Dear Friends,
As you may know I grew up in the North. The climate is a bit different then in New Orleans. We had a line we would say with great hope, “April showers bring May flowers.” Others added the line with the question, “What do May flowers bring? – Pilgrims!” I enjoy the early spring we have here in New Orleans. Obviously we have flowers in March and our trees are in full bloom by early April. I hope I will never stop being amazed at the beauty of nature here in the South. Where is all this leading? – change, the ongoing element of life.
When things are good we don’t want them to change or end. Obviously this was the case with the Disciples when they were confronted by Jesus with words of His death and ensuing resurrection. After Easter comes the Season of Resurrection where nothing is the same. This reveals a great deal about God. Just about the time we think or believe we have God pinned down, God changes or as I would like to say God grows. We can either stay where we are or move forth with God into places we simply don’t have control. Change is the experience of continually letting go. It is death crashing into the reality of our daily living. As Jesus said, “We have to die to ourselves to be born anew.”
I want to speak about one of the hardest things to allow to change – our thinking. To be in control we have to have the answers for the way life is. This means when there are sticky issues we want to remove the stickiness by saying, “This is the way it is always and forever!” We use the Bible or other Holy Books to testify to our truth, but this is extremely hard to do with those Books. The Bible, for instance, contradicts itself. One place it gives us permission to take an eye for an eye and in another place it says we are to love our enemy. In still another place it says stone the sinner while in another place it says he who is without sin can cast the first stone. There are numerous other examples of this, but you get the idea. If you want something to never change or for it to always be the same don’t go to the Bible.
Wait a minute! I thought the Bible is the guide for our life? It is, but it was never meant to be stagnant. Like resurrection it is an ever changing Book. It changes because we change. We have grown in our understanding of God. Does that mean we throw out that which we don’t agree with? Absolutely not! It means we live with it spiritually. We check out the words in our heart. We life them up to trusted others. We listen in Church to the interpretation given there. Truth is not found in one thing being a certain way forever – Jesus always being physically alive for example. No Truth is found in daring to question death so we might live in a Season of Resurrection – constant evolution of God and us too. This is the way I believe we can faithfully change and thereby grow with a Resurrected Christ.
Peace,
Gary