At that time
At that time Jesus walked by the Sea of Galilee, went up on the mountain, and sat down there. Great crowds came to him, having with them the lame, the blind, the deformed, the mute, and many others. They placed them at his feet. And he cured them. – From Matthew 15
Last week Sarah Young heard this from Jesus: “Problems are part of life. They are inescapable: woven into the very fabric of this fallen world. You tend to go into problem-solving mode all too readily, acting as if you have the capacity to fix everything. This is a habitual response, so automatic that it bypasses your conscious thinking. Not only does this habit frustrate you, it also distances you from me.”
What made Jesus’ problem-solving different? What did he do beforehand? What did he do in these moments with one-after-another-person-with-a-problem? Jesus seems to have excelled at both giving these problems to his Father, and receiving back the power to solve them. “They placed them at his feet. And he cured them.”
The sweet Japanese word “ma” stands for the silence between sounds. What goes on in those mystical instants, those infinite moments between Jesus and his Father? What song is Jesus listening to? To turn a phrase in T.S. Eliot’s masterpiece “The Hollow Men,”
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the (Spirit)
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the (Spirit)
For Thine is the Kingdom
No wonder the theologians of the early Christian centuries settled on a “Trinity” to describe the one God. Their dance lifts our spirits, their song heals us. We destroy, they repair. We despair, they rejoice. We are God’s children, they love us forever.
Lord, I curl up like a baby in your lap and hold on tight. But do not be afraid, you say, even if you let go, I’ll keep you close and keep you safe and warm your soul. Just place yourself at my feet, and I will cure you. You are my sweet baby-child, and I love you.
From Jesus Calling, by Sarah Young, entry for November 30. 2004-201
T.S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men,” 1925
http://www.davesandel.net/category/advent-and-christmas-devotions-2018/
http://www.christiancounselingservice.com/archive.php?year=2018
