Life is in the living.
Really.
And the proof of life is in the way life is lived.
It is all well and good to say, “He is Risen” and realize that it is Christ in us declaring that “We are Risen.” But what effect does it have on our lives, our relationships? How does a vertical reality translate into a horizontal one?
Love. Patience, kindness, goodness, self-control, peace, gentleness, faithfulness… Fruit of the Spirit. Too long have these been seen as virtues to be cultivated rather than the default setting of a human made in the image of the Maker, and given life with his very breath. This is what love looks like. This is the outcome of the resurrection. No longer are we enslaved to the faulty understanding that we are not all of these things without a certain amount of intense refinement. It was for our freedom that he subjected himself to the path of man that a broken system might be revealed to be useless, so we might discover that the Kingdom of God was where it always had been… within.
With Jesus was crucified the idea that we are separated from God, and the Sin defeated was the misunderstood identity the thought produced. If our Maker cannot love us without the mediation of sacrifice, then why should my human relationships be any different? Should not all relationships be part of the formation of my being into the image of the invisible? Religion turned creation on its head. It has been doing so for ages.
Do we assume the Trinity laces heaven with tension? Is the flow of Divine love inhibited by selfishness? Misunderstandings? Miscommunications? Or is there security in the identity of each member of that “us” into which we were birthed at creation? Why then do we assume that our relationships need to be difficult? Humans have written so many books on how to avoid being hurt by difficult people, how to assert the self, even subject oneself to what could only be called abuse in order to cultivate humility and submissive spirit.
But do these coping mechanisms honour the Christ life in each other? Do they declare freedom to the captives? Do they bring about healing? Do they reinforce the Divine Design unique to each person? Or do they manipulate people into filling a mold. I fear it’s the latter. My greater fear is that it is because of fear, and the belief that suffering is necessary for refinement driving us to accept the self deprecating declarations as our personal truth. Such a contrast to the mantra of Easter spread over Christendom: He’s alive in us. If he is alive in us, if he indeed is our life, why then the disconnect among the humans?
Let’s make this practical… We are One, as the Father and the Son are one. Joint Heirs, He was the firstborn of many brethren. One Spirit, One Family, One Body. Many members, many parts. What might come about if we chose to live this out? To look at one another, not with the fear of being known ourselves and exposed and vulnerable, for being known deeply is a privilege, but with the express goal of seeing the specific manifestation of the Maker in that person. And then turning inward, and noting the specific manifestation of the Maker in ourselves. Am I a hand, a foot, a tongue, an arm? Am I a healer, a shepherd, a priest, an evangelist, a compassionate lover, a giver, an advocate of the weak… How can Christ in me bring Christ in you to the surface so that you and I stand in strength together?
If you are buried under the weight of your circumstances… How can I roll away the stone that holds you in your tomb? You have been set free, how do I relay the message to your broken heart? Of late I have been experiencing a kind of love that reveals Christ in me gently, rather than chiselling away at the false representation of myself I had presented to the world because of the faulty expectations lies, religion and abuse had placed on me. I had fears, insecurities, wounds, false understandings about the achievement of holiness ingrained in my being. And all of these things are falling away in the midst of a love that essentially came from behind, softly, demanding nothing, and giving everything, affirming the beauty of who I am.
Sometimes, we get so used to the grave clothes of our pain that we forget they are just garments which can be shed. We get used to the depressive darkness of our tomb, and the light without begins to feel like a fairytale. We feel like an imposter when we embrace our beauty and life, and when the fruit of the Spirit begins to flow effortlessly, we wonder when the “old” us will surface and ruin it all.
But what if it doesn’t need to reappear? What if it has no power in and of itself? What if we are resurrected in our in-Christ-ness, without everything that hinders. What if we are not being refined into something useful so much as our true state of being is being revealed? What if I am truly who Love says I am? What if lies are just lies, and the only sin I have ever been guilty of is believing the great lie that connection with my Maker is tenuous and more heavily dependent on the attitude of the the created one, than the sovereign decision of the Creator.
The truth about me, is that I am not in the grave. And I never have been. My grave clothes are a strong illusion, but only an illusion, and there is no stone I have not rolled over the door of my being. I can come out anytime. And once I let myself out, I am free to love others with the same open, honest, life affirming, ultimately revealing passion that I am being loved to understanding my wholeness in.
We have a choice. If we are truly alive, because He is Alive, our relationships should also reflect the beauty of that reality. We have been birthed out of the constant love and mutual enjoyment our Maker experiences within himself, so let’s embrace that same reality as we celebrate Christ in each other. As He is, dear one, Are you.