tagged 
aroma, experience, fragrance
aroma, experience, fragrance Monday's Meditation: The Aroma of Christ
Monday, October 24, 2011 at 12:05AM 
But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life. And who is equal to such a task? (2 Corinthians 2: 14-16)
Perhaps it’s the smell of donuts and tea, all yeasty and sweet. Or roses: nuanced and subtle, filling the room. Or the smell of baking bread where there should be the stench of burning flesh.
This week’s meditation is an invitation to breathe deep and discover the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Christ. Of course, the Apostle Paul was only using a metaphor, right? The intellectual colossus of Christianity would have never intended we could actually smell the presence of Jesus, would he?
I was away on a business trip last week. My 8 year-old daughter used my Cheerios Tee as a nightshirt, but not before smelling all the T-shirts in the closet because they reminded her of Daddy. We could never remember Jesus like that. Never? Widows tell of opening a dresser drawer and catching the fragrance of their husband long departed. Our brain recalls the decades past by the faintest whiff of a meal we ate as children. We smell the beach before we see the ocean.
Check the commentaries and you’ll find the musty smell of books and study. The commentators will remind you of Roman processions and temples filled with incense. The learned professors will explain these words were the stuff of Paul’s creative metaphor.
But there is another way: you can check the history of the people of God, common folk who have experienced uncommon things:
John the Apostle had a disciple named Polycarp. In 155 A.D. he was arrested and threatened with fire because he loved John’s Master, Jesus. “You threaten fire which burns for an hour and is soon quenched.” he said. “Why do you wait? Come, do what you will!” When the authorities tied him to a stake and set him ablaze, his skin turned golden brown and witnesses smelled the smell of baking bread. Since the witnesses were not theologians they reported their experience and not a metaphor: the aroma of the bread of life.
But who can trust witnesses dead for 18 centuries? Something like that could never happen today.
That’s what I thought until a gnarly old musician, a 60’s throwback who sang worship songs to Jesus came to our little town. Barely 40 people gathered to hear him sing and minister. Yet when he prayed one-on-one for those who stayed until the end, the room swelled with rose-scent, a bouquet of God’s presence right before my very nose. It happened again the next day as I drove him to the airport. Our car filled with perfume as if an alabaster jar had been broken before me.
Still, it’s hard to believe, I grant you. And who could possibly expect it to happen again:
Until one Sunday morning when two rows of worshipers in our church encountered the smell of donuts and tea while they sang and raised their hands, each one sure they were the only ones until one looked at another and said, “This is weird, but do you smell tea?”
Of course, the commentators are right: Paul's words are allusions to the practices of the day. He was merely drawing on the common understanding of his times. But what if Paul also wrote his experiences down? What if there is also a spiritual reality long lost, and the Spirit is trying to whet our appetite for his presence again today?
How about you? Do you have a story to tell? Has his fragrance ever settled on you?
Deep Friendship, Deep Prayer
Thursday, October 20, 2011 at 12:22AM 
One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples." ~ Luke 11: 1
Have you ever asked someone a question and then stopped listening too soon? The disciples asked Jesus for a lesson on prayer, but many of us quit listening after the first few verses. His answer stretches all the way to verse 13.
After Jesus provided a sample prayer he continued with seven simple words that can forever change our idea of prayer: “Suppose one of you has a friend . . .” (Luke 11: 5) Jesus moved the conversation from the content of prayer to the relationship between God and man. He calls the relationship friendship.
Some friendships stand on stick-legs: they can’t hold much weight. Every conversation has to be measured carefully to avoid damaging the relationship. Jesus, on the other hand, presents the example of a friendship so strong that both men can say exactly what they think without any worry of ruining their bond.
The story is of two men who knew each other so well they could be completely honest. One guy receives an unexpected visitor late at night and needs to provide hospitality. He goes to his friend’s house--even though it’s too late at night to drop by--and asks for extra food. His friend says, “Are you nuts? It’s way too late, come back tomorrow.” Yet the relationship is so strong that the first guy can say, “I’m not leaving until I get what I need.”
Bible scholars will tell you that Jesus paints this picture to illustrate the importance of persistence in prayer, and of course that’s true. But there’s something more: Jesus invites us to imagine prayer as an extension of honest, real friendship. If we approach prayer academically we will rush past Jesus' simple introduction, “Suppose you have a friend.” He asks us to draw on our experience and imagine the best friendship we have, then apply that kind of security and strength to the way we talk to God.
The point of his illustration is that friendship itself is the reason we can persist. The reason we can be so bold to knock on the door at midnight is that we know our rude behavior will not sever the relationship. We can continue to ask, seek, and knock because we know the heart of the one we are bothering. He’s our friend. The kind of friend for whom the rules don’t count.
I’d like to suggest at least five thoughts that may change your prayers:
We don’t have to wait for the “proper time” to come and ask. If the situation calls for it, bang on the door in the middle of the night. That’s what real friends are for.
The friendship door swings both ways: the second friend is comfortable in the relationship, too. So comfortable, in fact, that the first answer might be, “Don’t bother me!” Does our picture of God allow for the possibility that I could press through the first answer? Would you ever ask God to change his mind?
When my friend does answer, he will give me “as much as I need.” Friends don’t keep score: what’s yours is mine, and vice versa. The basis for his generosity is the relationship, not the rules of etiquette.
I can have the boldness to keep on asking when I’m asking on behalf of someone else. Remember how the story starts? There’s a third party in the picture. They are the ones who will eat the bread; they are the ones in need. Jesus is suggesting that when we pray out of our need to bless others, God is more than generous, but how many times have I limited my prayers to my needs?
Finally, Jesus is unafraid to mix metaphors. Just as the power of this imaginary scene is beginning to sink in, Jesus begins to talk about fathers, children, and the Holy Spirit (verses 11-13). Can we turn our imagination in still more directions?
Perhaps, but that’s another blog for another day.
Monday Meditation: Rethinking the Daily Mail
Monday, October 17, 2011 at 12:04AM 
Let me confess something: I used to hate bringing the mail in from the mailbox. I would let it build up for days and pretend it wasn't there. I was upset if my wife or kids brought it in.
“No good thing can possibly come in the mail,” I instructed my family, and I really meant it.
Then one day I began to apply my imagination to the possibilities of receiving mail so good that it could change my life. Try to apply your imagination with me:
- The bank made a mistake years ago calculating your mortgage and now--suddenly--they tell you your house is paid off. In fact, they owe you a rebate as well.
- A total stranger has paid off your student loans.
- The doctors write to tell you the diagnosis was wrong and you don’t have cancer after all.
These examples represent the best kind of news. No more coupon-clipping; your future is no longer clouded by debt; your fears of endless treatment and medicines vanish in a moment. Who wouldn’t welcome such great news?
But now imagine that the day after you receive such wonderful mail, you wake up and find yourself worried about money or you wake up in a sweat thinking about hospitals and death. Old habits die hard, and habits of the mind may not die at all.
To receive good news, to really receive it—to take it in and discover new freedom—requires a new way of thinking. This new way of thinking has a Biblical name: repentance. I know. You thought repentance meant things like remorse, feeling guilty, determination and trying harder.
Someone has lied to you. At its very core the word “repent” means rethink your life. The trick is: you have to have a valid reason to rethink your life. A positive mental attitude is not enough; simply trying harder won’t change your world.
There must be some hard-core reality that changes the equation, something that wipes away the past, or presents a future that cannot be denied. Better yet, all three. Jesus presented just that hard-core reality when he said, “The Kingdom of God is breaking in. Right here, right now.” He wasn’t describing some new program or advocating a new philosophy. Jesus challenged people to recognize that the world would be forever different because God had come down and he would do whatever was necessary to set people free.
God could not be stopped, the old order of things was condemned and a new order was made real. He invited us to move to the side of victory with these words: “The time has come. The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the good news.”
Good news requires that we rethink our way of life. Have you recalculated yours in the light of his Kingdom? May I suggest this mediation for the coming week? Instead of trying to imagine going to heaven after you die, try to imagine what it would be like if heaven began breaking into your world here and now, because that’s precisely what happened in Jesus Christ.
Tasting the Family Heritage
Thursday, October 13, 2011 at 12:18AM 
God’s presence is the family heritage. I turn page after page in the family album of scripture and discover my God is highly relational. He wants us to know him. Let’s pull out the album and remind ourselves of the past. Can you hear the pages crackle with the testimony of lives impacted by his touch?
There’s our father, Abraham. He was visited personally by the creator of the universe no fewer than four times. God spoke to Abraham, and Abraham spoke to God. They discussed where Abraham should live, what he should do and how he should raise his family. Abraham served God a meal, heard God laugh, and bargained with him for the lives of the righteous.
Abraham’s son, Isaac, shared his life with God as well. God helped him through difficult economic times with specific advice. Isaac waited a long time for the God of his father to become his God, but it was worth the wait. Isaac’s wife asked of God and discovered why her pregnancy was so difficult; in the process she learned the secret destiny of her twin sons.
Abraham’s grandson, Jacob, did his best to avoid the presence of God. Yet even while running away he stumbled into God’s house. He didn’t know where he was, but he awoke at the base of Heaven’s gate. Later in his life he found himself in hand-to-hand combat with the Almighty, and the experience changed his identity forever: “I’m the one who wrestled with God” (and I have the limp to prove it).
This is our family album as well. Our ancestors conversed with God, questioned God, wrestled with God, and heard his secrets. They bargained and pleaded with him, and--most amazingly--they experienced his presence even while they were in conflict with him.
Those of us with a high view of scripture should allow it to whet our appetite, to provoke our thirst for his tangible presence. We have a choice: if our experience does not match the revealed word of God, we should change our way of life and pursue the experience we see. Instead we have settled for knowing the record of the past, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
Monday’s post collected stories from everyday people who have felt his touch in our time. Their stories should encourage us that Abraham’s blessing can be ours as well. God’s relationship with others is a promise to us. We were made to be with him. Do we experience his presence? Are we aware when God is in the room? Jesus intended that, like our family, we should know his presence. We should settle for nothing less. One taste is enough to bring hunger for life. We should feel him for real or wrestle with the lack until he comes and touches us himself.
Many Christians have no story to tell because they have been taught avoid subjective experience. They’ve been taught the facts of God’s presence, but what good is it to have a theology that asserts God’s presence is everywhere if there is no evidence of it? It may be the central failing of the North American church: His presence is rarely manifest. We do not even feel the lack. He is indeed with everyone, but everyone is not always with him. God is present with everyone; more important, He longs for everyone to be present with him.
We have settled. The presence of God has been canned, preserved and placed in the pantry. Our taste for the freshness of his presence has been dulled. We have subsisted on the remains of his presence when just one taste of the real thing is enough to cause us to hunger for the rest of our lives. It’s the kind of hunger that will keep us filled for life.
Monday's Meditation: Experiencing His Presence
Monday, October 10, 2011 at 12:06AM 
One night God came to dinner with me and five of my friends. We’ve never been the same.
We were a team of six college students who found ourselves unexpectedly joined together because our backyard Bible study had blossomed into a small church. Our ragtag group of believers were like the Lost Boys in Peter Pan--not a true adult among us. We sang silly songs and engaged in Bible teaching, even though we ourselves knew nothing. We had seen our fellowship grow into 120 people, but the only thing we knew for sure is that the six of us were called by God into mutual commitment to him and one another.
Alone in a church basement, around the scent of roast lamb rising from our plates we celebrated what God had done between us. We ate a covenant meal and expressed our commitment to one another.
What happened next changed my life: God became present in a tangible way. He was in the room with us. We stopped praying and sat in silence. The room was heavy: the air lay upon my shoulders like a weight. None of us dared speak. The silence was so thick it seemed like a substance. Each of us knew that God had joined us. We felt small and insignificant even while we also felt eternity welling inside of our very bodies.
After he left, we sat together stunned, and shared our experiences. My tiny mind knew that, technically, God was everywhere all the time, but in that moment I experienced his presence for the first time. In the decades since I have encountered God again and again, now aware that there is a difference between the knowledge of his omni-presence and the experience of his presence.
I’ve listened to other people speak of their experiences as well:
“God met me in a hotel room one night;”
“God visited me in my childhood as I looked out my bedroom window;”
“The presence of God filled the room like a cloud as we worshipped.”
I know their accounts are true simply because I have eaten at the same table and sipped the same wine. I’ve read the accounts of people like Jacob the slickster, who awoke one night and gasped, “‘Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.’ He was afraid and said, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.’” (Genesis 28: 16-17)
This week’s Meditation is a two-fold invitation to this community of readers:
- If you’re never experienced the presence of God in a tangible way, ask him to come and open yourself to the possibility.
- If you have experienced his presence, click on the comments below and share your story. Let deep call to deep so we might all hunger again for that banqueting table.