Monday Mornings and John 1

It's the root of much evil. It is the sign of the beginning of long suffering. It IS long suffering. It is pain, anguish, and most often depression.

Monday, Monday.

Morning.

I went to bed last night a little disgruntled because I was up late reading Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, two prominent atheists. They are part of a group of people who are really passionate about what they do NOT believe in. I have to give them credit for being unique.

But that's another entry.

The point is, I was looking at another week, and while this one could prove to be one of the most exciting weeks in a while, tomorrow was Monday and that means another week of school, work, and the drill. You know it, I'm sure.

I finished my small escapade through the Psalms and Isaiah yesterday, so I was thinking about what I would read in my "Daily Bible Reading Time." (Frick, I really don't know what else to call it, so I'll use my grandfather's vocabulary). I went to bed last night and could not stop thinking about the gospel of John. No idea why.

So I read the first three chapters of John a couple times. Just soaking in those first 18 verses and the rest of the sections. The calling of the disciples, the wedding at Cana, prophesy of the temple, and our good buddy Nicodemus.

But in re-reading those first 18 verses I always remember that I am so small. In the beginning, there was the Word. But the Word didn't just sit in the heavens and help us out. He dwelt among us.

The Greek word for "dwelt" actually means to "pitch a tent." Jesus came to us.

Being a minister, I often think I need to get people off of their butts and toward God. But maybe that's not the best thing for me to do. Sure, I can yell at the flock all I want, and I can tell them choose Jesus, choose life, choose truth, but maybe the best thing to do is pray Isaiah's prayer in his 64th chapter for an unrepentant nation:

"O that you would rend the heaven's and come down!"

I should pray like that for our church, for our city, for our nation. I have to stop setting up strategy for how I can get myself to God and how I can get others to God, and start praying that God would come down and wash the city with the blood of the gospel. Because the way people meet God in Scripture is just by surrendering...that's worship.

Sometimes I get scared that the call of the American church is the same call of Isaiah found in chapter 6: that we're going to tell them the good news, but they won't listen or accept any of it, because more and more I'm resonating with Jesus' weeping over Jerusalem at the end of his life in Matthew 23.

"...how often I have longed to gather your children together...but you were not willing."

John 1 give me hope though. My job is not to bring people to God. That is the work of the Spirit. Our battle is not of flesh and blood, but one of spiritual things. He dwelt among us. He came and pitched his tent in flesh, because we could never go and pitch ours in spirit.

The story of the Bible and humanity that is seen over and over again can be stated like this: We sin, God seeks. God is on the move, I need to live like I know he is.