Lovepalooza and the Cross

SEDL Prayer Points
A Day After Valentine's Day, 2006

Grace:
My Lord Jesus, I beg for the grace to have an intimate knowledge of You. That I may grow in my relationship with You and with the persons You gave me to serve and to love.

Jesus and his disciples set out for the villages of Caesarea Philippi. Along the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” They said in reply, “John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others one of the prophets.” And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter said to him in reply, “You are the Christ.” Then he warned them not to tell anyone about him.

He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and rise after three days. He spoke this openly. Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. At this he turned around and, looking at his disciples, rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” (Mk 8:27-33)

Points:

I believe in Christ.

But what does it mean to believe in Christ?
Would it suffice to know that He is not
John the Baptist nor Elijah nor one of the prophets?

It is not enough.

The invitation is to know Christ.
That is, to know Him clothed with the profundity of intimacy,
“Who do you say that I am?,” He asks his disciples.
It is a question that grounds on a certain form of relationship.
It is a relationship that is apt between “You and I.”
It is a kind of relationship that grows in love and affection.
It is a kind of relationship that finds a certain familiarity, closeness.

Would it suffice to know Him in a deeply personal level?
Would it suffice to call Him, or to address Him “You” in prayer?

This closeness, this familiarity is not of the lovepalooza hype.
The You is not something that is thrown in the thin air.
It took on flesh – the Son of Man.
That is why this Son of Man, the Christ will “suffer greatly,
and be rejected by elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,
and be killed…”
The invitation is to be with this vulnerable, fragile human person.
The invitation is to be with this broken, defiled human being.
But this same person, broken and fragile,
remains obedient to the promptings of Abba, the Father:

For Abba “so loved the world that Abba gave us His only begotten Son…”

To believe in Christ…

is to BE with Christ;
and, to LIVE in Christ!

That is, to be with Him in Calvary that we may share the joys of His Resurrection.