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“I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection.” Every time I come across that sentence it just rips into everything about me. As a disciple of Jesus Christ – and I should say that in a way that’s inclusive of all of us – as disciples of Jesus Christ, this sentence is the one sentence in the entire Bible that sums up what our lives should be about – knowing Jesus Christ and the power of his resurrection. It forces us to ask ourselves that one question in which we find salvation: do I want to know Jesus and the power of his resurrection? Do I want to know the person, the man, my Lord Jesus and the new life he has to give me through the presence and working of the Holy Spirit. Do I really want to know Jesus and be changed by him?
If I am honest with myself, my answer to that question is “Yes”. But then, I have an immediate inner voice response that arises. I’m pretty sure it’s my conscience. It’s not God speaking. God is like an AA meeting. AA knows that guilt and shame won’t bring a person to sobriety. Instead, AA says “Keep coming back”. We are invited to keep coming back, sober or not. Keep coming back and the unconditional acceptance works a miracle. That’s God. That voice inside me says, “Really Randy? Is knowing Jesus and being healed by him really your primary pursuit in life?” I hear that. I hear that and I’m cut to heart. I do want knowing Jesus to be my primary pursuit in life but I am so distracted by so many things. There’s so much I just need to let go off and find my rest in him. Though I’m cut to the heart, I also feel that familiar, gentle, peaceful pull that’s found in those familiar lyrics: “Be still and know that I am God. Be still and know that I am God. Be still and know that I am God.” Seeking to know Jesus changes us in a healing way.
Thinking about Paul here, he is writing to attest to the change he was going through since encountering the resurrected Jesus on the Damascus Road. He was once an up-and-coming Pharisee in the Jerusalem establishment. His birth lineage was a cut above. He was very zealous in his keeping the Law of Moses. You see, the Pharisees believed that the more observant people of Israel could be in keeping the Law of Moses, the sooner the Messiah would return and put the world to right. He was so zealous that he chose to climb that ladder of what we would call professional recognition feigning as faithful devotion by trying to squash a big change that was happening among his people as the result of what Paul believed to be a lie, that God had raised Jesus of Nazareth from the dead.
Paul believed that Jesus was a treasonous false Messiah and a blasphemer who claimed to be the Son of God. Paul believed Jesus deserved to die by crucifixion and those who followed him needed to clam up or face the consequences. But when he found himself in the presence of Jesus resurrected on the Damascus Road, he had come to realize that all that arrogant zeal for status and recognition, that fake faithfulness was just a bunch of dung (the S-word would be the most accurate translation). His heart was now set on knowing Jesus and the change Jesus was working in him and so many others.
This personal encounter changed Paul. Jesus confronted Paul with the fact that even though Paul thought himself to be a superbly faithful Jew, he was really working against what God was doing and what God had for him to do. We’re all like that quite a bit, we good church people who do what churches have always do resisting change as if it’s the Plague. Paul’s goal was suddenly no longer to rise to power in the midst of the Jerusalem Pharisees by Law observance and persecuting the followers of Jesus, but rather to know Jesus, to personally know Jesus, and the power of his resurrection – a power that changes people – a change that is nothing short of being born into a new life in which you know yourself to be a beloved child of God.
If you take Paul’s letters and suss out his metaphors for salvation, his images for what salvation is, (there are about twelve) at the top of the list of what he might call personal salvation as he experienced it is adoption – I was once an estranged God-hater, but through what God has done in, thru, and as Jesus the Christ in the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, I now know myself to be a beloved child of God, adopted and loved by the Father as He loves Jesus.
In Christ, we each are a beloved member of God’s family here on earth. The power of Jesus’ resurrection – powerful enough to create this Creation, raise the dead, heal the sick, and cast out demons – now works powerfully in us by bringing us to want to know Jesus more and more in order to grow to be more like him in his selfless love which is the family resemblance.
Well, winding this down in a way that might make some sense; “I want to know Jesus and the power of his resurrection” also makes me think of people in my life whom I’ve known, who had a great impact on me, and whom I wish I took the time to know better. My grandfather tops the list. He was the son of a farm worker. I don’t know if he finished high school. Born in 1917 he came of age during the Great Depression. He was a machine gunner in WWII and somehow, he came home while so many of brothers in arms did not. He had to take human life to free the world from an evil man and his deluded regime. He came home and became a police officer, first as a patrol cop and then he became Chief of police in a city the size of Owen Sound. In his day, in police work you either had to talk people down or knock ‘em down and drag ‘em out. I don’t want to brag and I’m not at all biased, but everyone who had anything to say to me about my grandfather as a law enforcement officer…well, he was probably the most respected Chief of Police Waynesboro, VA ever had for his peaceableness, wisdom, bravery, honesty, approachability, fairness. To me, Granddaddy was a quiet man who put his family first, generous, over the top when it came to hospitality (especially considering some of the men one of my aunts in particular brought to Thanksgiving Dinner) everyone was welcome at his table. He listened more than he talked. He was always there for us.
With Granddaddy being so quiet he was difficult to get to know. What you got to know of Granddaddy was a sense of his presence. Because of that I have spent quite a bit of time wondering what it was like to be him. I think about his character, what the war did to him, the courage and prudence it took to make a career of policing, the way he was with us, his family. The last thing we did together, just the two of us, was we to sit in his car not saying anything as we watched heavy equipment at work replacing a historic old railroad bridge that he probably saw built. What was he thinking? What was he remembering? Though nothing was said, it was priceless time together. What an honour to sit with that man. I’ll never be the man he was, but there is a bit of him that lives in me and I try to honour that by being a servant of others, with generosity, hospitality, and trying to understand people rather than judge them.
So it goes with getting to know Jesus. We have to take the time to sit and be aware that even though we can’t see him, he’s present. We know his presence in his absence. The Holy Spirit is present. If it helps, put an empty chair in front of you for him to sit. Today is World Communion Sunday. We come to his table where he is the host. We come as followers from several different traditions to be with him at this meal. He is here as the one who gives himself for us that we might be nourished and live. He selflessly gives his very life to us. How he is present with us in this meal is probably the greatest theological debate of Church history. My tradition just says that it is a mystery. Regardless, through this meal Jesus in selfless love gives himself to us. This is who we are. This is his life and way of living. When we go and do likewise, we come to know him more and the seed of the power of his resurrection that he has planted in us changes us to be more like him. We will never be the person that he is but there is a bit of him that lives in each of us. Honour him. Love one another as has loved us each. Amen.
