myopic pilgrim

I decided to liberate a demo I’ve been sitting on for a couple of years in honor of Independence Day. I wanted to rewrite the lyrics a slightly, but that’s taking too long, huh.

a link to Waits For Us mp3
read the lyrics

Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise (Luke 23:43).

If you’re hanging on a cross, a capstone to a life of struggle and suffering, Paradise is a place of peace and rest. If I have to rely on God for whether or not I will receive my daily bread, literally whether or not I will eat today, Paradise is a feast of abundance. What if my life is one of ease and comfort? What if I worry—not about whether I will eat, but what I will eat (Mexican, sushi, mac and cheese)? What is Paradise for me? By the standards of the poor, the stranger, the widowed, the orphan, I am already in Paradise.

Now I know the big sell Christians give to people is that the gospel gets them into heaven, but if we’re already in the land of milk and honey what does that mean? In heaven it’s like you’ll have two TVs in every room. In my life it’s more likely that I’ll need healing for my broken heart or spirit than my broken back. Or even that I’m just plain broke.

More and more my motivation as a Christian isn’t the life to come, but how I’m able to draw that life to come into my life today. It’s less about having my tears wiped away than being able to wipe the tears of others away. It’s less about escaping this world than it is escaping my own selfishness.

+ Dear Lord, do you tell me even now that I will be with you in Paradise today? My life is more than just twiddling my thumbs waiting for the life to come.

Who are the ones around me that are really looking forward to Paradise? Show me what I can do to help them get a taste of it now. Amen.

NPR had a story on Weekend Edition about nuns who run a hospice for cancer patients. They care for those who can’t afford care elsewhere, “the poor and the middle class.” The nuns are baseball fans and happily are near Turner Field. Someone from the Braves organization stumbled onto them and even though he’s not a Christian described the hospice as something near “heaven on earth.”

This is what the Church is supposed to be doing. I have no illusion that we will bring the Kingdom into existence before Jesus comes, but I do believe the Kingdom is in some sense here and now. When we work with Jesus and have the Kingdom spill out into this broken world we proclaim the gospel better than any eloquent sermon.

[tags]Kingdom, church, Jesus, Braves[/tags]