-Desperation Band
(If you don't know this song, check it out here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXArllNBuXY&feature=related)
AH. Lay down. Just lay on your face. Please. Try it. Have you? Are you? NO, because you're still reading this. Stop. Go lay down on your face. Well... read just a tiny bit more and then go lay on your face.
Who hasn't been in a place where they need this? If you don't think you have, you haven't seen your heart. It can be broken, ugly, dirty, smashed into tiny fragments. There is one Healer, one Binder-of-wounds, one Love that can take away all of that and give you something new. Only he can do it. So you need to go to him. You need to find that place in your heart that you haven't invited him into yet, that you might have been holding onto for "later," and you need to bring him there. You need to go ask him to come there. You need his light there. The cold is killing anything that could grow there. You need his heat.
One of my favorite Scripture passages is Hosea 11:1-4. It reads as follows:
"When Israel was a child I loved him, out of Egypt I called my son. The more I called them, the farther they went from me, Sacrificing to the Baals and burning incense to idols.Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, who took them in my arms; I drew them with human cords, with bands of love; I fostered them like one who raises an infant to his cheeks; Yet, though I stooped to feed my child, they did not know that I was their healer."
My brothers and sisters, we don't even want to hear his Name. We don't want to know his titles! We don't want to acknowledge that he is the Healer, and Father, and Maker. These all imply so much. So much. C.S. Lewis said something profound along the these lines (paraphrased) "Christianity either means everything, or nothing. It cannot be mediocre." If God is God, who he says he is, then we are his. Or we are to be his if we have any hope for life. This is profoundly frightening to those who may not have confidence in his perfect goodness and love. They would be frightened of nothing, because he is nothing but goodness and love! His is the only Heart ever fully worth surrendering to! His is the only love really worth living for! His is the only Beauty truly worthy of your life.
So please, go to him. Go to him. I hear in my head the Blessed Mother's words at the wedding feast at Cana - "Do whatever he tells you." So simple. This is the mandate for our lives. If we could only lay them at his feet - lay ourselves at his feet - we would be undone. And then we would be re-done. Remade. Anew. It is no coincidence that Christ uses the analogy of wine being poured into old wineskins and bursting! He desires to make us new wineskins, that we may receive from him the love and mercy he wants so much to pour out. The only way this can be accomplished is if we will "do whatever he tells us." Faith and trust in him must be the exuberance that leads us to fall at his feet time and again, day in and out, moment by moment, tear by tear.
The last words of Sirach chapter 2 are these, "For equal to his majesty is the mercy that he shows."
Fathom this, my siblings! Now is the time to go fall at his feet and believe! Do you have any imagination? Can you recall the stories of the Old Testament, when God splits seas into two walls, or brings down fire to burn up water-logged sacrifices? Or can you recall the Gospel accounts of Jesus rubbing mud into blind eyes and bringing sight to the darkness, or speaking just a word to a broken body to be made whole for the first time? Can you not imagine the depth, height, breadth and length of the majesty of God? His mercy is this great! His desire for your humbled, open and willing heart is just as brilliant as every miracle and glory that he has revealed. In fact, this merciful love is the glory. It must be.
He says, "they did not know I was their healer" - ah! How many times do we live this out? Giving credit to our peace in something like coffee or a bed, instead of his love? And how far down has he stooped to feed us! My goodness, this is Jesus Christ made man, offered on the Cross, now offered at the Mass! He has stooped to the Eucharist, to be in us and with us every day. To be one with us. Yes, this is how he is our healer.
How Jesus' own words echo the Father's from Hosea when he speaks to his Apostles in John 14. He says, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me. In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be. Where (I) am going you know the way."
What does Thomas say in reply to this amazing promise of love? What we all say. "Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?"
Oh, we need to be more like Mary Magdalene. Just lay it out there. Just go to him. Sins and all. Embarrassment and shame. Just go to his feet. Love him there. How could he resist you? He already loves you so! For you to bring yourself, humbled and weak, broken and needy to his feet - he will indeed stoop to hold you. He will indeed show you the way. He will indeed take you there himself.
There are many promises in Scripture that captivate my heart, but this one has always held precedence. To be taken on the way by Jesus, who is the Way. He does not even say, "I will take you there myself." He says, "I will take you TO myself." It is Him, the Way, that we are seeking. All our lives, it is simply to be where he is. He plans to bring us right into his heart.
One night I was fooling around on my keyboard that I don't really know how to play, and after repeating a few chords a song started to form in my head. I play it now over and over when I find myself failing to believe all of this joyful goodness. It goes like this:
I give you my heart.
It was never mine at all;
So I don't mind if it breaks or falls,
You'll restore it to life after all.
Cause you never stop making us new,
More and more into the image of you!
You never stop making us new,
More and more into the image of you.
If we don't recognize our need yet, we should, and will. If we haven't seen our full weakness, it will be revealed. When it is, there is only one place we can be. On our faces. On the floor. At his feet. Tears or kisses or both - before him in our sorrow and humility we will discover the truth of his words, for he is our healer.
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