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Heart Thoughts 7/14/10

In Luke 14, Jesus tells the story of the man who had prepared a great feast, and had sent out many invitations, yet all who had been invited, found, for one reason or another, an excuse, to not come to it.  Now, I think many of us may be familiar with the story, and even think we understand it’s full meaning, but I’m not so sure that’s true.
       If you see this as a parable describing the invitation the Father gives through Christ to enter into His salvation and Kingdom, you’d be right, but I think, only partly so.  I think that so many of us see the “feast” He invites us to as a life that is filled with blessing.  God’s good things in this life.  Certainly, eternity enters into it as well, but I think, because our minds and thinking tend to be so anchored in the here and now, that we’re missing the greatest beauty of the invitation.  I’ve come to more and more connect this invitation to the prayer of Jesus in John 17.
      In His prayer, Jesus prays so many beautiful things, but the central theme is one of you and I entering into the joy of the relationship that is realized between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  He prays in verse 21, “My prayer for all of them is that they will be one, just as You and I are One, Father, that just as You are in Me, and I am in You, so they will be in us, and the world will believe You sent Me.”  We’ve always tended to understand this as Jesus’ prayer for unity in His church, and that is part of it, but even more, I think He is praying that you and I will fully enter into the unity, wholeness, completeness, that can only be found in what author Larry Crabb calls, “the dance of the Trinity,” the richness and joy of the relationship that the Father, Son, and Spirit have with each other.  This is something much more than a “good life.”  It is entering into their life, partaking of it, reveling in the joy of it.  It’s not a feast of the blessings of this world.  It’s the ultimate of blessing of themselves.  It’s the fullness of Their lives in our life, now.

     So, with this kind of invitation before us, why is it that we continue to make excuses to avoid attending?  If we think our “best life now” entails a life of unending good things, where life works well, and that God’s working things for our good, means that ultimately, everything will go the way we want it to, we’re bound for some deep disappointments, just as we will if we think the feast has more to do with satisfying our flesh than it does our spirit.  It could be that many of us felt this was what attending the feast would yield, and made some tenative steps to attend, but when they found it to be something else, left in disappointment, and even anger.  For others, it may simply be that the attraction of a life lived out in His fullness, holds a lot less allure than having a life that goes well, and according to our plans and wishes.  And where WE and not HE, is in control.
    Don’t misunderstand, the feast He invites us to does hold many, so many, good things here in this lfie for us, but it’s not an invitation to a pain free, trouble free life.  For all of us, there will be more than enough this side of heaven.  What the acceptance of His invitation gives us is the fullness, joy, peace, and abundance of His life now, in the midst of all that could be, might be going wrong right now.  We may be in pain, but in the midst of it, we are held in His embrace as we dance the dance of the Trinity that Crabb speaks of.
    One last thing.  Entrance to the feast is free, yet not without cost.  Yes, He paid the price, but the only doorway into the feast goes via the cross, and His blood.  If we’re to enter into the fullness of the feast, we too must go to the cross, willingly pick it up, and covered by His blood, enter into the true joy of the Lord.  His invitation has arrived.  It carries your name, and mine.  It is not an invitation to attend church, 
give money, go to a prayer group, or talk about Jesus.  It is an invitation to be an answer to Jesus’ prayer in John 17.  Will you?  He’s waiting for your, my, answer.
 
Blessings,
Pastor O
   

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