Christian Counseling Service -- Devotions

Joseph, David and Jesus

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Psalm 69:10
I have become an outcast to my brothers, a stranger to my mother's sons. Zeal for your house consumes me, and the insults of those who blaspheme you, fall upon me.

Jesus was born with the silver spoon of rejection firmly planted in his mouth. Jesus walked in the shadow of two Jewish heroes who were broken, beaten and nearly killed by their own brothers. Only in this shadow did the silver lining of God's presence shine in them and then prevail.

How clearly did Jesus see this? His father and mother told him the stories of his ancestors as he grew up. He quoted from Jewish scripture as if much of he'd memorized. He asked questions which baffled the best teachers of the land when he was only twelve. What do you think?

So Jesus moves from day to day this week, watching the events unfold which will end in his death; and he feels the silver lining move, embryonically, just inside his skin. God has not abandoned his son.

I imagine Jesus, awake at 3 a.m. During Dallas Willard's insomnia, this became his favorite hour. In those seemingly endless tracts of time he learned to pray a different way than in the day. Jesus always tells us that he only says what he hears his Father say. In the silence before sunrise, the airwaves are more clear. Most of us hear God better then.

With practice my mind quiets sooner. My ears don't hear the sounds around me in the same way. This kind of awareness might be called attunement, or intuition. The Latin word is nous, which refers to understanding and knowledge reached without "the mediation of concepts."

In his own spiritual practice Jesus discovered much earlier than we do, and more thoroughly than I ever will, the beauty of his oneness with God. In Martin Laird's words, "There is far more to being alive than riding breathlessly around in the emotional roller coaster of obsessive thinking." Jesus' closest spiritual companion became his Father, not his own thoughts.

Jeremiah complained to God, "You seduced me, and I was seduced! The word of the Lord has brought me reproach and derision all day long" (Jer 20:7-8).

So too for Jesus. And the words are his own. They truly are a sharp sword, dividing his brothers into camps that call for either killing or the crown. But Jesus has learned to listen through his fear and beyond this screeching debate, to the words of his Father.

Learning Lord, to pray in the silence, is the joy of my life. However slowly, I learn from the mothers and fathers of my life and especially from you, Jesus. Sometimes in this attunement, breath barely sustains me. No sight or sound seduces, only the sense of your presence, the scent of life you are, the sweet nard of burial, the sweet music of resurrection.

Devotions Archive

Joseph, David and Jesus

Wednesday, April 16, 2014