Friday 3 April 2015

Passionate Faith

We despised him and rejected him- a man of sorrows, acquainted with bitterest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way when he went by.
Isaiah 53:3

Passionate Faith

            Jesus had perfect faith and was absolutely sinless.
Yet he allowed himself to experience the heights and depths of human emotion. He knew great joy and he also knew depression and sorrow. He did not suppress his anger or hide his tears or even mask depression. He was not afraid to speak forth the deepest longings of his heart. He was passionate without apology.
            But what do we mean by passionate?  God and Jesus declared how much they truly love his people. God declared through Jeremiah “I have loved you with an everlasting love.” (Jeremiah 31:3) And in Hosea he agonizes over Israel- My heart is turned over within Me all My compassions are kindled. (Hosea 11:8)
            God showed his people (and shows us, too) that we should be passionate. David was passionate as he wrote the Psalms (6,31, 42) when down and when joyous.
            Jesus expressed his emotions freely and without shame. He embraced these emotions and revealed his love anger, sorrow, very openly. Hebrews 4:15—we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness—Jesus knew and experienced everything we do. He understands because he felt and experienced too.
            When Jesus saw the sorrow in Mary and Martha’s eyes over the death of their brother Lazarus, he wept and his heart was stirred. And he showed his anger to bring about change. Expressing anger is often needed but we should do so in a healthy way. One needs to deal with relational problems right away and not allow them to fester or seethe within us.== be slow to anger. (James 1:19=20)
            For many years women were taught it isn’t lady like to become angry. For men, they were taught not to cry. Yet if we are to have healthy faith, we need to embrace and affirm our emotions. |We need to recognize that unhealthy faith denies people the change to feel what they really feel. Healthy churches are healing centres where we can express our true feelings as well as find prayer support, accountability, appropriate forgiveness and cleansing.
            Unhealthy churches are filled with people who look good, say all the right things, and support an image of perfectionism.  Real feelings are abandoned for the “good ones” supporting the myth that the faithful have no problems.
            But to be genuine and healthy is to be able to embrace who we are as human beings. There is no need to hide emotions for Jesus experienced them all. Health faith allows us to embrace all aspects of our humanity and acknowledges our capacity to sin and make mistakes. There is no illusion of perfection, no need to be perfect or to hide when we fail. Health faith enables us to experience God’s grace and to pass it along. We then become like Jesus, a wounded healer.

REFLECTION:
Have you ever felt that you had to hide your feelings because someone in your church commented about how you expressed your feelings? What did you do? What should we be doing? Unhealthy churches exist because people are not honest with themselves nor about situations around others. Yet this may be changed if those who truly realize that they belong to Jesus, imperfections and all,  and tell another one who is unsure about their relationship with Jesus. Our goal is to have healthy faith and healthy churches. What are the steps needed for this to occur? What do you do for yourself and for others in order that your church be healthier?

PRAYER
Wonderful God we praise you for Jesus our Risen Lord and how he lived his life being human when he did not need to do so. We thank you for your Gift to us in Jesus and that he die and came to life once again. Through this saving act he truly showed us the way of perfection and love. Amen.


This reflection is based upon ideas of by Stephen Arterburn and Jack Felton More Jesus Less Religion: Moving from Rules to Relationship. Colorado Springs, Co: Waterbrook Press,2000.     Chapter 7

No comments:

Post a Comment

please type your comments here.