:: a confession

Last week, I had the sweet opportunity to spend a week in the frigid Midwest with my Lily and her wonderful family. Every minute was full and precious, but for my heart, one evening stood out as especially meaningful.

A group of women – mostly strangers – gathered in the downstairs nook of a house I didn’t know. I don’t even know where we were in the city, but it was in that room that Jesus turned my gaze inside. He turned it back to a lesson learned years ago, but never fully grasped.

All those years ago, a group of women from my home church graciously welcomed me into their safe circle. They were years older than me, but somehow found grace for the awkward 13 year old who desperately wanted to learn. I sat cross-legged on the floor, pen in hand, writing what they said. It was in that room that he first whispered the significance of this name to me: Emmanu-el. The With-Us God. You see, the Hebrew word at the end, el, means God. Having grown up Episcopalian, I’ve said the words “God with us” many times, but hearing it backwards – the With-Us God – changed everything. My little world was rocked by the fact that God didn’t just come to be with us, he wanted to be defined by that move. With the announcement of the incarnation of Jesus – “and his name shall be called Emmanu-el” – Almighty God became defined by his with-us-ness. Such a precious concept, that the God of the Universe would choose not only to be with, but would want that to be his defining characteristic. Over the years I’ve marveled at the God who came to be with us, but I’ve missed the most important part of the whole concept. God dwelling with us was just a prelude to him dwelling in us.

And so there I sat in that room of strangers, so aware of the God who is with, but a stranger still to the God who is in. We skipped ahead in the book to chapter 16 of John where God takes his with-us-ness to the next level. Jesus is spending a few last moments with his disciples, no doubt measuring each word he says as precious. And he says this:

It is better for you that I go.

Heck no. That doesn’t sound right. How could it ever be better for Jesus to go away? I’m sure that’s what his 12 friends were thinking.

Here’s the part I’ve always missed. He said that he needed to go so that he could send his spirit. The spirit of truth.

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So in that downstairs room filled with mostly strangers, we wrestled out a truth to which I had never given much thought. Jesus obviously knew that his physical presence was nothing compared to his spirit dwelling in us, but I don’t think we get it. Do we act like this spirit of truth is something magnificently better than actually having Jesus sitting in our living rooms reading the paper while we go about our lives? Do we walk around the grocery store with the feeling that what lives inside of us is significantly better than if Jesus was pushing the cart for us, chatting about the headlines or pulling bags of veggies out of the freezers?

I’ll confess.  I do not live life that way. Not at all.

Somehow, even after 21 years of having the spirit of Jesus living in me, I’ve never celebrated it the way we celebrate his coming to live with us. The Bible only mentions God’s with-us name once. He mentions his spirit in us so many times. What did I miss?

That quiet evening in a group of strangers shed light on what I’ve overlooked all these years. What is in me – or rather WHO is in me – is more personal, more intimate, more purposeful for this season of time than even Jesus’ physical presence could me.

Here’s my question to you (if any of you who have stayed with me through this long stretch of no words):

What do you think it looks like to live with this awareness that something better than Jesus’ physical presence is here…in us?

To get your thought process rolling, I’ll send you over to a dear friend’s blog. She was my ticket into this group of strangers and, in her usual poetic way, shared a beautiful peek into what the discussion stirred in her: His Breath Inside of Me

 

 

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