only they can save me
reaching out to you
…Sure, at times, letting the passions have free-reign can serve us.
Usually, though, it isn’t long before whatever impulse we’ve given carte blanche to, turns on us. Consumes us…
And it’s a terrible thing to be consumed by something, isn’t it?
…That’s how it was for me this week. Like the rest of the schmucks of the world, I had my annual evaluation… And let me tell you…
…Well truthfully I can’t remember much of it.
But, you know as well as I do, what I DO remember.
The suggestions for improvement.
“What??? Me?!?” I wondered. I need improving? I thought that part of the evaluation was just a formality for the likes of me…
*Please feel free to laugh*
Now after the eval I was asked if I had anything I wanted to say, or even, thoughtfully, if I was offended.
But rest assured, I gave the right answer. “No,” I said casually.
And, truth be told, I believed it, too… Until. Until the next morning, when I awoke anxious from a night of wrestling with the suggestions…
Slowly, it began to dawn on me that I was more upset than I thought.
Relax, I told myself. It’s no big deal. You don’t want to be petty. They’re just trying to help, after all. Amanda even reasoned with me, “if that’s all they’re talking about; you’re doing pretty good,” she said.
“Yeah, you’re right,” I told her.
But when I found myself having hypothetical arguments as I pumped gas, of all things; I began to see, I wasn’t so sure I agreed with Amanda…
And on this went for the rest of the week…
For the rest of the week, no matter what rationale I came up with, my indignation would swell. No matter how often I reminded myself I had all year to work on these suggestions, the pressure to figure out how I would address the suggestions now would sneak up on me.
Worse than those emotions, though, was the realization I wasn’t in control of how the evaluation was affecting me. How my need to have everything under control had made me lose control.
How I has been consumed by my need to control everything.
…And let me tell you, it’s a terrible thing to be consumed by something.
I’ve met with enough of you in my office, your house, over the phone, in an email to know that you know what it’s like, too. Haven’t I?
Or maybe you, maybe you’re still in denial. Maybe you think you’re in control of whatever compulsion is slowly swallowing the rest of your life…
Even as the impulse to nurse that grudge, click that link, make that last point, open that bottle, step on that scale, go to that cupboard or what have you, grows by the day…
In the third season of Fargo, V.M. Varga, the villain representing evil, has an insatiable appetite.
Because that’s the way it works, doesn’t it?
At first, it seems harmless enough. We think we can keep whatever it is under control. But before long, we realize it’s gotten out of hand. That we’re the one being consumed…
Indeed, it is a terrible thing to be consumed by something, isn’t it?
Like me this week; to find you have no more control over your compulsions than a corpse has over it’s own body. To be consumed to the point of death…
And I know it’s scary to talk this. But we’re not the first once to experience this. It was St. Paul who asked, “Wretched man that I am, who will save me from this body of death.” Because Paul knew what it was like to be at war with your own desires, of all things!
And, if you want to have fellowship with folks unafraid to admit how we powerless our compulsions leave us, just go to the NA meeting that happens here more often than we hold worship.
Because the first step of any AA program is confessing that the addiction has made life unmanageable. That it’s consumed the addict.
But, like the NA adage goes, you have to hit rock bottom first. Or, no one slides into AA on a rainbow. Because we fool ourselves into thinking we’re in control. That our motives our pure. That we can quit anytime we want.
Until.
Until we see the trail of destruction our need to have everything just so has caused, until see that we’re powerless, until we know the words we confessed are true in a deep and profound way; until then we are doomed to live as a host to whatever it is that consumes us.
Because that’s what happens, doesn’t it?
The evaluation didn’t shatter some illusion I had about myself. No, something else was happening. Something that spelled death for the idol I had made out of my own self-sufficiency.
But hidden in that death was the salvation Jesus won after three days…
You see, to kill what was consuming me, I had to die. Not try harder. But rather not try at all!
The thing I had been so afraid of happening, having my shortcomings revealed, was the only thing that could actually save me from their power!
When I finally saw clearly that I couldn’t save myself. That all my efforts to save myself were actually killing me.
Because what was consuming didn’t want a chunk of my life, but all of it!
And that’s why it’s so terrible to be consumed by something! Because our desires, they refuse to share. They’re wolves in sheep’s clothing! They’re never satisfied!
And that’s how it was that day in the temple, too…
That day folks were going about their business as usual. Making sure everything was ready for the big holiday…
Until.
Until Jesus showed up and threw a wrench into the whole thing. Busting up the cash registers and knocking over the merchandise tables.
When the managers came in, asking just who was causing all the ruckus. The’ disciples couldn’t help but remember a portion of the sixty-ninth psalm: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
And that’s the difference between us and Jesus.
We never mean to become a victim to our appetites, do we? We certainly don’t imagine losing our control to them. But once it’s happened, we can’t go back. Once our compulsions get a toe-hold; we’re powerless.
But that’s NOT what happened to Jesus!
Jesus LET himself be consumed. It happened of his own will. By his own volition.
What’s more, he did so for you. Jesus was consumed by his zeal for you. It is Jesus’ passion to give you himself, that Jesus let consume him.
Jesus hands himself over to you, he lets his zeal for you literally consume him, as he gives you himself, his his body and blood! When you consume Jesus, his death and resurrection takes root in you.
And that is a power that’s stronger than what consumes you!
When the authorities asked Jesus just where he got off, what credentials he had to do something like that, he said; “destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up again.”
Of course they, like us, thought he was talking about the temple of managing life. But Jesus was speaking of the temple of his body.
His body that he would lay down of his accord. His body that he would let be consumed by our sins, our compulsions, our desires, our whims. And his body that, tree days later he rises from what consumes!
And that is the only credential you need, too! The credentials of the one who speaks to you from the other side of what consumes you.
An old theologian, he described Jesus’ victory over the devil as God putting Jesus on a hook, baiting the devil. And when the devil tried to consume Jesus, he bit off more than he could chew. Literally! And in the resurrection, from the belly of the beast, Jesus broke the devils all consuming power once and for all!
Like the disciples, one day, after the resurrection, you will remember these words. Maybe it will be the day Jesus raises you from the dead…
Hopefully, though, it’ll happen a lot sooner.
Like when you want nothing more than not to open the bottle, not to make the call, not to click the link; and then like the disciples you will believe the power of these words, of scripture.
Because you will know it for yourself!
The one with a zeal so strong he let’s himself be consumed for you, is the only one who can save you from what’s eating you.
And when these words come back to you; the old you will be killed off and in her place will be raised up a new you. A you that lives by the beating of a heart not regulated by it’s own whims, but the power of the one who was, and is and will be consumed for you; Jesus the Lamb of God!
Whatever it is that’s consuming you; it’s days are numbered.
Because when it finally tries to devour you, hidden inside you will be the one you’ve consumed, the one who was consumed for you. And when that happens, the power of what's been eating you alive will be killed once and for all!
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