Closer and Closer

written by Buddy Hocutt

I once read the creation story in Genesis 1 on top of a mountain. Gazing over God's vast, glorious creation as you read about is incredible. I highly recommend it next time you find yourself a few thousand feet above sea-level.

While reading the story, it was brought to my attention that God is a god of proximity. That is, we serve a god who desires to draw near to us. Perhaps in my head, maybe even in my heart I knew this, but never before had I heard it put to words. It rocked me. Who are we, who am I, that the eternal creator of the universe would want to be anywhere near me? Look at the marvelous mountain I was standing on – surely God would rather draw close to that! I mean, I'm mediocre at best, with a knack for screwing things up. At the very least you'd think God could find a better person than me to hang out with...

Actually, he probably couldn't. We're all pretty screwed up and that's the beauty of it. God loves this group of broken, dirty scrubs called humanity. He tells us as much all through scripture, but it
doesn't really sink in until you realize two things:

1. The (literal) ungodly mess we made of the world.
2. That God dove head-first into that mess to save it and in doing so, kick-started the greatest rescue mission of all time.

Actually, God was in it from the beginning. In Genesis 3, we read that God is walking in the garden with Adam and Eve. Granted, that's where the story goes South, but the fact remains – God engaged in creation alongside His greatest creation. Later, in Exodus 19, God descends from heaven to Mount Sinai and speaks to Moses. He doesn't just come down to hang out, he comes down to be with His people specifically! He even instructs the Israelites on how to build His house. He sends a bunch of laws and rules our way too – laws and rules designed to help us be humans the right way. We don't follow those directions very well, of course, and consequently we're in the lurch for few hundred years... But that's when God decides to get His hands dirty and come to earth again.

In the person of Jesus, the god of the universe has physically come down from heaven to live with his creation as creation. He comes hurling into chest-high muck and struggles right along with us. He is tempted. He is tried. He gets angry and he gets exasperated. But best of all, he gets up close and personal with the worst of the worst. He hurts with us, then He heals us. He experiences life with us, and then he invites us to dinner.

Prostitutes? You bet. Tax collectors? Definitely. The poor, broken, crippled, diseased, prideful, and arrogant? They all have a place at the table. We all have a place at the table, right next to Jesus. All we have to do is show up. Seriously. It's that easy. The hard part is really feeling like we belong; really feeling the presence of God with us.

That's where I'm being shaped and formed right now. At the beginning of Fellows we all chose a one-word prayer for the year. Mine was spirit – as in drawing close to God and feeling His Holy Spirit viscerally. See, my walk with Christ has traditionally featured a lot of Father and a lot of Son, but the Holy Spirit has been a kind of redheaded step-child. The Trinity has always felt like a single line, rather than a three-sided figure. Real “God moments” rarely happen for me and I approach them with a healthy dose of skepticism and a hard heart.

But, reading Genesis on top of a mountain started to chip away at me. Living in true community with my fellow Fellows is softening my heart. As I come to the table with others; as I see Christ in them and witness the Spirit moving in their lives I feel my skepticism melting away. As I advocate for refugees on internship days and see them flourish, the Trinity starts to look like the Trinity again. Ultimately, as I quiet my heart and listen; as I reflect on those two points above, God draws closer and closer. Or rather, I draw closer and closer to God. He stays where he's been all along – in and amongst humanity, everywhere at all times. It's me who moves away – a truth I am only now learning... and relearning... and learning again.

The Light

written by Alyson Arrington

This week at Morning Prayer sweet Kait led us through Scripture centered on John 8:12, The Light of the World:

When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Darkness represents sin, and it’s opposite, light, represents the forgiveness from sin when your life is filled with the Lord.

I started to think about the times that I am physically in the dark. I personally am not a fan of overhead lighting, I am a lamp kind of woman. Thus, I have a horrible habit of entering home and refusing to flip on the light. More often than not my hands are full with a gym bag, a computer or a stack of books, and a bag of groceries… or all four. My eyes adjust quickly to darkness, and usually I navigate my way perfectly to the couch or table before everything falls into a heap and the grocery bags completely cut off my circulation. But not always. Sometimes I’m almost there and a water bottle falls out or there’s a dog toy that wasn’t there earlier, a running shoe… and you get the picture. I lose my bananas. Literally, the grocery bag busts and bananas and oranges roll all over the place as I trip over the unknown object. Figuratively this unsuccessful attempt through the darkness is a lot like our attempt through the darkness without the light of the world, without Jesus. We find ourselves in said darkness, carrying the heavy load on our shoulders, on our hearts. We are carrying this load thinking “oh yeah I’m almost there I got this” and then comes the dog toy, the running shoe, the hair dryer or the tennis ball and we stub our toe and mouth curse words, maybe step on our small dog, break our computer and then we fall, flat on our faces (or bottoms depending on which way physics wanted to play with us that day).

I will never be 100% successful navigating the dark when I arrive home and we will NEVER be successful navigating darkness with our loads without Jesus. By the time I get my load down, I always seek out one of my lamps. I would have been far safer seeking the light before I made my journey across the living room. We will ALWAYS be safe seeking the light of the world, seeking Jesus, in the journey “across the living room”: through life. The journeys will look different for all of us and different at different times. In transitional periods, deployments, through cancer, through abuse, through mental illness. In relationships and in marriages, the dissolutions of friendships, in heartbreak, in parenthood. In times when you can’t find hope, the list goes on and on. But one thing will remain constant, the light will remain constant if we choose to follow it.

“The light shines in the darkness, the darkness has not overcome it.” John 1:5

“Darkness can’t drive out darkness. Only light can do that” – Martin Luther King Jr.

The light can always shatter the dark, as long as you seek it.