Stepping into the Cracks

I've been meditating on what it means when the scriptures says that Jesus is the rock, He is our chief cornerstone. We say these truths, recite the scriptures, and sing the vbs songs (Jesus is the rock and he rolls my blues away! Bop shu bop shu bop WHOO!), but I feel like I have finally journeyed to this place of understanding a bit, and just a bit, of what Jesus being the rock has anything to do with me and the church.

Ephesians 2: 19-22 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God's people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

There are so many people at church who feel like foreigners and strangers to God and His people, and this is including the very people who profess that Jesus is their rock and savior. I've been thinking about why this seems to be the case for a good number of people in the church, and why there have even been times when I felt that way in my own journey of knowing Him and community in the church. When we look into the scriptures, God's people-the church is called to be built on the foundation of Jesus Christ. Jesus because he reconciles us to the Father so that we are no longer bound by the law,condemned, and shamed, but have hope and access to the covenant of God's promise of salvation through the grace that came through Jesus. Now, if Jesus is the rock and I were to put this in terms of a picture, I literally see a massive rock/chief cornerstone sitting in between a desert place and sea of water, and a group of these strangers camped outside on the desert place around the parameters of the rock checking in to see what's going on and what's not. Speaking from this context, I realize how there have been times that I have felt like a stranger and foreigner to the church because I found myself living bound by the law and works. I judged people, programs, and practices from the outside because they weren't 'perfect'. I shamed myself because I couldn't do something right or the way it was supposed to be done either. These were the times when I checked in when I wanted to, and checked out when it required something of me that I was not willing to give because of my shame-based attitude.

Something significant about these strangers is that these camps and tents and homes built outside of the rock of Jesus, are usually built alone. Maybe we get some hands here and there, but at the end, the house is of the self because the foundation is of the self. I'm realizing these days that sometimes the hardest thing to do in the Christian faith is to let ourselves just sit on the rock of Jesus and to embrace the grace that Jesus gives through his death without letting the blame and shame get the best of us. I think for many of us, we live with an extra lens -- a shaming lens. We are taught as a child to shame others, because we ourselves have been shamed when we didn't get something right and were convinced that we- the person- were the problem. But this is the very message that Jesus came to abolish, he took on our guilt and shame and publicly declared that he was the wrong when he did nothing wrong. And that is why it is through him that we no longer have to live ashamed of who we are.

I used to believe that I had to build my own house, my own community, and my own faith, but sitting on the rock these days is teaching me to be still and know. Often times, we build on ourselves -- and the things we are only familiar and comfortable with. And it is right to believe that you have to build everything yourself when building on a desert ground like this, because there is no grace available in such a shame-based world. The rain will come down so hard on your house, the waves will flood everything you built with your own hands, the winds will blow away the very things that you made part of you when even a little portion of what you have built is not 'perfect' -- because that is the foundation of this world. The enemy is out to shame us and convince us that WE are the wrong, not to make us feel guilty of our wrongs so that we would repent and turn away from them. And for as long as we are living on this shaming soil, we will continue to get our homes rocked.

I can write this entry because I've lived most of my Christian walk near the rock, and not on him. It's just been a major paradigm shift to embrace the rock of Jesus. I'm finding myself on this rock, no longer wanting to sit around the parameters of the rock, or even on the outskirts of this elevated rock to see everything that's going on around me and contemplating to go back to the desert ground, but moving closer to the cracks of this rock, the places of depth where it is dark and unclear, the places where it doesn't look all that glamorous but rather frightening. When we think of the chief cornerstone imagery, we think of a nice polished rock foundation with perfect edges and shaved surfaces, but the rock of Jesus has its cracks, it is natural, and it is not manufactured or manipulated. And, it has been such a journey to have the privilege of Jesus drawing me into some of his pains, cuts, bruises, and cracks so that I might share in his life.

Matthew 7:24-27
Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash."

Lord, I pray that you would draw your people onto your rock of grace and covenant. That people would be transformed by being known by you and by knowing you -- and that their homes would be built and filled by you and you alone on the rock of Jesus. And Lord, I pray for courage and bravery to walk this next season in my life, to be bold as I walk into the pains of Jesus and share in his suffering as well as his victory. In Jesus name I pray, Amen.