Well,
today is Ascension Sunday. Wooo! Yeah!
Let’s bake a cake! Today is the
most uncelebrated high holy day of the church year. Today we are supposed crank it up because
it’s Jesus Inauguration Day and it’s the biggest crowd ever. Every year the number of Christians on earth
grows. Jesus has ascended to take his
place at the right hand of God the Father to reign as Lord of all
creation. He is the Lord, the one who
has saved his creation. He has defeated
evil, sin, and death by becoming human, living faithfully, dying, and being resurrected
– all for us.
But, and
to be frank, saying that Jesus is LORD over all creation is a bit of a hard
sell these days. It's been just shy of
2,000 years. The world is still full of
evil. The pandemic of sin is still
raging. Death is still the leading cause
of death. What's changed? Seriously,
what has changed since Jesus was enthroned as LORD of all creation? One could easily argue that Science and
Technology have done way more good than him.
You could even add that religion, all religion, that great “opiate of
the masses” has caused more death and suffering than any disease ever has and
continues to do so. How can we talk
about Jesus reigning as LORD over all creation when reality is so “obviously”
contradictory to the fact?
Well, one
thing we do not do is play that old “faith” card. Where we say, “Faith and reality are two
different things. You just have to believe.” Faith is not simply divorcing ourselves from
reality by believing in God. If we are going
to say Jesus is LORD and that he reigns, then we are somehow going to have to
work in there that yes, its been 2,000 years; yes, evil, sin, and death are
still around; and yes, those who claim to believe in him have done some pretty
heinous things. If we are going to say
Jesus reigns in any way that has integrity, then we are going to have to go
right smack-dab into the heart of all the brokenness and human insidiousness
and there demonstrate that, “Here, right here in the midst of this horrible
mess Jesus’ reign is breaking through.”
Here’s
how Jesus reigns. Just before Jesus
ascended his disciples asked him was he at that time going to establish his
kingdom and set all things to right. But
instead of making his victory and reign overtly manifest by waving a hand and
magically putting the world to rights, he told his disciples to stay in
Jerusalem and wait for the gift the Father had promised them, the Holy Spirit
who would empower them to be his witnesses to the ends of the earth. His disciples were to be empowered by the
Holy Spirit to manifest Jesus’ reign, but not in a triumphalistic way. Rather, it would be the cross-bearing way,
the foot washing way, the way of self-sacrificing compassion.
In
classic Jesus' fashion, his reign, his Lordship, indeed he himself for now will
only be manifest through weakness – our weakness – not strength. His powerful
reign becomes visible through things that would appear to be futile by the
world’s standards; things like the prayers and acts of humble service done by
those who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit.
Jesus’ reign is made evident among individuals who have been changed at
heart by God's presence in them and who then live accordingly. Let me give you and example. This is an account of a day in the life of an
Emerge nurse, Dawn Husnick, that I think speaks loudly to how Jesus is LORD:
“In my
years in the ER, I saw Jesus daily doing his kingdom work in and through a
group of his followers. It was a true
expression of church. One day stands out
beyond all others and left me radically changed forever. It was the day I saw Jesus face to face...
'Give us
hearts as servants' was the song they were singing as I left the church
service, heading for my second twelve hour shift in a row. Weekends in the ER can be absolutely
brutal! I was physically and emotionally
spent as I walked up to the employee entrance.
The sound of ambulances and an approaching medical helicopter were tell-tale
signs that I would literally be hitting the ground running.
'Dawn...can
you lock down room 15?' yelled out my charge nurse as I crawled up to the
nurse's station. (When someone asked for
a lockdown it was usually a psychiatric or combative case.) Two security guards stood outside the room,
biceps flexing like bouncers anticipating a drunken brawl. My eyes rolled as I walked past them into the
room to set up.
The
masked medics arrived with N strapped and restrained to their cart. The hallway cleared with heads turned away in
disgust at the smell surrounding them.
They entered the room and I could see N with his feet hung over the edge
of the cart covered with plastic bags tightly taped around the ankles. The ER doctor quickly examined N while we
settled him in. The medics rattled off
their findings in the background with N mumbling in harmony right along with
them. The smell was overpowering as they
uncovered his swollen, mold-encrusted feet.
After tucking him in and taking his vital signs, I left the room to tend
to my other ten patients-in-waiting.
Returning
to the nurse's station, I overheard the other nurses and techs arguing over who
would take N as their patient. In
addition to the usual lab work and tests, the doctor had ordered a shower
complete with betadine foot scrub, antibiotic ointment, and non-adherent
wraps. The charge nurse looked in my
direction. 'Dawn, will you please take
N? Please? You don't have to do the foot scrub—just give
him a shower.' I agreed and made my way
to gather the supplies and waited for the security guard to open up the hazmat
shower.
As I
waited with N, the numbness of my busyness was interrupted by an overwhelming
sadness. I watched N, restless and
mumbling incoherently to himself through his scruff of a beard and
'stache. His eyes were hidden behind his
ratted, curly, shoulder-length mane. This
poor shell of a man had no one to love him.
I wondered about his past and what happened to bring him to this
hopeless empty place? No one in the ER
that day really looked at him and no one wanted to touch him. They wanted to ignore him and his broken
life. But as much as I tried...I could
not. I was drawn to him.
The
smirking security guards helped me walk him to the shower. As we entered the shower room I set out the
shampoo, soaps, and towels like it was a five-star hotel. I felt in my heart that for at least for
those ten minutes, this forgotten man would be treated as a king. I thought for those ten minutes he would see
the love of Jesus. I set down the foot
sponge and decided that I would do the betadine foot scrub by myself as soon as
his shower was finished. I called the
stock room for two large basins and a chair.
When N
was finished in the shower I pulled back the curtain and walked him to the
'throne' of warmed blankets and the two basins set on the floor. As I knelt at his feet, my heart broke and
stomach turned as I gently picked up his swollen rotted feet. Most of his nails were black and curled over
the top of his toes. The skin was rough,
broken, and oozing pus. Tears streamed
down my face while my gloved hands tenderly sponged the brown soap over his
wounded feet.
The room
was quiet as the once-mocking security guards started to help by handing me
towels. As I patted the foot dry, I looked
up and for the first time N's eyes looked into mine. For that moment he was alert, aware, and
weeping as he quietly said, 'Thank you.'
In that moment, I was the one seeing Jesus. He was there all along, right where he said
he would be.
'...Truly
I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of theses who are members of
my family, you did it to me.'”[1]
Friends,
Jesus reigns as LORD, for now until he comes, in the prayers and little acts of
love done by insignificant people such as ourselves; people of transformed
heart who humbly do for other insignificant people necessary and difficult acts
of compassion. Friends, our Jesus reigns
and we are part of it. Never
underestimate what is going on when you feel moved to show kindness to
someone. Amen.
[1] Excerted from McKnight, Scot; A Community
Called Atonement; Abington Press, Nashville, 2007; p. 3.
