Chapter 1 - Waking: Decades
Waking: Decades
As I begin my rough draft of this post, it’s the day after Easter. I find that I am excruciatingly aware of the humanness of Jesus Christ in the days near Easter. On Saturday, our family went to a dramatic production at a local church, and the first half was focused on Holy Week and Jesus’ last days before the tomb was closed. The way that they do their plays at this church is always inviting you into its story, as many of the people involved are in the aisles saying their lines or dancing or screaming. It’s as if you are in the middle of the story, and the layout of the church places you physically in the midst of their theater with its various stages at different locations in that space.
The night of the Last Supper unfolded in the way that the Bible records it, (read an account in any of the Gospels: Matthew 26:17-75; Mark 14:12-72; Luke 22:7-62; John 17:1-18:27) and if you really stop to pay attention to the details of this awful night, you will feel that it was both intense and stressful. Watching it re-enacted in front of you pulls you to an even more powerful step of processing and sensory overload. The crowd screaming, “Crucify him!” is just inches from your ears, and the heavy cross digging into the Jesus-actor’s shoulder as he stumbles past makes you feel uncomfortable, and most likely you will grimace and cringe. Yet I need those reminders and that horror to make me fully appreciate the sacrifice that Jesus went through to bring me back to Him.
“The one who is worthy of worship, glory, and fanfare spent decades in obscurity and ordinariness” (16), Warren observes. Most of His life was not lived out on that stage of the Roman public humiliation; most of Jesus’ life does not even bear mentioning in the Bible. What did He do all those years? Did He go to His nephew’s birthday party? What were His favorite foods? How long did He live at home with His parents? Who were His friends before He met the disciples? Do you ever wonder about those kinds of things?
One of the things that Tish Harrison Warren wants her readers to take away from her book is the beauty and importance of the everyday rituals and routines that we all have in our lives. Jesus modeled this for us by waiting to begin His ministry until he was 30 years of age. Sometimes people feel like they are constantly waiting in life, eagerly anticipating the next great thing or something IMPORTANT - to graduate, to get a job, to get married, or to have children. Warren calls us instead to see the significance in “the little things” and the daily that we so often overlook as mundane or perhaps even repetitive and wearying.
Don’t fall into that trap of waiting for the “biography-worthy” events of your life to happen. Approach each day and each moment you are given as significant in the grand scheme of things, even if it might not make the stage production of the movie someone may make about your life someday. Find the intention and purpose that God has for you in this season or perhaps even decade of your life - and then live into that with intention and assurance!
