Video recording here; text below.
Dear Jesus,
In response to your recent message, yes, I’ve been more intentional about keeping Sabbath and claiming the peace you give me. At the same time, living into Sabbath rest and claiming your resurrection peace have raised new questions, which I’d like to discuss with you.
First, I wonder how living into your peace fits with what you said in Mark 13: “Beware! Keep alert! Keep awake!” Those are strong commands that don’t sound very peaceful. Then you illustrated these words about watchfulness by talking about a master and a doorkeeper. The master seems to expect that the faithful doorkeeper will stay awake around the clock. But when does that doorkeeper get to claim your peace? I’m asking, because it seems like people like me are the doorkeeper in that story, and it feels like a lot of pressure. If you were trying to keep your followers on edge with that story, then congratulations, because that’s how I feel. But that doesn’t sound like you. You don’t want us to be frantic. You want us to know your goodness and peace.
Maybe there’s a balance between peacefulness and alertness that I’m missing. For instance, I remember the time in Mark 4 when you yourself did the opposite of staying awake. You were sound asleep in a boat during a storm, while your friends were totally awake. They were so awake that they woke you up by saying, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re perishing?!” You did care, because you rebuked the wind and commanded the sea to be still, so that a dead calm came over it. Then you asked them why they had been so worried: “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”
Faith. Maybe that’s the place where peace and alertness can coexist in ways that are good for me instead of stressful. In faith, I can imagine that a good doorkeeper would know how to rest and delegate in such a way that the job was done well without driving everyone to exhaustion. Filled with the Holy Spirit, you could be at total rest during a terrible storm, while your friends were wide awake but also feeling wildly out of control. I can see your faith, but sometimes it feels like faith is just another job I’ll fail at, an impossible balancing act between serenity and alertness. If faith is a job I need to do, then I’m pretty sure I’m not getting it right. But when I look at you and your friends and I wonder if faith means something else entirely.
I bet you already know where I’m going to go next, Jesus. That’s right, I’m going to ask about what happened shortly after your words in Mark 13. You ate the Passover with your friends, you made promises about your body and blood to them and for them, and then you went to pray in Gethsemane. Here’s the thing: you had literally just told them to keep alert and keep awake, and they were physically unable to keep their eyes open. The first time it happened in the garden you even told Peter directly, using his birth name: “Simon!... Keep awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Then—while in your distress and agitation you threw yourself to the ground and prayed—he fell asleep two more times.
He failed to stay awake. As we see in his betrayal later that night, he also failed his time of trial, failed to admit that he ever even knew you! So what was faith then? Is it a contest that Peter lost? Is it a job your followers will always fail? Is it good intentions and pious gestures, surrounded by constant, thinly-veiled disappointment?
In that night of your agitation and arrest, I see that faith was never about Simon Peter. It was about you. You asked for your friends to stick around during the worst times, because you wanted them to be with you. You asked them to be good doorkeepers, because you invited them to share in tending the flock with their watchful eyes and compassionate hearts.
You stuck with those friends, because you loved them beyond their weakness into something new. I know this is true, because when you rose from the dead, those imperfect friends were the people you most wanted to see: the dear frightened women at the tomb who had come to care for your broken body even though they had no plan for rolling away the stone; the humble disciples who walked with you all those miles, even when they didn’t quite know what they were doing or how to do it well. From the empty tomb, from their failures of faith, you went ahead to meet them once again in Galilee.
What is faith? It’s not about what I think or do. It’s about who you are. It’s not me getting everything right, but it’s living into the peace you’ve already given and keeping alert to the love you always bring. I still feel lost more than I want to. I still feel like I’m either trying too hard or not enough. But when I’m with you, I know I’m in the right place, and that you even go ahead to meet me and walk with me.
Thanks for letting me ask these questions and think about these things with you. It means a lot to me that I know you’re always listening.
Yours truly,
Martin
Dear Martin, and other friends who might be reading along,
Thanks for your questions and ideas. I like it when people think about the mysterious things of God with me. Without giving away all the mystery all at once, yes, I could sleep peacefully on the boat during the storm, because I am life and peace. I encourage wakefulness and alertness in times of trial because I’m always actively working for good and want you to be part of it. I invite you to follow me to the cross and beyond, because I’ve been there and I’ll bring you through, too.
My friends, I hope you know that life, peace, and goodness aren’t riding on your shoulders. I carry them for you. I’ve lifted the burdens from your shoulders and replaced them with peace. When trials, doubts, weakness, failures, griefs, and pains arise (and they will like storms at sea), you can always be sure that I do care and that I’ll meet you, support you, and love you.
From the fig tree learn its lesson: life is beautiful and abundant and seasonal, and you will indeed grow with me into the life that is the very heart of God.
Yours truly,
Jesus
Dear Jesus,
In response to your recent message, yes, I’ve been more intentional about keeping Sabbath and claiming the peace you give me. At the same time, living into Sabbath rest and claiming your resurrection peace have raised new questions, which I’d like to discuss with you.
First, I wonder how living into your peace fits with what you said in Mark 13: “Beware! Keep alert! Keep awake!” Those are strong commands that don’t sound very peaceful. Then you illustrated these words about watchfulness by talking about a master and a doorkeeper. The master seems to expect that the faithful doorkeeper will stay awake around the clock. But when does that doorkeeper get to claim your peace? I’m asking, because it seems like people like me are the doorkeeper in that story, and it feels like a lot of pressure. If you were trying to keep your followers on edge with that story, then congratulations, because that’s how I feel. But that doesn’t sound like you. You don’t want us to be frantic. You want us to know your goodness and peace.
Maybe there’s a balance between peacefulness and alertness that I’m missing. For instance, I remember the time in Mark 4 when you yourself did the opposite of staying awake. You were sound asleep in a boat during a storm, while your friends were totally awake. They were so awake that they woke you up by saying, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re perishing?!” You did care, because you rebuked the wind and commanded the sea to be still, so that a dead calm came over it. Then you asked them why they had been so worried: “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”
Faith. Maybe that’s the place where peace and alertness can coexist in ways that are good for me instead of stressful. In faith, I can imagine that a good doorkeeper would know how to rest and delegate in such a way that the job was done well without driving everyone to exhaustion. Filled with the Holy Spirit, you could be at total rest during a terrible storm, while your friends were wide awake but also feeling wildly out of control. I can see your faith, but sometimes it feels like faith is just another job I’ll fail at, an impossible balancing act between serenity and alertness. If faith is a job I need to do, then I’m pretty sure I’m not getting it right. But when I look at you and your friends and I wonder if faith means something else entirely.
I bet you already know where I’m going to go next, Jesus. That’s right, I’m going to ask about what happened shortly after your words in Mark 13. You ate the Passover with your friends, you made promises about your body and blood to them and for them, and then you went to pray in Gethsemane. Here’s the thing: you had literally just told them to keep alert and keep awake, and they were physically unable to keep their eyes open. The first time it happened in the garden you even told Peter directly, using his birth name: “Simon!... Keep awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Then—while in your distress and agitation you threw yourself to the ground and prayed—he fell asleep two more times.
He failed to stay awake. As we see in his betrayal later that night, he also failed his time of trial, failed to admit that he ever even knew you! So what was faith then? Is it a contest that Peter lost? Is it a job your followers will always fail? Is it good intentions and pious gestures, surrounded by constant, thinly-veiled disappointment?
In that night of your agitation and arrest, I see that faith was never about Simon Peter. It was about you. You asked for your friends to stick around during the worst times, because you wanted them to be with you. You asked them to be good doorkeepers, because you invited them to share in tending the flock with their watchful eyes and compassionate hearts.
You stuck with those friends, because you loved them beyond their weakness into something new. I know this is true, because when you rose from the dead, those imperfect friends were the people you most wanted to see: the dear frightened women at the tomb who had come to care for your broken body even though they had no plan for rolling away the stone; the humble disciples who walked with you all those miles, even when they didn’t quite know what they were doing or how to do it well. From the empty tomb, from their failures of faith, you went ahead to meet them once again in Galilee.
What is faith? It’s not about what I think or do. It’s about who you are. It’s not me getting everything right, but it’s living into the peace you’ve already given and keeping alert to the love you always bring. I still feel lost more than I want to. I still feel like I’m either trying too hard or not enough. But when I’m with you, I know I’m in the right place, and that you even go ahead to meet me and walk with me.
Thanks for letting me ask these questions and think about these things with you. It means a lot to me that I know you’re always listening.
Yours truly,
Martin
Dear Martin, and other friends who might be reading along,
Thanks for your questions and ideas. I like it when people think about the mysterious things of God with me. Without giving away all the mystery all at once, yes, I could sleep peacefully on the boat during the storm, because I am life and peace. I encourage wakefulness and alertness in times of trial because I’m always actively working for good and want you to be part of it. I invite you to follow me to the cross and beyond, because I’ve been there and I’ll bring you through, too.
My friends, I hope you know that life, peace, and goodness aren’t riding on your shoulders. I carry them for you. I’ve lifted the burdens from your shoulders and replaced them with peace. When trials, doubts, weakness, failures, griefs, and pains arise (and they will like storms at sea), you can always be sure that I do care and that I’ll meet you, support you, and love you.
From the fig tree learn its lesson: life is beautiful and abundant and seasonal, and you will indeed grow with me into the life that is the very heart of God.
Yours truly,
Jesus