15 March 2015 - leaving babylon

Jesus, teach us to prefer the light to the darkness. 

Help us to come out from hiding and come to the light.

You have compassion on your people and your dwelling place. Your upward call (cf. Phi. 3:14) calls us higher and higher. You seat bring us to life and raise us up to sit with you in the very heavens themselves.

But for every degree that your invitation calls us higher we mock the messengers and despise the warnings. We are way too content where we are. Going higher means putting you at the center of our lives more and more. It means being delivered from our transgressions for the good works you have ready for us. We'd rather focus on our own plans. We gladly and readily ignore the plans you have for us. We prefer the comfort of the darkness even if it is gloomy and dismal. Even if we can't really thrive here at least we aren't exposed.

But you call us onward and upward. We are still in exile here until you are finished with us. How can we take full delight here when you have such better things in store for us? How can we be content with the darkness of Babylon? How can we rejoice and sing our songs here?

For there our captors asked of us
the lyrics of our songs,
And our despoilers urged us to be joyous:
“Sing for us the songs of Zion!”
How could we sing a song of the LORD
in a foreign land?

To that end, you may have to tear down some walls, set palaces afire, and destroy precious objects until we are willing to lift our eyes from this earthly kingdom. And what are all these if not your own body, the temple which you will rebuild in three days (cf. Joh. 2:19).

In your very flesh you yourself destroy the ordinary for us. You are lifted up on the cross that our eyes may see you and our hearts may believe in you so that we can have eternal life. We lift our eyes from the darkness of exile to the light of the promise we find in you.

You call us, LORD, from darkness into light. You call us out from the land of our exile to a homeland which we have never seen but have always known, somehow.

Whoever, therefore, among you belongs to any part of his people, 
let him go up, and may his God be with him!

Shine on us, Jesus! Lift our gaze to you! Bring us before you with songs of joy!