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In my mind I’m goin’ …
Wednesday, February 17, 2016
First Week of Lent
Jonah 3:1-4
The Lord told Jonah again, “Set out for the great city of Nineveh, and announce to it my message.” So Jonah made ready and went to Nineveh. It was an enormously large city; it took three days to walk through it. And Jonah began his journey through the city.
In my mind I’m goin’ straight into Nineveh. Can’t you see the sunshine? Can’t you just feel the moonshine? And ain’t it just a like a friend of mine to hit me from behind?
James Taylor … Jonah … you and me … in our minds, walking the streets of our city, crying out the Lord’s message. Halfway wanting to hear it and put on the sackcloth, and halfway hoping the words will be drowned out before we have to change. Our brain is fearfully and wonderfully made; it takes three days to walk through it.
Since when have I have taken the luxury of three days to walk through it? Our pastor Jeff said we have difficulties sometimes studying Hebrews because we are not accustomed to “extended arguments.” Lines of thought which require detours and other delays aren’t our cup of tea.
So Jonah’s pathway through Nineveh presents me another opportunity. Really. To have a cup of tea, and walk with some attention to what I see in the byways of my brain. Cry out the words of the Lord, which sound something like, “Repent! Soon I will die, and rise again, and I want you there beside me. Let me show you too how to die and how to live.”
Every Catholic church, no matter how small, carries the twelve “stations of the cross” on its walls. Walk beside them and look inside your city. What’s going on there? Jesus stumbles, and his cross cracks his back. Mary can’t stand it and wails the death inside her as she sees her son fall and the thorns on his forehead dig right in.
What of my own walk to the cross? Up, climb up! Feel the pain. God will not whip me up and at it, like the Romans whipped Jesus. But there is no other path toward life except up through those agonizing alleys toward Golgotha.
We call them demons or neuroses, but whatever we call them, we shrink from the terror and threat of half-heard whispers in the dark, half-closed doorways down those dirty streets. God forbid that one of those doors would spring open. In short, we are afraid.
Can I make it for the three days? Keep on walking? There is an end to this savage, stumbling search for living water. God says so.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death … I will not fear the evil. Thou art with me, and thy rod and staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil and my cup Overflows.
Surely, Lord, your goodness and mercy will follow after me all the days of my life. Even me, Lord, even me. With all the crud I find in my own dark alleys, even me. And as you say, you will be with me and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
http://www.christiancounselingservice.com/archived_devotions.php?article_id=1440
