Rejoicing in the journey -
Bethany Stedman

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A Simple Poem for Advent

November 13th, 2008

I wrote this poem as a way to interact with Advent. In our small group we have been studying the Gospel of John using The Message translation and this poem came out of those conversations and meditation upon that book.

Word of God creating
Light, where once was darkness
Searching for my true soul
Obey, now, and take heed

God among the people,
Revealed at last His glory
Speaking to my blind heard,
Lamb of God to bleed.

Light amidst the darkness
Bright against the black sky
Reaching toward my lost soul
Speaking Life indeed.

Thunder in the desert
Echos through the canyon
Pulling at my dry heart
Calling out my need

Wine from not but water,
Deep and rich and flowing
Whispers to my parched heart,
Celebrate this seed

Friend cries out in triumph
“Come and see the savior!”
Tugging at my poor soul,
“Come, friend, come and see.”

Rejoicing in the journey -
Bethany Stedman

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The Beautifully Broken Body of Christ

November 9th, 2008

Yesterday I realized something…

Let me set the stage: I was making lunch for a community gathering/retreat we were having. I had all these thoughts bouncing in my head about the communion experience I was helping to plan and about our community and what it means to live in community. I was feeling nervous about the time we were going to have together. The culmination of all this was the thought that would lead to my realization:

 “This is my body broken for you.”

With each tear of the lettuce and each cut of the knife the thought came:

“This is my body broken for you.”

As I set out the elements for communion:

“This is my body broken for you.”

And then I started to think about and pray for different members of our faith community the thought came again even louder this time:

“This is my body broken for you.”

I had never before thought about that statement as being about anything besides the bread of communion and Jesus own physical body broken on the cross. But suddenly it dawned on me that we have TWO things that we are told ARE the body of Christ Jesus: the bread at communion and the church (or the family of God). And it suddenly felt very real to me that when Jesus says, “This is my body broken for you” He is talking about how he himself will be broken, and about how the bread will be broken, AND about how his church and the members of his church will be broken. And this weekend I experienced that a little bit.

I feel like I experienced my brokenness and my past story and my personal expectations rub up against the brokenness and past stories and expectations of others in my community.

And it hurt…

… but today I find myself thanking God for it.

Thank you, Lord that I am part of your broken body!

Thank you for the darkness and the tension and the differences.

Thank you for hurting me so that I could more clearly see my own biases and brokenness.

Thank you for a community that is willing to be open with one another, and share our hearts and hurts with each other even when that’s really hard and when doing it might be really difficult.

Thank you for a community that is willing to love each other, and love the differences we see in each other even when those differences hurt us.

Thank you for a community that is willing to stay in it together instead of choosing the easier path.

Lord, thank you, thank you, thank you, for sending your son to be broken like we are.

Lord, I know and I trust that you are a God of restoration and redemption and resurrection. I know and trust that you love to take that which is broken and make it whole again. That’s what I see you being about and that is what I want to be about. Lord, forgive me for the ways that I have broken instead of redeemed, forgive me for the ways I have done that even tonight. Lord, continue to work in me – don’t give up on me – work in me to take all my broken pieces and make me whole. Lord, work in us as a community and make us whole. Make us a community that is about restoration and redemption and resurrection.

Tonight I still feel a bit sad and tired, but I also feel deep hope.

Tonight I was reminded of why I choose to be a part of this community, and why I love each of the unique members of this community.

Tonight I experienced more of what it means to actually live in real community.

Tonight I feel thankful.

Tonight I am encouraged to be part of God’s broken body and I look expectantly towards the resurrection and wholeness that is coming.

Rejoicing in the journey -
Bethany

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Advent is Coming

November 1st, 2008

Today is the 1st of November and that means that Advent is just around the corner. I’ve been looking forward to this Advent ever since last Easter. And now it is almost here, just a few weeks away.

Last year I decided to learn more about the seasons of the church calendar and during each season I took some time to think and read what that season was really about. This year I want to start to reconfigure my life to fit and connect with each of the church seasons as they happen.

One of the first steps I’m taking towards that is the art exhibit I am putting together for Advent. Each of the artists will be creating art work that portrays Light in some way as a means for us to tangibly anticipate and celebrate the “light coming back.”

Under communism the Czech people weren’t suppose to celebrate Christmas. Christmas was down played, while the winter solstice was emphasized. They celebrated the fact that in December the light started to change and light started to come back into the world. But, that is also what we celebrate with Christmas and look forward to over Advent – the “Life-Light”, as Peterson calls Jesus in The Message, is coming into the world. Jesus himself says in John 8, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” This year I want to enter Advent as a season of Light – remembering and anticipating at the same time that Jesus, the Life-Light, has come and is coming and will come again.

I plan on focusing and carrying this theme of light out throughout Advent. I would like to have a time of silent, dark prayer on November 30th – really engaging in and recognizing the feeling of being in complete darkness and what it means to have light come into the world. I will also be lighting an advent wreath this year and witnessing with each passing week the lighting of an additional candle and experiencing tangibly a growing light as I anticipate the celebration of Jesus birth.

These are just a few ways that I plan on entering into  the anticipation of the Life-Light, Jesus, coming into the world. These are ways that I plan on engaging in Advent. I would love to hear how you and your family are going to engage in Advent this year. Please feel free to tell me about your advent traditions (old and new) in the comments.

Rejoicing in the journey -
Bethany Stedman

Photograph by Beth Stedman

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Did Jesus have an Identity Crisis?

August 12th, 2008

This past Sunday at our church gathering we talked about, and storied through, Jesus’ baptism, temptation and the calling of first disciples. It was really eye opening for me to talk about all three of these stories together in one sitting as a sort of continuation of each other. It really struck me this time that these aren’t really separate stories they are very integrated with each other.

I have been thinking a bit about calling and vocation lately as well as about identity and finding who I am in Christ, so maybe I saw these things in the story just because of where I am at currently, but none the less I feel like God spoke to me about this stuff.  I saw in this story a time of identity crisis for Jesus, a time of coming more fully into his own.  

So, here’s Jesus, He has this wonderful time of confirmation where John the Baptist confirms he is the Christ and then he hears a voice saying “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” That is the ultimate confirmation. God calls him his Son and says he loves him and is pleased with him – isn’t that what we all long to hear? What a beautiful time of realizing and being confirmed in who you are and who you were made to be and realizing more deeply how God sees you?!? But, then Jesus is “led by the Spirit into the desert”. And the devil comes and tempts him. Maybe I’m totally off but it seemed like it wasn’t a coincidence that the first thing the devil seems to attack is that identity and calling that Christ had just received. Each of the first two temptations begins with “If you are the Son of God…”

I wonder… I wonder if after 40 days and 40 nights without food Jesus started to question whether he had really heard that voice from heaven. I wonder if he started to doubt and question who he was in God and if he started to doubt and question his calling. Isn’t that what we do? When we have moments of calling in our lives, moments when God speaks to us and shows us more of who we are in him and how He see’s us, aren’t those often followed by such strong doubts and questions? So, here’s Jesus in the desert, alone, hungry, tired, and the devil shows up and says essentially, “Are you really the Son of God? Did you really hear that voice? Ok, well, IF you are the Son of God then do this – prove it to me and to yourself.” Isn’t the so often the voice we hear, “Does God really love you? Did he really call you to this or that? Maybe you just thought you heard him speak and it was all in your head? Who are you really?” These are questions that I know I hear often and they seem to hit me especially hard after those beautiful experiences when I hear God speaking truth to me about who I am and who he created me to be and the part in his kingdom he created me to play.

I started reading the book He Leadeth Me by Fr. Walter J. Ciszek, S.J. recently and I was struck by the section where he wrestles with whether or not to go to Russian. It was a wrestling that I felt in my own life and looking again at the temptation I wonder if it is some of what Jesus went through after his baptism and before beginning his ministry…

“Anyone who has ever wrestled with his conscience over a particular course of action has experienced what I went through then. Any young man or woman who has felt called to a vocation and then hesitated, wondering if the call is genuine, knows the agonies of such second thoughts and how powerful the counter arguments can be.
Reasons and rationalizations boil through your mind. There are present and future responsibilities toward family and friends to think of, thoughts of the good to be done at home or in other possible ways of serving God and man, mistrust about the motives swaying the mind now this way and now that, doubts about one’s abilities to live up to the call (and even about the call itself), vague fears for the future and very real fears of making a mistake right here and now, knowing a decision must be made and yet knowing, too, that it involves a commitment from which there can be no turning back, something that will change the whole course of your life.”

I wonder if that is some of what Jesus went through out in the desert. It just seems to me that the temptations are about more than the actual temptations themselves, they seem to also be about whether Jesus will trust God with who He is and what his calling is or whether he will doubt God and try to step out on his own and prove himself on his own strength. I just wonder. It seems like this is a common struggle for each of us as humans and I saw this struggle in the temptations on Sunday and it made me love Jesus more to think of him having gone through this struggle with identity as well. But, of course these thoughts could lead to even stranger thoughts in relation to the trinity and the nature of Christ and all that so maybe its best not to take them too far, but I liked the idea of Jesus being fully human wrestling like we wrestle with doubts and questions of identity and calling. I’ll leave it at that.

Rejoicing in the journey -
Bethany Stedman

 

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