The crossing-over experience

01/2010

look into their eyes–they are waiting for someone to cross over…

rug rat kingdom

When my children were very small I was fascinated by their developing personalities.  Like most first-time parents, I was captivated by what unfolded before my very eyes.  What the heck was going on inside of them?  Of course, rug rats were rug rats, and the only sounds emanating were unintelligible. Sure, they spoke gibberish.  And gibberish would disappear soon for them (and not return until the teen years).  But I wanted to get to know them, understand them, experience life together with them.  Know them.    .

And I could not expect them to be something of which they were not capable.  No one expects an infant or a toddler without language skills to dialogue, express and process their inner thoughts with us in an understandable manner.  Ha.  So, for me to get to  know them, I had to do something:  I had to cross over.  I had to leave my chair, my outside perspective, to enter into their world on the floor.  I had to get down on the carpet to connect with them.  Life was on the carpet.  And my experience with carpet time, with each of my kids, was the start of something that has divine example.

I have discovered the significant truth of crossing over during the past two years.  It took me crossing the Atlantic to appreciate that similar things do happen by merely crossing the street, or by crossing a threshold.  This crossing over is the central truth in the message of the Kingdom.  The message of incarnation is known to us.  Unfortunately, it is so familiar that it may lose its poignancy to us.  We may not catch its full import.  The eternal Son that was in the beginning before the beginning began, One of the Trinity: …became flesh and dwelled among us.  Simply,  Jesus crossed over.  He entered into our realm.  But slow down, don’t get ahead of me.

Christmas with a different emphasis

Yes, we celebrate the spectacular event that theologians call the incarnation at Christmas time.  But it is so much more than that.  He crossed over, from His invisible realm, into our material dimension.  God coming in a human, physical body.  Now His followers grasped that revelation and that discovery fired them up, and launched them into new circumstances, new regions, new lands.  For those who followed Jesus, learned of Jesus, and had the revelation of Who He was, then the truth changed their lives.  John puts words to this great crossing over, to describe this mystery with special emphasis:

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched”this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.

The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.

We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.  1 John 1:1-3

Hold it, hold it, hold it, hold it.   I must confess that if I was his English teacher I would need to correct him.  If I was his instructor, I would give John his composition back and say, Er, I’m sorry,… well, it is a little… just a little,… well,  too repetitive, too redundant… please be more concise.  But then I would be missing the point.  The supernatural point that he crafts with words. 

John is talking about something so astounding, so incredible, so staggering, that he spells out this experience slowly, step by step so that we will appreciate the full weight of what he is saying.  He speaks in detail of hearing, seeing, looking, touching as if it is too  impossible to believe.

In fact, years later John is still bubbling with excitement over the news:  We have touched!!!   We have heard!!!  We have seen!!!  GOD!  GOD in the FLESH!!!  That is what John is telling the believers who have not seen Jesus.  He is in a physical body!  He is telling them that God has crossed over.  And he cannot contain the news.  He knows that many of them may not have seen the physical Jesus.  This is a spectacular discovery and he does not want them to miss its impact.  He wants them to know this powerful life-changing truth.  After all, this former fisherman has now moved into a whole new realm of real life and a bright new, exhilarating destiny.

The very nature of God came in human flesh.  That is the message.  God in a physical body.  What is interesting is how all of us  refer to Jesus as the Son of God.  But He referred to Himself as the Son of Man.  Huh? Son of Man.  Now that is confusing, I thought.  Son of Man.  Aren’t we missing the point, Jesus.  Son of Man?  But now, I realize I was missing the point.  I was missing the emphasis of what Jesus is doing.

Jesus crossed over into our realm with purposes crafted in eternity by the Godhead.  He came over for us. Into our realm.  He had gotten off of His chair and gotten down on the carpet with us.  For us.  Because He loves us.  He is driven by love.

Each of us live in our own separate set of circumstances, in our own home, among family, with friends, in schools, and at jobs.  In our own milieu, playing our own game on the carpet that we have learned. We get comfortable.  We adjust.  We strive and accomplish.  We learn, we improve, and we, hopefully, progress.  But the idea of crossing over isn’t a natural part of our experience.  It is more about surviving and improving our quality of life.  But just a moment.  What if the idea of crossing over is a significant value in the kingdom.  The kingdom of which we belong.

The idea of crossing over was intrinsic in Jesus.  Think of it, the Favorite of the Father, enjoying eternity and its brilliance with the Father and the Holy Spirit, when the creative thought burst forth in the beginning before the world began.  An idea.  A wisp of creative brilliance, a thought.  And then the thought ruptures into a geyser:  more individuals with whom to share the joy of life, robust life, pulsating eternal life.  In eternity, in the beginning, the design was made.   But what was needed was a crossing over. The going after.

Jesus was born in a manger.  Hmm.  Around animals.  Smelly.  Hygiene might be a problem.  Material splendor was obviously not necessary or important to the Godhead.  Another value system, another grid was in operation.  Then He was raised in obscurity.  Trophy room and youth awards not necessary.  Another plan was in action.  He appears at age 30, in the Jordan.

And it was as if all of heaven took a deep breath.  Time stopped.  Here it was.  What had been planned from the beginning.  Here was the public start up.  The Father couldn’t stand it.  He had to do something; He had to say something.  But how?  Who could carry His voice?  Who could express His emotion for His Son?  The answer to those two questions: no one.

When Jesus stepped into the Jordan to start His ministry a dove swept down to highlight the event.  The Holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily form like a dove.  The Holy Spirit had to be there.  And the Father couldn’t contain Himself.  He broke one of His own physical laws. Understandably so.  His voice came through with no human help: This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.  The voice thundered from the sky.  What was that?  What just happened?  Ah, the plan of eternal redemption just stepped into high gear.

The Father was moved to action by the eternal ramifications of the moment: His Son’s choice to come to those who were sitting in darkness and His willingness to cross over to rescue.

Jesus did it time and time again.  Jesus crossed over in relevant ways while sharing about the Father.  He walked through a region that the Jews avoided–Samaria.  He surprises a Samaritan woman by speaking to her, raising her self-worth by the very action.  The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?”  John 4:9 Jesus steps over racism.  He crossed over racist bigotry to get her.

He knows her, in the midst of all her moral failings.  In the midst of her own shame and guilt, He personally speaks to her.

He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

“I have no husband,” she replied.

Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

Ouch.  Can we just lighten it up with the prophetic thing?  The five husbands and the man I am sleeping with thing.  Ouch.  Jesus lets her know that He knows.  He can handle that.  In fact, He can step right over that barrier of shame and guilt.  He steps into her world.  He does not ostracize her, distance Himself from her.  Instead He reveals that He really does know her.  And the really beautiful thing–He has stepped into her world.  The world of a fallen woman.

Jesus’ closest friends arrive.  Those accustomed to not crossing over.  His followers, the ones with whom He is sharing the mysteries of the Kingdom of God, make mental note and question Jesus behavior. They respond:

Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”  John 4:27

To the shock of His followers Jesus had crossed over again.  Jesus steps over gender prejudice with His love for women.  Jesus surprises everyone with His natural behavior of crossing over.  He steps into the world of a tax collector and chooses Levi to be one of His closest followers.  He joins the tax collector as His guest as the man invites all of his socially disreputable friends to the party.  The religious leaders are appalled.  They don’t understand crossing over.

Jesus tells the story of the good Samaritan.  The story is for us.  It speaks to us of crossing over.   It is a story where someone unexpectedly, the least likely, has to cross the street to lend a hand, to lift up, to carry, to rescue.  He is telling His followers, He is telling us, get ready to cross over.  Racism, prejudice, moral superiority, caste systems, privileged classes, and academic pedigree have no place in the Kingdom of the Father’s love.  His love is for the widow, the fatherless, the despised, the rejected, the needy and the afflicted.

Grace & Esther, 2 blind ladies in Masi, the kind of people Jesus would look for…

Our best moments as believers is when we stretch our faith outside our comfort zones and experience the Spirit of God.  Our spiritual highlights are when the Lord uses us to speak into someone’s life.  We experience His movement through our heart and words to connect to someone.  We feel that our story has come alive for real purpose.  That interruption for our normal circumstances makes us acutely aware that there is more.  More for us to experience.

At work, in the neighborhood, at home, it all seems so familiar.  We can operate without thinking.  We can respond confidently because it is familiar territory and there is no challenge to who we are.  Crossing over means that we are leaving the familiar.  Stepping outside the boundaries of predictability.  In this new place we need help.  We need understanding, we need words, we need courage, we need… the Holy Spirit.  It is the place where our faith gets exercised.  It is the place where we grow.  Because we don’t know exactly what we should do or what we should say.  When we cross over we are on new ground, in new territory.

The crossing over means we have entered into another man’s realm, another man’s experiences.  And we may not have the answer.  We may not know the solution.  We may have very little of our own resources to help.  And if we are going to be able to do anything, we will need divine insight, we will need new wisdom in an unexpected dilemma.  We will need God to come down in His Holy Spirit to speak, to rescue through us.  To reach out through us.  Across the aisle can be a long way.  Across the street, or in the cubicle next door can seem like an ocean away.  But when we cross the threshold we do so with faith stretching out, expecting to meet the Holy Spirit.

We belong elsewhere

The truth is that we are inhabited by His Spirit.  The truth is that He knows us personally and He is always with us.  The truth is that His Spirit loves to make Jesus known through who we are and what we do.  The truth is that we belong to another citizenship.  The truth is that we are representatives, ambassadors as it were:

We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.  2nd Corinthians 5:20

His appeal through us.  According to the dictionary an ambassador is an accredited diplomat sent by a country as its official representative to a foreign country.  Isn’t that crazy?  We are in a foreign country.  We are ambassadors with a different citizenship, different values, belonging to a different kingdom.  That is who we are.

We belong to Someone else, to Somewhere else.  So He has crossed over to us.  And into us.  His message is: feel alive by doing what I do: cross over.  Go for it.  Cross over to a different world right in the next cubicle, or the next room, or the next door neighbor, or across the street, or to the next table.  Cross over and you will learn that your very own resources are limited.  You will need to draw on another resource if you are going to help in any way.   Cross over.  That is where real life is happening.

And all of us want the stories of real life.  We really do.

Enjoy this season where we celebrate the Great Crossing Over.

mike & kalyn