Relevant Church

I know it has only been a couple of days, but we are giving this whole “ride the train” idea a try and so far I am pretty impressed. It actually happens more often than we realize. Leslee (my absolutely wonderful wife!) and I will watch a movie or read something or see a news story or even just have a conversation with someone. Of course after it is all over she would like to know my thoughts. Always before I would say I didn’t know what to think or maybe I would say something just to satisfy her need. But it usually would end there without any real conversation or thought exchange between us. Most of the time it goes unnoticed, but there are times where my wife really needs me to voice an opinion on something. In these cases we would either come to the conclusion that I am an emotionally repressed idiot or perhaps even an argument would ensue. I have actually lived under the belief that I am an emotional idiot for my entire life.

Now we are able to step back and give me the time I need to process my thoughts without an argument and without me feeling like an idiot. It’s great! I have spoken up and told her that I needed to ride the train on a question she asked and she steps back and is OK with waiting for my train to come back around. I do believe that this is the perfect opportunity to get out of a tough conversation, but whether the man wants to or not the woman will eventually snatch him from his comfy seat on the train. I have done a good job so far remembering that when the train comes back around that I need to tell her what I have discovered. Like I said it has only been a couple of days so the practice thus far has been pretty simple subjects without much importance. I do have a fear that when it comes time that we are in a heated debate (that’s PC for fight) that either she will not want to give me the time I need to ride the train or I will use the train ride to get out of the situation and hope never to return to that station. I do think, however, that this practice of riding the train on the small stuff will help when it comes time for something bigger.

Until then I know that on an every day basis my marriage is enhanced by a deeper and more intimate level of conversation. It feels really good to exchange real thoughts and real ideas with the person I consider to be my best friend.

- Bill

Last Sunday at church we had communion, which is not in any way an unusual thing for us to partake in, but Relevant does communion a little differently than other churches I’ve gone to. Instead of having a regular service, with a topical sermon or a segment within a series, we use communion to talk about the central message of the Gospel—Jesus sacrificing himself for us.

Of course, it’s always put into a context that is relevant to our modern day lives. This week that meant observations about how Super Bowl mania (which struck Tampa last week) is short lived and how The Passover of ancient Jerusalem was equally celebrated and likewise short-lived.

Then Paul pointed out that the Passover celebration in Luke 22 had a sort of cloud over it for Jesus, since He knew it would be His last. So, in a serious and not totally understood moment, Jesus asked that his friends remember him when they gather at the table and acknowledge that his body would be broken and his blood shed for their (and our) sins.

Yet the disciples didn’t seem to understand what He was telling them and were quickly distracted by the cloud of a debate over who among them was greatest. Paul gently pointed out that we too can tend to focus on “a cloud” and in effect prevent ourselves from really focusing on God.

I think I fell victim to a clouding like that on Sunday morning. And it can be tough not to when you really think about the price that the Lord paid for us. After all, like the song the band led us in again this week (and which has words that I think we cannot hear too often) says, “Jesus paid it all, All to Him I owe, Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow— Oh praise the One who paid my debt and raised this life up from the dead.”

Perhaps you know that in your mind or in your heart, but to really spend time meditating on the price that was paid for us to be washed white can break your heart. That realization can lead even the toughest of tough into a tender and somber moment like our congregation shared on Sunday.

But I allowed this cloud of heaviness to over power another thing that I think is equally as important as understanding the weight of Jesus’ sacrifice: the opportunity to rejoice. Jesus literally wiped our debt away and asks for nothing in return but devotion.

I don’t know much about finance or economics, but I know that if the debt of the world I live in—the financial debt, that is—were to be wiped away, we would rejoice! If America’s deficit was suddenly wiped away, we would be dancing in the streets in celebration! So would people in Africa, folks on Wall Street and from every end of the Earth. Having the weight of financial burdens lifted could unite even the most opposite of humans in celebrations of equally undeserving joy and gratitude.

Why then is it hard for us to apply this same joy to an even bigger debt that was paid millennia ago? Perhaps some of us are numb to the age of this debt forgiveness. Perhaps some of us don’t truly believe it. Perhaps some of us are so focused on the cloud of sacrifice that we miss the sweet forgiveness that it awards us. Perhaps some of us just don’t remember that alongside the depth of understanding and gratitude we feel towards God for giving his Son for us, we should rejoice. After all, that’s what they’re doing in Heaven. (See Luke 15)

- Christina