THE JOURNEY INTO JESUS CHRIST
As in any expedition, there are many obstacles to just getting under way in church life. One's own personal expedition in relocating to become a part of an expedition team can be long delayed and painful. But when these obstacles are at last overcome, the members of the team find themselves living in the same neighborhood.
The trek begins rather haltingly as the team tries to recover that feel of community which prevailed in antiquity, but has all but disappeared from the experience of modern suburban Americans. Daily interaction within a localized neighborhood liberates church life from the commuter syndrome of modern institutional behavior.
Within the Biblical description of church life from "house to house" there is no room between the houses for an interstate! By using sidewalks instead -- living next door or across the street or a block or two away -- brothers and sisters can begin to learn to enjoy the privileges and to fulfill the responsibilities of church life. Moreover, in this social context a witness is presented to the neighborhood in a continuous living way.
Without this re-adjustment to church life one is left all alone at home and getting back together with the saints means leaving one's neighborhood only to be separated from them again when returning home. Why would one live so alone if given a choice? If the relevance of brothers and sisters to daily life is under-valued, or if it is indulged that one's duty to God is discharged by simply making formal weekly appearances within an institutional religious setting, then one will persist in isolation from others.
What else is involved in beginning the expedition into church life? There is a very basic realization that, if it captures the heart, will make the ordeal of relocating a pleasure: church life is nothing more nor less than the Lord's life.
In church life the Lord has overcome the social limitations He experienced when His presence was concentrated in a physical body during the days He walked among us before His crucifixion. During that time, He spent His days with us, we spent our days with Him, and we did this together.
But the Lord promised an end to His limitation of having only one small group that could be physically near Him. He promised something far better.
Since His resurrection He fulfills His promise by dwelling in us by His Spirit. His disciples are now all over the world and the vastness and love of His Spirit embraces us all into Himself more intimately now than how we experienced Him before His resurrection and the descent of His Spirit.
His overflowing generosity with His Spirit, however, does not imply that each individual disciple is now amply supplied without any dependence upon any other disciple. Much to the contrary!
The wonderful way in which Jesus now shares the fulness of His Spirit is in Bodily form! Jesus is our Head; we are His Body -- together we in Him and He in us make up the whole Christ.
Such glory demands the visible display of church life without interruption! No longer geographically restricted to one particular region, no longer socially limited to how many could physically surround one Man, Jesus Christ now Spiritually enjoys the companionship of all His disciples in the most intimate of ways: by absolutely identifying with us -- making us bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh.
Such oneness does not exist merely theoretically in His mind. He lives and breathes with this identity. This is how He experiences Himself. Let it not, then, be a mere abstraction to us. Rather, let it be to us what it is to Him: our very Life.
Church life is nothing more nor less than the Lord's life. When this captures the heart, relocating becomes something rather superficial, while in the depths we journey together deeper and deeper into Jesus Christ as He walks deeper and deeper into us.
He is our Life. We are His Life.
As the expedition team approaches what appears to be an impasse, questions begin to arise: Is there a boundary out there somewhere which, once crossed, we will step into the realm of Church-Life-Opia? Is this elusive realm our destination, or is it not elusive at all? Rather, is this realm a journey instead of a destination -- a process of becoming instead of a state of being -- a verb instead of a noun?
If church life is a dynamic instead of a status, then we should not be on an expedition in search of Church-Life-Opia -- as if we fancied ourselves the twenty-first century version of the mythical pilgrims fleeing the old world establishment in search of religious freedom in the new world!
If the expedition into church life is simply the journey into Jesus Christ, then this trip is simply the drama of catching up to where Jesus already has taken us -- all of us! We leave no one behind on this expedition! We hasten to join together with all as one. We head into the glorious Presence that embraces all the redeemed as one. We propel into the Heart where all cleave together.
But before this supernatural reality can begin to be practically experienced, one of the dynamics of church life must be set in motion by the Lord. Without this dynamic at work, church life becomes an exclusivistic, elitist enterprise. Pews in a home town were forsaken for "higher ground". Geographical relocation can be the most grandiose aloofness. It is highly likely that those who join the expedition team are more than a little proud of the "sacrifices" they have made. But the Lord has a remedy for this situation.
The expedition into church life dares to be the journey into Jesus Christ. If the team refuses to take any detours, then ahead of it lies the cross. The work of the cross in us is the indispensable dynamic essential to church life.
As the team progresses into Jesus, the members of the team are taken into one another. This is where Jesus dwells and to reach Him there one is confronted with the cross. Maybe just seeing your brother briefly once or twice a week is actually a more comfortable way to live after all!
Our flesh was not left at our previous address. It is forwarded into church life. The ardor of our spirit to be joined to the Lord in church life is matched by the connivance of our flesh.
Our flesh will settle for anything that looks close enough to church life to be pleasing to either the religious affections of our fallen nature or the anti-religious convictions of our philosophical pride. Meanwhile, the price for real church life is gladly left unpaid.
It takes the cross to turn us inside out -- to expose us to ourselves -- to rip out our self life -- to devastate us with the awareness of how feebly we love our brothers -- to show us that even the avoidance of our brother is a shunning of Jesus Christ. The cross unmasks just how _church dead_ we are!
But, by the grace of God, this being turned inside out goes on to reveal something good, something wonderful. As the flesh is being slain, the Lord's glory begins to flow out from the inside.
In resurrection we begin to recognize the face of every believer in the face of Jesus Christ. Those left behind geographically are re-joined in spirit as never before. The work of the gospel throughout the world is participated in right in the depths of one's own heart in God. And the brothers and sisters of one's own local fellowship -- all living within a couple of blocks of each other -- become practically, experientially one with each other in the Lord.
This can only happen by way of the cross. This can only continue to happen if the expedition into church life takes no detours from its journey into Jesus Christ.
This expedition leaves no one behind. It sets out to explore the deeper regions of Jesus Christ. These are not the mystical shores of Church-Life-Opia. These are the lives living in the Life that have been forsaken for so long, who are groaning in their loneliness, in whom Jesus Christ aches for a visit and rejoices at the sight of the approaching party . . . . . . .
Having navigated their way through their first impasse, the members of the expedition team set up camp. A warming fire reflects upon their contented faces. In their interaction they replace one another's loneliness with the Presence of Jesus Christ. Each one offers to the other that unique part of Jesus Christ which they alone have touched and can share with the others. They partake of heavenly nourishment, being strengthened for the journey ahead. They all have come home to Jesus already, but there remains so much of Him yet to discover.
Through
the Telescope
Under the Microscope
In Deep
Space
With Trowel in Hand
