A Word About Deficit

I never even started that Advent devotional.

The one I researched and found online but could not get to download over our shoddy internet. The process discouraged me and I thought of it, spoke of it to God, every morning.

If only that devotional had downloaded!

I really wanted all of those wise words.

God knew.

In this particular season, I did not need to read it.

I needed to walk it.

You see.

The water stopped flowing and there was an announcement about it on the radio and it was because a pipe had been damaged in a nearby road construction project.

We called, sent someone to the water office and discussed. The official word returned to us that ‘they couldn’t know’ when the pipe would be repaired. “The road must be finished first.”

We were watching those construction workers like hawks. Were they moving? Was the murram (gravel) spread? How many days would they break for holiday celebrations? Could we bring our wrenches and fix that pipe ourselves?!

Because you know what is helpful in the days just before Christmas? Water.

Because you know what is necessary for all of the dish washing? Water.

Because you know what is required for the gazillion times a person washes their hands while baking?  Water.

Because you know what is really advantageous when someone is ill with a stomach bug? Water.

Because you know what is conducive to Cheryl remaining sane? Water.

Indeed.

You see, once upon a time, we lived for six whole years without electricity. By God’s grace, we did that. We adjusted to solar power and all that it provides, namely, freedom from the corruption of our local electric company. So, I know that I can weather that particular deprivation. I can live without my hair dryer, a washer and dryer and a deep freeze. It hurt for a while, but I adjusted.

But you know what I cannot seem to adjust to living without? Water.

I simply cannot. It takes me right up to the edge of all that is rational and practical and tips me over the fraying, ragged edge. I know this because I have also done it. I have lived without running water. Our very first nine months in Fort Portal. Nine months. It changed me forever. (I never drain an entire bathtub of water without cringing.)

But the week before Christmas? The loss of water felt like some sort of cruel joke. Because, for the Cashes, this December of 2017 was one for the books.

Car tires. Blown out.

Car electrical system. Shut down.

Solar power inverter. Blown out.

Internet router. Burned out.

Web domain and email. Hacked and locked out.

Electricity. Browned out. Surged. Off.

Water. Off for days, tanks dry.

Jeff. Sick for two weeks.

Bank accounts. Locked out.

Phones. Frozen, locked up, conked.

It really has been remarkable. I awoke early each morning to sort the previous days burdening issues to realize that I must solve two new problems first.

There was no way it was coincidental. Not in the merciful hands of an incredibly persistent, incredibly faithful Provider.

He wastes nothing.

In the midst of it all, this one particular morning.

Sipping coffee.

Mapping out necessary tasks for the day ahead.

Praying for water.

There it was:

A gift, wrapped in discouragement and want, emerging sweeter than ever before.

His mysterious reckoning blazoned.

All of the deficit had me locked into waiting expectantly.

I didn’t have to tell myself to pay attention.

I already was.

There was nothing else to do.

Sitting in the want and need and impossibilities and straining my ears toward…something. Some word to guide the next step.

Some announcement that would promise good ahead.

Some news that would be abundant.

Some idea that would advance our day and maybe even alleviate a burden.

Like the shepherds.

Like the old barren couple, succumbed to the humility of no immediate heir.

Like the young girl waiting on the very edge of a community-accepted, status-quo life change offered instead the opportunity to labor on behalf of the whole world.  

Doing their jobs. In step with the familiar. The next right things. The daily. The yearly. The expected passage of one’s life.

Right in the middle of the worship. The day. The dark field at night.

Each person wanting for something.

Proclamation.

“Do not be afraid!”

“….your prayer has been heard!”

“Your wife, Elizabeth, will bear you a son….

He will be a joy and delight to you.”

Luke 1: 5-25

“Greetings, you who are HIGHLY FAVORED!”

“The Lord is with you!”

“Do not be afraid!”

“You have found favor with God!”

“You will conceive and give birth to a son...”

“…call Him Jesus…”

“He will be great!”

Luke 1:26-33

“DO NOT BE AFRAID!”

“I bring you GOOD news!”

 “Today…a Savior has been born to you.”

Luke 2:8-12

My heart beats it.

Each of those glorious, weird, out-of-the-box announcements so full of mercy and hope shining light ahead, even then, into each of my current powered-out, bone dry places.

This is a gospel that resounds.

A point of light incisively radiating into the shadowy margin of every shortfall.

It is, in fact, really loud there.

For this is the meaning of advent.

We wait. He comes.

Over and over and over again.

The waiting is not a distraction.

It is, instead, the epiphany.

Deficit:

 Creating an empty space expansive enough for an echo to reverberate.

Deficit:

 Locking focus, accentuating need, heightening all the wanting and opening ears to every decree.

Deficit:

Perfectly priming each moment for proclamation.

And, somehow, the intensified longing transforms worship.

The discordant tone of yearning creating the most gorgeous, soul-satisfying dissonance.

We are so happy, so relieved, so satisfied,

when a long-awaited answer finally comes.

“My soul glorifies the Lord…”

…my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.

“…he has been mindful…

His mercy extends…

He has performed mighty deeds…

He has brought down rulers and lifted up the humble!

He has filled the hungry…

He has helped…

He remembers to be merciful…”

Luke 1: 46-55

His Spirit falls on us.

Fills us.

Births new.

“Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel,

because he has come to his people

and redeemed them!

.…to show mercy

to remember

to rescue

to enable us to serve…

to shine…

to guide our feet….”

Luke 1: 67-79

In my own weeks of pummeling deficiency, I was granted a Christmas season ripe with enlightening truth:

heavily expectant

lonely labor

saving arrivals

God’s Glory proclaimed.

From every humble state, a gift poured out from surprising places through concession to God’s upside down, shocking, ever-redemptive way:

“I am the Lord’s servant.

May your word to me be fulfilled.”

Luke 1:38

Wherever you are today--

From the obvious want of want.

(Or, even, from the constantly insatiable want of plenty.)

May your eyes be allowed to see,

His blessed favor, rest.

“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

Luke 2:14

(Our water returned late in the evening on Christmas Eve. It was perfectly timed relief for all of us. Thanks be to God for His faithful presence in the midst of it all and thanks to each of you for every prayer.)

Four Days

The stories of Jesus’ Passion echo brilliantly as we move to commemorate that eternity changing three days in Jerusalem so long ago.

Easter is upon us and so is the whole of Jesus most resonating story.

All the parts of those final days of Jesus life move me deeply-- from the meal, to the discourse, to the trial, to the blood soaked wood of the cross.

And, of course, Sunday. 

Always, Sunday.

This Holy Week, though, has me especially cringing again through every detail of the garden.

Jesus' arrest.

The shock. The betrayal. The confusion.

All the blinding, silencing fear.

It breathes in me anew this year.

Stifling and rasping and true.

My hope for Sunday’s dawn has never been so acutely pronounced in this one particular way.

And yet, consistently as my soul wrestles just to read it all through, my gaze is pulled from Jerusalem, East, to Bethany.

And there it is.

The story that is saving me right now.

That one, big, deep, restoring breath, just before.

John, Chapter 11.

A very specific moment with one very specific point.

For the glory of God.

~~~~~

We are told that he loved them.

Mary. Lazarus. Martha.

Siblings who each one drew Jesus near to their heart and home, in belief and friendship.

In adoration.

The story goes, that this one time, Lazarus was sick.

But not just regular-sick.

He was ‘send-for-Jesus’ sick.

Everyone understood what this meant.

It wasn’t a quick text message.

It wasn’t a Facebook post typed quickly and sent with the push of one button.

It was a 'send-a-runner-to-arrive-with-out-of-breath- words-because-we-have-no-recourse-and-he-may-die' dispatch-ery.

In John 11, the urgent report is met with Jesus’ diagnosis:

“It won’t end in death.” vs4a

Jesus’ discourse:

“It is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” vs4b

Jesus’ devotion:

“Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.” vs5

And Jesus’ delay:

“So when he heard…he stayed where he was two more days…” vs6

Delay?!

After staying exactly where he was for two more 24 hour stretches of time, Jesus then makes his way back to Judea to answer his friends’ desperate call.

“On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days.” vs17

Arriving to the Bethany scene, Jerusalem shadowed only two miles in the distance, Jesus finds his friends’ community already days into their mourning and grief. The tears have not stopped, the loss is still raw, and the tomb with the decaying body is already well-sealed.

For four days.

It seemed that the Healer had not arrived in time.

They sent word.

But He did not immediately come.

His belated arrival brought Martha purposefully to meet him on the road still outside the village.

“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died...” vs21

Repeated again by Mary a few moments later:

“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” vs32

Oh, the lingering echo of that soul crushing lament:

“Lord, if you had been here…”

Why did He delay?

When word had first reached him, he reasoned:

“…and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe.” Vs 15

When Martha first reached him, he proclaimed:

“I am the resurrection and the life.

The one who believes in me will live, even though they die,

and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.

Do you believe this?” vs 25-26

When Mary first reached him, he actively witnessed:

“When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled...

Jesus wept.” vs 33&35

In Jesus, even delay accomplished.

Accomplished?

Perhaps this:

When word first reached him, his disciples came along with him.

“Let us also go that we may die with [Jesus].” vs16

Or this:

When Martha first reached him, she confessed:

“Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.” vs27

Even this:

When Mary first reached him, Jesus stood weeping with her grieving at his feet:

“See how he loved [Lazarus]!” vs36

Community, confession, love.

All spun expansively within the space of a delay.

Also doubt.

“But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” vs 37

Delay can reveal a whole entire heart.

Still, he comes.

In front of Lazarus' tomb, at Jesus bidding, the stone is moved, death decay expectant.

 Jesus prays, looking up:

“Father, I thank you that you have heard me.” vs41

What did he just say?

God heard him?

“I knew that you always hear me,

 but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here,

 that they may believe that you sent me.” vs42

He connects publicly to His Father in front of an opened and reeking tomb,while a bewildered gathering turns their eyes to witness what in the world the Healer meant to do. 

Raising his voice, his loud cry echoes:

“Lazarus, come out!” vs43

After the delaying.

After the confessing.

After the weeping.

In the midst of all the love.

Every breath halted.

Every eye opened and raised up to see.

Hearts pounding, minds racing...

“Come out?!”

And they beheld,

“The dead man came out…” vs44

“Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.” vs44

Can you imagine the sounds?

The gasps?

The cries of Martha and Mary as they heard their brother’s voice speak again.

Felt his heart beat.

Smelled his breath as they stepped into his hug.

So very, so pungently, Alive.

Another wake quickly follows, but this was one is different from the last.
The weeping ceases as believers multiply and a community rejoices Lazarus' raising.

Unfortunately, the jealousy of Jesus' enemies looms too.

Thus, the Easter story marched just before them.

Jesus would also die and rise again. 

It’s always coming.

The Glory of that Easter Son.

But this year...this one.

With Jesus' powerful Passion story repeating around me, I remain sequestered in that definitive delay of chapter 11.

I am sure I am not alone.

A time of waiting often feels so deceptively abandoned.

It rarely is.

Others wait too.

We are a scattered gathering each suspended in our specific 'send-for-Jesus' crisis; maybe, also, simultaneously enduring the crushing loss of a delay.

 “If you had been here, this thing would not have happened!”

A celebration may reverberate in the world around us while we feel what we have lost. 

Grief enshrouds.
Questions loom.

Nevertheless, John 11 reminds us…

He is always arriving.

In His own exactly specific, Right Now.

Never, not for one second, veering off a carefully chosen course.

Purposed.

For God’s glory.

So that many may believe.

“I Am the resurrection…”

Right now,

Yesterday,

 Tomorrow.

I Am.

We serve the present tense, always coming, right-on-time God.

No matter what mourning engulfs his delay in appearing,

we can be confident that he will come.

In the waiting of John 11:

*Lazarus slept.

*Martha directed:

“But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.” vs22

*Mary cratered to Jesus’ feet in tears.

We are told that Jesus loved them.

Every single one, received.

And in the process of his own redemptive timing, God’s Son is:

Revealed  (I Am).

Released  (Jesus Wept).

Restored (Lazarus, come forth!)

May I be found in the wake of crisis, eyes uplifted, testimony praising from my lips:

“Father, I thank you that you have heard me!”

“…for the benefit of the people standing here,”

“that they may believe that you sent me…”

“For the glory of the Lord.”

Let it be so, Holy Father, let it be so.