Through Stained
Glass: A Lenten Confession
I have a
confession.
My hope is that
it won’t be too much for you.
That you won’t
think any differently of me.
Okay, here it
goes:
I love Jesus.
No, like, I
really love Jesus.
Not in some
sentimental or superficial “Jesus is my homeboy and my personal Lord and
savior.” Nothing like that because that makes Jesus mine when Jesus is actually ours.
In fact,
despite what some think, Presbyterians confess Christ as sovereign of all!
Personally, I
confess Jesus as Lord and Savior.
But I love
Jesus because of his compassion.
The compassion
he has for others and his compassion for me is unlike anything I’ve ever heard
or even seen.
I love Jesus
because he Jesus sees me for who I am:
Adam.
Did you know compassion comes from the Latin word compassio, meaning “to pity, sympathize
with, or suffer with,” and is related to the Greek word sympatheia, denoting “fellow feeling, community of feeling?” Quite
literally, ‘compassion’ means to endure with
another person, to experience another’s grief or suffering or need.
Which leads me
to another confession:
I love the
church.
I love it because
the church is the body of Christ, a place where we share life with one another. In a season of great
difficulty for me, you all offered me great compassion, sitting with me as an unexpected ending came and
went. You all, not only in this occasion, but on numerous occasions throughout
the years, have extended compassion to each other.
This is what
Jesus meant when he said to “love your neighbor.” He meant that we have
compassion for one another, especially the stranger and our enemy. Remember
that Jesus summed up his own teaching on compassion, the practice of
‘withness,’ by proclaiming that whatever was done to the poor, the
marginalized, or the outcast was, in reality, done to him.
Lent invites us
to look again at the world and to see how with
it we are.
For me, Lent is
a reminder of how Jesus’ compassion overflowed outside his tribe. He did not
let his love, his mercy, or his withness
be confined only to James, John, Peter, and the other twelve. Instead, he
considered all he encountered to be his neighbor.
Compassion is
hard, though. Not only does it require us to see the world through more gentle,
loving lenses, but it is about caring for one another.
And this is why
I love Jesus. He loved. He didn’t only teach or preach or use words to tell of
God’s love. But he actually loved those he shared life with. Especially those he wasn't supposed to be with.
The hard truth
Lent often confronts us with as we wander into the wilderness and wade out of
the waters of baptism is that sometimes, we as a church, both locally and
universally, neglect loving our neighbor as ourselves. We lack compassion for
ourselves and for one another.
Yet Lent is
also the season we remember that Christ sees us with eyes full of compassion.
That what we are examining within ourselves, what we are confronting outside of
ourselves, Christ is with us every
step of the way.
Compassion then
is best understood when we play together, when we eat together, when we share
our stories, and when we act on behalf of each other. These are the things we
human beings do when we are at our best and our most courageous; especially
when we recognize that God is right here with us, our partner in renewing this
journey we call faith!
As we sit and
watch the snow fall, remember that God’s love, Christ’s compassion, and the
Holy Spirit’s company is with us this
day and everyday.
May God help us
let go of that which prevents us from being compassionate to the world and to
ourselves.
Jesus loves
you.
And so do I.
Shalom,
Adam
