We Paused

For Holy Thursday, after some prayer, worship, and foot-washing with close friends, I attended Tenebrae at the Basilica at Notre Dame, an amazing service that I also attended the previous year. However, last year, I attended and focused a lot more on the "show" aspect of it...being amazed by the choir, the loud organ, the lights, etc.

But this year, it was a little bit different. I tried actually paying attention to what was being sung, to what I was saying, attempting to realize what the cross meant...not what the cross did for us, or what it meant for us, but what the cross, itself, meant. And it meant a lot of suffering, feelings of abandonment, loneliness...it showed the power of God...

As we sang together those emoting words from the 22nd Psalm...

My God...My God...Why have You forsaken me?

It's a powerful quote that we probably say a lot more than we know...God, how could You let this happen?...God, I thought you were a loving God!....and maybe even once in a while, we add some wonderful four-letter words in there for Him. It perfectly sums up this idea of wrestling with God, wrestling the Creator, fighting over past events, fighting over current circumstances, fighting over the call of the future...

My God, My God, Why have You forsaken me?

And the Kýrie, Eléison...

My God, My Lord, My Christ, My Savior....Have Mercy...sung with such passion, but "passion" doesn't even begin to describe it...more like desperation, fear, despair....as we realize Christ as our only hope.

And as the Light processed out of the Basilica, we sat amidst the earthquake, amidst the suffering...and instead of moving on, we waited.

We paused.

And this afternoon, at Granger Community Church, we heard Jason Miller mention the same thing...not to quickly rush past Good Friday to Resurrection Sunday, but to pause, to take in this moment. We have a great benefit in knowing what happens on Easter...a benefit that the first Christians did not have.

Because they thought they had lost their Savior, they thought He would not return, they thought they were forsaken just as He was...

And we took the bread and wine, we took in the moment, and together, we shared in the meal, remembering the cross...

And we united our voices in that remembrance, and for the first time, I could hear the church's voices over the quiet acoustic worship...an alive church, a church desperate to share the good news...but not until Sunday...

Because until then, we wait.

God Wants All of Me

Almost a year and a half later, I had my "second milestone":

On October 7th, 2012, my off-campus church, Granger Community Church, had a Baptism weekend. GCC has baptism weekends twice a year...one in the fall and one shortly after Easter. Prior to this service, I had thought long and hard over whether or not I should get baptized. Already being baptized in the Catholic Church as an infant, what was the purpose of this baptism supposed to be?

To wash away all my past sins? My ticket to eternal salvation? I wasn't really sure. I ended up not signing up. Then I saw this video the weekend before the service, made by Jason Miller and the Creative Arts Team:


I realized that for me, this baptism wasn't for salvation...I didn't get anything from it. He got something from it...I was publicly declaring my faith, my desire to follow Christ, my promise to give up my life. That phrase is said so often, that over the many centuries, it's lost meaning. This means that Christ goes before us...that in every action, we should be glorifying Him, not ourselves.
We arrived at GCC and the service began...dozens of people prepared to be baptized. Shortly beforehand, we recited the Apostle's Creed as a full church, but we weren't just reciting it, we weren't even saying it...we were declaring it, announcing our proclamation of what we boldly believe. 
One by one, the pastors started baptizing believer after believer...tears poured down faces, as people announced their promise, their declaration...giving up their lives, handing them over to God, following God's will. Being put under the water and coming up as a new person, with a new beginning...knowing full well of the trials ahead, that they were not going to be perfect Christians. But...they knew that He was perfect.
And then I watched as 15-20 men in prison went up to be baptized...men trapped in cages because of past actions, allowed to come to the church for this special event...men declaring that their actions did not define them, and even with their actions, Christ still immensely loved them.
And then it happened...I wanted to get baptized. The pastor announced something along the lines of, "We're almost done, but even if you didn't plan on getting baptized...if you feel called by God, we'll welcome your decision with open arms...and if you're worried about you getting your clothes wet or your hair messed up, then you might want to rethink what God means to you."
I made the decision. I was going to do it. My close friend, Linsey, prayed over me and walked me up to the front....and I was baptized, along with dozens of believers:

The heavens did not open up...no dove came down from the sky...but this moment could not be more spiritual. A dying of the old and a birth of the new. For when we were baptized into Christ, we were baptized into His death. (Romans 6:3-4)
I walked back to my seat, tears in my eyes, receiving hugs from random people that I didn't know (well, didn't know at the time---turns out that a newlywed couple who now runs our home group were in the same row as me!). I stood shaking, part of me sad that this meant I could no longer chase after my desires, but a larger part of me full of Joy, knowing that I was His.
This call to walk with Christ...it's not an easy one to accept. And there's this myth going around that when you accept Christ, life becomes really easy...but as it is written, suffering is sure to come, and we now receive pleasure from Christ, not earthly things. I can't continue pursuing my dreams if they don't align with His Kingdom. My heart must become His Heart...my life, His Life....not just parts of it.
So, God Wants All of Me. Check.